In previous blog installments I’ve noted how the financial services industry, particularly the investment advisor, is capitalizing on the worldwide trend towards mass affluence. I also find it useful to keep an eye on other kinds of businesses that have come to the same conclusion as advisors have worldwide; specifically, that we are in the midst of a “wealth boom.” A profound experiment in this arena seems to have escaped my attention until recently.
Plum TV, which has been broadcasting in some markets since 2004, is a new television network available only in tony resort areas such as Aspen, the Hamptons, and Nantucket. Why is this important? Two reasons.
First, conventional wisdom has it that mass media, such as television, is not the appropriate vehicle to target affluence. After all, what self-respecting high-net-worth individual is going to take any kind of advice—lifestyle, financial or otherwise—from the boob tube? If there’s ever been a medium that was considered “high-end,” it is the magazine industry (titles such as Town and Country, Departures, Fortune, and Forbes are a few such examples).
But Plum TV circumvents the conventional wisdom by adding a twist: if you can’t get the affluent to watch mass media, bring mass media to the affluent by broadcasting in and about the towns and regions where they come together to party, hobnob, and let their hair down.
As a macro-trend watcher, I believe this is an important innovation. A new distribution channel, such as Plum TV, has many hurdles to its success, including the prevailing shift to the Internet for information. But if it were to thrive, it would affirm a fundamental ingredient required in any successful media enterprise: that it brings together an audience with a shared identity. From bold experiments like Plum TV, we can begin to see the development of a demographic category, similar in concept to the baby boomer. This creature can be described as a “wealth boomer,” someone who comes from that great bubble of wealth that exists across the country and the world.
The second reason why Plum TV is worth noting is the roster of luminaries who have lined up behind it. Savvy media players, including former Viacom CEO Tom Freston, former AOL COO Robert Pittman’s investment firm, Starwood Capital CEO Barry Sternlicht, Kraft Group CEO Robert Kraft, singer Jimmy Buffett, Jason Flom, chairman of EMI Group’s Virgin Records U.S., and others have invested their personal money in Plum TV. Now, I’m not saying smart people never make mistakes. In fact, risk-taking is one of the most unifying qualities of the wealth boomer. But it will be interesting to watch how this collection of connected, ambitious, strategic thinkers will help Plum TV take on one of the most elusive and valuable audiences in the history of mass media: the affluent viewer.
Not since Robin Leach promised us “champagne wishes and caviar dreams” has such a high-profile experiment in aggregating the wealthy taken place. It suggests to me that people outside the traditional “wealth” industries have concluded that the rewards of cultivating this demographic outweigh the risks inherent with trailblazing.
Many significant fortunes have been built from changing media trends and the innovative entrepreneurs who capitalized on those trends. If Plum TV were successful, consider this scenario: an advisor in Vail, one of the cities that Plum broadcasts to, could buy television commercials to advertise his firm. Eventually, that advisor could open offices in all seven Plum TV markets (Aspen, Hamptons, Martha’s Vineyard, Miami Beach, Nantucket, Telluride, and Vail), becoming the most convenient network for wealthy party-hoppers. As the Plum TV network expands, so would the related wealth boom industries. Think of Plum TV as “Google” advertising for the rich: highly targeted, cost-efficient marketing to a pre-qualified prospect.
Plum TV, we’ll be watching you.
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I wouldn’t think to advertise my firm as a way to reach the affluent. The affluent want personal referrals to advisors.
You Write:
“I wouldn’t think to advertise my firm as a way to reach the affluent. The affluent want personal referrals to advisors.â€
Those who don’t remember the past are doomed to repeat it: Many significant brands have come out of the modern media environment. Is it possible to imagine Fidelity, Schwab or American Express without thinking about the TV commercials that helped us understand those brands? What about the wealth management brands that we see often, including “Total Merrill� Historically, Americans prefer a brand they’ve seen in legitimate media to one they’ve never heard of. What’s striking about Plum TV is that it’s not “mass media†in the traditional sense; it’s completely built around the identity of affluence so the brands that advertise on it will benefit from some of that positioning. I agree that if Plum TV comes out as some kind of late-night huckster TV channel and Ron Popeil promotes his amazing wealth-o-matic blender and portfolio management system, it may not be the best place to advertise. But, as I said in the blog, these are some pretty savvy folks behind Plum. They understand the importance of brand and the role it plays with its advertisers.
Agreed. In some recent research I saw, the high net worth are extremely concerned about working with unscrupulous advisors. It seems like that’s who’d advertise.
These days, so many advisors have books out and that seems to work. I don’t’ see why you couldn’t do the same with television.