The Influentials by Ed Keller & Jon Berry

Author:Ed Keller & Jon Berry
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Free Press
Published: 2003-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

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Percentage in a group agreeing with statement

Source: Roper Reports

New devices such as cell phones and PDAs that give Americans more autonomy over life—calling long-distance to Mom in California while walking the dog, for instance—have had rapid rises. Having climbed from 1 to 44% penetration between 1992 and 2001, cell phones now have an active user base of 88 million adult Americans, one of the steeper new product adoption curves in history. Other new devices have given consumers more control over other areas of their lifestyles. DVD players and home theater entertainment systems, for example, make the home an increasingly attractive alternative to going out for a movie.

Perhaps most germaine to the premise of this book, Americans are looking to each other more for solutions. Word of mouth has surged as a source for all manner of decisions: the percentage of Americans citing their friends as one of their best sources of ideas and information about where to get the best deals (a subject at the heart of being a tactical consumer) is, at 37%, 8 points higher than in 1977. Community mindedness has gone up as well. More Americans, for example, agree that “people have a definite responsibility to help people in their community who are less fortunate than they are” (55%, up 6 points from 1995). More Americans say the causes they contribute to or work for are among the one or two things that “say the most” about who they are (24%, up 5 points from 1996).

Family and personal relationships are being valued more. When asked about their personal idea of success, almost half of Americans (48%) today say “being a good spouse and parent,” up 11 points from 1985, making this far and away the leading definition of success today. (“Being true to yourself,” the leading response in 1985, has slipped to a distant second, at 36%.) Although having money is more important today than in the past—more, for example, say having “a lot of money” is part of their idea of the good life—being “wealthy” ranks far down the list of Americans’ criteria of success, at only 12%. Despite the allure of celebrity, only 4% say that, for them, success means “being prominent or famous.” Family, today, is first.

As Americans have gained more confidence in their ability to set their own course, they’ve reset their goals to be more ambitious. This goal mindedness is apparent in many areas of life (their hopes for what they’ll do in retirement, for instance), but it is probably most evident in their personal finances (appropriately, since their finances will be the foundation for their future life). Interestingly, their ambitions rose early in the new millennium despite the recession and two consecutive years of stock market declines. When asked about their two or three main goals, fully 52% of Americans in early 2002 included “be financially independent of others,” up 8 points from 1999, when the stock market and economy were both roaring, and 18 points higher than in 1995.

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