Stephen Halpin, managing director of newly formed Glasgow based agency Merchant Soul discusses the Time Rich List and the role of figures in the world today.

It strikes me from two angles – 1) the basic “that’s a big drop” on their value, but also 2) in a world where over recent months we’ve been hearing about banks losing tens if not hundreds of billions and governments borrowing trillions collectively, that fall of £155billion actually doesn’t sound too bad. How blasé we have all become with numbers. Particularly numbers that don’t actually mean anything to us personally. 

For Lakshmi Mittal, the steel magnate, the biggest loser on the List, I’m sure seeing his personal value drop by £17billion in one year, his pain is great. I began to wonder what, if any effect this would have on their spending. Would they be canceling their order for their new Burgess super yacht...and would they now be giving Lidl a visit to stock up on their unbelievable £5 lobsters?

But this also got me thinking about something else I had read recently – about the creation and growth of the Aldirati – or No Frills Affluents, Future Laboratory’s (the trend forecaster) newly coined consumer group. They state that these are individuals/households with high incomes (£100k+ per annum), but who take a strategic approach to shopping. Canny shoppers, as I think they’re known up here as, have been around for a long while and probably belong to generations past. My mum’s been one for years. There’s nothing she likes more than traipsing around TK Maxx, Matalan, Primark, Lidl or Aldi to get the premium brands that she enjoys wearing, eating and giving as presents (as my 4 kids bulging wardrobes will testify to)...but t she’s certainly not going to pay a price premium for them. And there’s a real sense of achievement/ reward in finding these bargains. Oh Yes, Yes...Yes there is!

To the current generation of Aldirati’s though,  a generation who have grown used to many of these luxuries and currently being hit by the first real crunch in their history of being a consumer, there is a desire/need to cut their household bills but reluctance to give up their lifestyle. This means strategically managing their budgets – spreadsheets, lists and specific shopping trips for specific items. There is a willingness to trade down on certain non aspirational, negotiable items – bleach for the toilet is bleach for the toilet no matter the brand after all, but a complete unwillingness to budge on other non-negotiables where quality really matters – like the Illy coffee I’m currently drinking.

So, back to business. In  the last few months as budgets have tightened even further and brand/marketing teams try to squeeze every last piece of activity out of it, I have witnessed this Aldirati behaviour coming through. Where not so long ago, 1 maybe 2 agencies fulfilled a design or advertising function, I have found that clients are strategically placing work around numerous agencies dependent on the type of activity and how valuable they believe that work to be in terms of the overall activity. I have never before seen so many 1 and 2 men bands managing to get so much work out of large, established clients. Now, this may result in more activity for less money in the short term – but the medium to long term effect of spreading this work so thin has yet to be established.

Somehow I don’t believe it will be good news for either clients or agencies.