• by David Kaplan , February 8, 2005

Brands and media that deliver on the promise to save consumers' time are best-positioned for the current marketplace, a study by trendsetter strategist Marian Salzman found. The study was done for WPP Group's J. Walter Thompson.

The wide-ranging study--which encompasses everything from Einstein's analysis of time and space to Chinese Prime Minister's Chou En-lai's views on the French Revolution--examined the thoughts of 1,000 American and 1,000 British consumers online last month.

The main finding--that 83 percent of American men and 85 percent of American women would pay extra for a brand that's a time-saver--has implications for all brands and media, with some likely to naturally fare better than others, Salzman said.

"Can any brand--from breakfast cereals to electronic devices to retail shops--adopt the notion of saving people time? I think it may be that the time-saver will emerge as cost of entry for most brands," Salzman said. "In terms of media, looking at the study's data collectively, books were the media format that grabbed our attention. In fact, people pick books over passionate sex."

Given a choice between "speed reading" or "savoring a great book," the majority of respondents opted for the latter, but there is a clear gender divide: 75 percent of U.S. and 74 percent of U.K. males would choose the great book, compared with a higher 83 percent of U.S. and 82 percent of U.K. females. In all groups except U.K. women, the percentages for savoring are higher in the older cohort.

The bottom line, Salzman said, is that a brand can "slow time down" for consumers by giving them pleasure and enjoyment--that sort of positioning can make a tremendous difference. Furthermore, marketers that stress "quickness" of experience tend to communicate a sense of lacking quality, she added.

"Marketers really need to think about what it really means to save time and what it means to 'devalue' time," Salzman said.

The deficit of time so many people perceive has clear implications for the marketing communications industry, added Bob Jeffrey, JWT's worldwide CEO. "The growing issue for marketers will not be the cost of products in cash, but rather the cost or benefit in time. The question an increasing number of consumers are asking themselves is not 'Can I afford the money?' but, rather: 'Can I afford the time?' This has implications for any product that demands a chunk of the consumer's time, and also for the ways in which we try to connect with consumers. More and more, we'll see consumers demanding a valid and persuasive reason they should invite us into their tightly scheduled lives."

The same is true for media, the study found--especially among women.

"The greater female hankering for a good read is also evident from the Time Wallet scores," Salzman said. "U.S. and U.K. men invested $37 and £30, respectively, in reading books, which is significantly less than the $43 and £40 allocated by their female compatriots. In all groups, the under-40s invested less than those 40+; this may just be a factor of life stage-- the young invest more in sex, so presumably would have less time to read--or it may be a generational shift. The allocation for reading magazines is lower than that for reading books; here, too, women invested more than men."

The ideal amount of time spent reading newspapers shows no clear pattern across the groups. For U.S. and U.K. men overall, the time is similar--60 and 57 minutes, respectively--while for U.S. women, it's slightly more (68 minutes), and for U.K. women it's clearly less (44 minutes). In the U.S., the ideal time is higher in the younger groups for both men and women; in the U.K., it's lower among younger men, and the same across the age cohorts for the women.

The good news for marketers is that media still figures into consumers' division of their time. For U.S. men, around 130 minutes is ideal for watching TV in the evening, with another 30 spent watching TV in the morning; American women are even more TV-minded, opting for 151 in the evening and 59 minutes per morning. The men would like 60 minutes for reading a newspaper, and the women regard 68 minutes as ideal for that task.

"It's all about getting the most out of whatever it is you're doing, that consumers are conscious of cost in terms of time just as much as the cost in terms of actual money," Salzman said.