Young Company Building a Blue Ribbon Customer List

Only one year old, the AARC's customers include Sony, Ferragamo, Home Depot, 'W' Magazine, BMW, NBC, Four Seasons Hotels, and other "name" customers.

(PRWEB) July 11, 2003 - What do BMW, Ferragamo, Town & Country Magazine, Silversea Cruises, and Four Seasons Hotels have in common? In addition to serving the carriage trade, they are customers of the American Affluence Research Center, a young South Florida company that is providing marketing information and support to organizations that are trying to reach the countrys wealthiest men and women. Other recognizable customers of the AARC include Sony Music, NBC, 'W Magazine, and Home Depot.

Founded in 2002, the AARC, is the brainchild of two former ivy leaguers. Ron Kurtz, one-time president of Sea Goddess Cruises, is a Harvard Business School graduate. Howard Waddell has a degree in economics from Princeton University.

The two men met in 1990 when Kurtz was president of The Management Resource Group, a consulting firm, and Waddell was president of Decision Resource, a marketing research company.

During the 1990s, the two worked together on several projects that required a knowledge of the lifestyles of the very affluent. One of those projects was the feasibility study for a major cruise ship that would have multi-million dollar condominium apartments rather than staterooms. The ship would circumnavigate the globe while the condo owners could join or leave the ship any time it was in port. The minimum net worth required to buy one of the sea-going condominiums was $5 million. The study was completed in 1998 and today the ship, The World of ResidenSea, is in service and currently sailing in the Aleutian Islands.

Kurtz and Waddell knew that there were several companies that provided marketing information about the affluent, and that they fell into two groups: Those that focused on the financial decisions of wealthy investors and those that took a broader view but only of the marginally affluent. There are numerous studies of the affluent," Kurtz says, where affluence begins with a minimum annual household income of $75,000. Thats not really affluent at all. We define affluent households as those that are among the wealthiest ten-percent in the country. That means a minimum net worth of $750,000. The average income of this group is over $250,000. There are over 10 million such households in this country."

Kurtz and Waddell knew that what was absent in the marketplace was a company that had expertise in conducting marketing surveys of all types among people in these wealthiest of households. They had found a niche and they had the skills and experience to fill it.

While the AARC conducts custom surveys of the affluent, they have found a market for their semi-annual Surveys of Affluent Americans". Conducted each spring and fall, these surveys ask the wealthy a broad range of economic and marketing-related questions from how the stock market decline has influenced their lives, to their attitudes about discretionary spending, to their spending plans for specific products and services during the coming 12 months.

The surveys show, for example, that these people have been hit particularly hard by the stock market decline that began in 2000. If you keep in mind that the top 10% own nearly 90% of all the publicly traded stock in the country, it is little wonder that many of even the wealthiest households have cut back on non-essential spending," says Waddell. And in April of this year, there were more affluent people who expected to spend even less in the next 12 months than there were who expected to spend more."

Waddell points out that a unique aspect of the semi-annual reports is that they are forward-looking. We dont ask questions about what people did last month or last year. Our focus is on what people plan to do or expect to do in the future. No more driving using the rear-view mirror. What we offer is a planning tool for the providers of luxury products and services."