The Harrison Group’s Wealth Study has an interesting statistic that shows the wealthy have actually been rating their happiness higher in the past few months, though they suffered huge financial losses. The idea of being able to buy happiness hasn’t really held up in the recession. Part of this has been because people feel pride in the fact that they are able to do more with less. When talking to Dan and Emily, I felt their sense of caution, but more importantly, I felt their sense of contentment and optimism—Dan, a gadget guy, talked about how he spent 10 hours updating his new iPhone; Emily, a dog lover, related the simple pleasure of taking her dogs for a walk and naming her new puppy “Happy”.Thought: In this economy, it’s not just about spending less and settling for less—it’s about really focusing on what makes them happy, and what’s important to them.
More comments from Mark Miller, Executive Strategy Director at Team One:
ReplyDeleteBuilding on your comments, there's an observation that Harrison has been sharing lately: the wealthy continue to consume in the same preferred categories, on the same preferred brands, but just consume less of it. Your golf example is perfect. Dan didn't give up golf, as it was important to him, he just joined fewer clubs. Focusing on what's important sounds right. Another way to say it is to share a belief in 'fewer, better things.' Literally, encourage customers to cut back in areas where they can easily replace expensive things with less expensive things because some experiences/purchases are replaceable. At the same time, encourage them to spend on those few, rare things that are true and special. DeBeers ran a campaign in line with this notion. We tapped into this insight for our recent, and effective, Ritz-Carlton ONE campaign. I'm certain there is an application of this thought in the banking world too. Ideally, a bank would create a business solution that would allow me to access them for just those things that I thought were important too. In other words, don't just tell customers we support their desire to acquire fewer, better things, but actually run our business/provide service in a similar manner.