Bangkok--16 Aug--Mindshare
Mindshare Thailand, the leading marketing and media network reveals today the key findings from the research study “Power of The Purse”. The study found that affluent females still invest in luxury products despite economic instability and the higher cost of living as they believe that luxury equates quality, safety, and durability. The research methodology is derived from 3 areas which are 1) expert interviews, 2) in-depth interviews with affluent females aged between 40 — 59 years with household income at 80K and above, and 3) Mindshare’s proprietary quantitative research tools “3D”.
Suchada Supakan, Director, Business Planning, Mindshare said, “Whilst current headline news seems to be negative in nature…economic instability, higher oil prices, the natural disasters, on a positive note, luxury products do not seem to be affected. We found that key consumers to this category are those who are affluent females. As the saying goes, “When women are depressed, they either eat or go shopping. Men invade another country.” This in-depth study and the analysis of the quantitative data gave us a clear understanding of this untapped target group.”
Pathamawan Sathaporn - Head of Business Planning Mindshare Thailand said “The study identifies that these group of female view luxury as a “given” rather than a “need”. Marketers must not ignore the fact that they buy luxury as the buying of “quality”. The perception of high price is associated with the quality, safety, and durability.”
Summary of key findings from this study are;
Her world — The full-time corporate executives: The ‘corporate executive’ is time deprived! They spend most of their time at work during weekdays whether they are married or single. Apart from work as their priority, we see slight differences between females with kids and those without. Those without kids are more focused on themselves, while those with kids try to manage their time off work for their kids as much as they can.
The ‘entrepreneur’: they are a little more managed on work-life balance. Those with kids give her priority on kids on top of everything as well.
The housewives: The group that has the most time to focus on herself and her life. While the housewives with kids are very kids-focused, those without kids have so much time for ‘me’ things. Even though she doesn’t work, she’s interested in earning money on gold investment. Her free time is split between keeping updated on investment opportunities like gold and doing volunteer work for social contribution.
Luxury Spells — They perceive luxury as a ‘given’ rather than a ‘need.’ Luxury is all about her preference and the buying of “quality”. The established brand items such as cars, watches, cosmetics, shoes, and expensive houses are perceived as the quality, the safety, and the durability. Established brands, peer group opinions, family word of mouth, and self-experiment are factors that can impact her buying decision.
Shopping Behavior — Because most of their time are focused on work, random browsing or impulse shopping rarely happens. The frequency of shopping is less, but each time they shop, they spend a lot.
The Intelligent Women — They have become more independent in making decision on almost everything in their life, whether they are corporate executives, entrepreneurs, housewives or moms. They still somehow listen to the people surrounding them. The modern affluent women who became female bosses bring out their career success with their own smartness. Their judgment are based on rationalization rather than emotional thinking. Their success in life came from having good morals, being well-planned organized, highly responsible, passionate, and determined. They believe in themselves so they don’t really have role models.
Her Time-off - They love to look good and generally go to a spa and hair salon to beautify themselves. The affluent females generally have high esteem and don’t put too much effort to over-modify their physical appearance.
Other things they like to do on their free time is to do exercise whether in the fitness or on the golf course, they also like spiritual well-being and read Dharma books, and go to meditations.
Her Media - The affluent women generally watch TV when they have time but not addicted to any particular program. Generally, the preference is still towards Thai programs to as it is more relevant and closer to their life. Those with international exposure also watch international programs that fit their needs and interests. All subscribe to True Visions, but free TV channels are still more popular. News is the most popular TV programs they watch to update to current events, especially for local news. Getting wider perspective from other people’s life can also be beneficial, so talk shows are popular among them.
Thai drama is about “my entertaining time” but they are not really addicted to it. They like TV commercials that are presented well to audiences and reject NONSENSE CONTENT. PRESENTERS are appealing; however, have no influence on purchasing behavior.
They listen to radio almost every day, during on-the-go, both Thai and English channels.
ONLINE’s seeping in, and dependent to the character of each individual affluent on whether they are ‘traditionalist’ or ‘tech savvy’. Age is not a major issue among these females to be online-active. It’s more of their ‘individual’ personality.
While the ‘traditionalist” still prefer traditional media and not so online active, some are very online oriented i.e. consuming paperless items such as online magazines (read on iPad application, etc.) , active on smart phone to receive email, Facebook, use WhatsApp, or Lines to communicate among friends.
Entertainment appears to be a major role of magazines, but not regular subscribers of any particular title. Hair salon tends to be a place to read magazines. It’s a major source of getting updates on cosmetics. They love reading newspaper, whether physical or online. OOH usually not on their focus, but creative idea can catch their attention. IN-STORE media only works on what they are looking for. They are not a frequent joiner of events, only occasionally, when it falls into their interests.
Fab Five for Marketers
1. Tailor Her-made - Thai affluent women are very diversified on their ‘individual’ personality/character, and it’s hard to segment this particular group of consumers. Therefore, focusing on her and ‘customized & personalized’ are needed.
2. Splurge on Quality - Everything she bought is all about the buying of value/quality. ‘Splurging’ is what’s worth doing as she dares to spend ‘enormously’ on the ‘quality’ she gets. (no random shopping, but spend A LOT at a time)
3. Cater to Her Time - Her time is deprived, so make it convenient to her when you want to sell her.
4. Indulge Her IQ - Communication idea that sells her would be all about the ‘idea’. Nonsense idea will be scorned.
5. Tailor Her-made — as a close and to emphasize, to emphasis, this group has high self-confidence and will make decisions personally on different matters. As such, how to communicate and activities will truly have to be tailor to her needs.
Mindshare is a global marketing and media services network with billings in excess of $23 billion (source: RECMA).
The network consists of 97 offices in 67 countries throughout the USA, Latin America, Europe, Middle East, and Asia Pacific; each dedicated to forging competitive marketing advantage for businesses and their brands.
Mindshare is a member of WPP, the world’s leading communications service group with $63.5bn in billings (source: RECMA).
For more information, please visit: www.mindshareworld.com.