Business Elite - Global Snapshot
Key insights from the Business Elite survey on nearly 1.3 million of the most senior executives in medium and large companies.
The Global Snapshot is an interactive tool we designed to promote Business Elite:Global, a database combining the BE:ASIA, BE:EUROPE and BE:USA surveys to reveal information on nearly 1.3 million of the most senior executives in medium and large companies across the globe. BE:GLOBAL is an invaluable source of information for the latest global business and media trends among this unique audience.
The Business Elite are a niche group, representing 0.2% of the adult population and are a key audience for a number of industries including B2B, luxury, finance and travel. Approximately 60% of these executives are C-suite, an increasingly important group to understand. The positions they hold mean that the majority are purchase decision makers and responsible for almost US$16 trillion worth of business spend annually. Their responsibilities frequently carry them across borders and when they travel, they sit at the front of the plane. They are accustomed to luxury in their travel and also in their broader lives with a third owning an expensive watch ($1,500+), and 41% having taken a holiday worth US$3,000 or more per person, in the last year.
More importantly, the Business Elite remain heavy media users. Their media consumption channels are multiplying and so is their choice of how to access media. Nearly 44% of the global Business Elite own a tablet, while 77% own a smartphone. Despite the numerous media brands available on mobile devices, the Business Elite have remained loyal to the brands they use via traditional media.
The BE:GLOBAL data shows that multiplatform behaviour is also on the rise - 36% of respondents access one or more of the 83 brands measured on more than one platform. As these executives are always information hungry and time poor, they use different solutions, such as mobile devices, for quick access to the relevant information they need. The way media is consumed globally will continue to change, with innovation driving the speed, time and breadth of accessing information. BE:GLOBAL will continue to develop alongside this audience, while continuing to provide trustworthy information on traditional and digital media consumption.
Designers' Note
by Imran Abdul-Hakeem
The team running the Business Elite survey came to me with a brief for an infographic. The story was to be pulled out from a huge global database providing information about the most senior executives worldwide. At first it seemed like a mammoth task to extract key nuggets and formulate a story as each bit of information was disjoint and so it warranted a different solution.
After careful consideration and clinical discussion with the client, the alternative I suggested was to instead develop an online deliverable by using sophisticated graphical and interactive features with a highly engaging experience.
With a revised brief and a more clearer solution I began working on the second phase of the project, which was to pick out the most insightful bits out of the dataset, organise it and create a datamap. Once this was completed the next phase was to create rich and interactive animation that works reliably on web and mobile and is compliant cross-browser content, which was a serious challenge. I overcame this by using premier HTML software like Adobe Edge Animate and Adobe Muse.
With all the interactions planned and implemented, the final thing left to do was to accommodate older browsers by defining a fallback state so the content was still viewable and by adding a PDF version. Social media integration was a must as we wanted this tool to reach audiences far and wide.
As an end result we created something that was simple yet outside the confines of standard "boxed-in" web templates, graphically pleasing, had engaging content and allowed easy social sharing.
