Europe 2003 Delves Inside the Mind of Europe’s Highfliers- Pool Autumn 2003

Number 24: Autumn 2003

Europe 2003 Delves Inside the Mind of Europe’s Highfliers.

By David Lucas

Editor's comment: Europe 2003 is an annual survey that looks at Europe's businessmen and leading decision-makers. The results of this are interesting reading for anyone that is targeting this group of consumers.

The release of Europe 2003 sees Ipsos-RSL taking the currency for pan-European media planning into its fourth year. The survey delivers a rounded picture of the top 4% (10.4m) of Europeans including insight into their outlook and attitudes, which complements knowledge of their media consumption and lifestyle. New for Europe 2003 is an attitudinal segmentation of Europe’s leading consumers and business decision makers.

Europe 2003 has identified seven distinct groups among Europe’s elite enabling advertisers to refine their understanding of this vital market.

Cluster

Key Descriptors

Established Achievers

Money driven, principled, prudent, self-assured

Enlightened Drivers

Confident, motivated, stylish, energetic

Open-minded Traditionalists

Principled, internationally aware, prudent

Balanced Independents

Independent, rational, strong willed

Natural Followers

Easy going, modest

Focused Technophiles

Technophiles, cutting edge, e-enthusiasts

Contented Conservatives

Traditional, reserved, reticent, unconvinced

Attitudinally, Europe’s leading business consumers range from the younger, male, technologically aware “Focussed Technophiles” to the self-assured, older “Established Achievers”. They stretch from the very inward looking “Contented Conservatives” to the open minded and energetic “Enlightened Drivers”. Survey sponsors also have the flexibility to create their own clusters from the extensive attitudinal data available.[1]

Business air travel among the Europe’s leading business consumers has not been dampened by recent world events with almost a third taking six or more business air trips in the last 12 months. This group are still a fast moving target spending time and money across the continent and consuming pan-European media.

The spending power of the Europe 2003 universe is impressive; average personal income of €80k pa, average personal investments of c. €350k and more than a third own a second home. Nearly all have Internet access, one in four have read an international publication (AIR) and pan-European TV channels reach 6.4million (61%) each week.[2]

Roger Gane, Managing Director of Ipsos-RSL, observed: “Europe 2000 series continues to enhance our understanding of this complex market and the survey’s evolution will assist planners to refine their strategies to in order communicate even more effectively to this target.”

The Europe 2003 survey is backed by the following media sponsors: BBC World, Bloomberg Television, BusinessWeek, CNN, The Economist, the Financial Times, Fortune, International Herald Tribune, National Geographic, Newsweek and Time.

And also the following media agencies: Carat International, Delphys, Initiative Media, Media Planning Group, MediaCom, Mediaedge:cia, Mindshare, OMD, PHD, Starcom Mediavest, Universal McCann, Zenith Optimedia.

Europe 2003 is the fourth survey in the Europe 2000 series, which measures readership, TV viewing, website use, consumer and business behaviour and attitudes of the top 10.4 million (4%) of Europe’s leading consumers and decision makers. The Europe 2003 methodology includes telephone screening of nearly 300,000 households across 16 European countries to find eligible individuals, a telephone interview for TV viewing and a postal self completion questionnaire for all other data, these data are then fused to form a complete data set for the 10,573 survey respondents. To be included in the Europe 2003 universe, respondents must be least 25 years old, work at least 15 hours per week, in an executive or professional occupation, and either have a personal income in the top 5% in each country or have been on at least six international business trips in the past year or be a director of a company with at least 25 employees.

Europe 2003 Results

Europe 2003 Survey Data

Average Issue Readership of Internationals

Title

Average Issue Readership

10,404

000s

%

Dailies:

Financial Times

689

6.6

International Herald Tribune

166

1.6

USA Today

149

1.4

Wall Street Journal Europe

134

1.3

Weeklies:

BusinessWeek

223

2.1

The Economist

474

4.6

Newsweek

335

3.2

Time

568

5.5

Forbes

137

1.3

Fortune

207

2.0

Monthlies:

Euromoney

106

1.0

Institutional Investor

44

0.4

National Geographic

801

7.7

Scientific American

248

2.4

Harvard Business Review

281

2.7

All Internationals

2,563

24.6

TV Data

The TV questionnaire was altered for Europe 2003. Therefore the Europe 2003 TV figures must not be compared with those from previous years.

Channel

Weekly Reach

Monthly Reach

000s

%

000s

%

PETV Channels

6,384

61.4

7,677

73.8

PETV News Channels

4,513

43.4

6,181

59.4

BBC World

1,577

15.2

2,732

26.3

Bloomberg

777

7.5

1,184

11.4

CNBC

1,029

9.9

1,851

17.8

CNN

3,106

29.9

4,697

45.1

Discovery

1,745

16.8

2,500

24.0

EuroNews

1,975

19.0

2,982

28.7

Eurosport

2,854

27.4

4,086

39.3

MTV

2,206

21.2

3,107

29.9

National Geographic

1,236

11.9

2,069

19.9

TV5

1,123

10.8

1,769

17.0

Consumer and Business Profile:

Average personal annual income (euros)

79,800

Average value of personal investments (euros)

352,000

Have three or more cars in household (%)

20%

Spend 15 or more nights in a hotel in past 12 months on business (%)

29%

6+ international business air trips in past 12 months (%)

16%

Internet access/connection (%)

96%

Banking online

28%

Share dealing online

10%

Director (%)

34%

Average value of business purchases ($US)

184,000

Agreement with key statements:

Agree

I always like to keep up with the news

95%

Having an international perspective on current affairs is important to me

77%

I tend to take the lead in decision making

64%

I consider myself a citizen of Europe, not just my own country or any specific country

61%

I look out for opportunities to visit places I have not been to before

75%

I make sure that work does not prevent me from spending time with friends and family

65%

I am not afraid of taking business risks

43%

I try to avoid buying genetically modified food

51%

I am always setting new goals for myself

70%

[1] See attitude information appended to this document.

[2] The TV survey was improved in 2003, giving results greater accuracy.

Disclaimer

Contact Webmaster

Pool Version 2.0