Broadening the view: What do jingle bells, niche marketing, and measures of walking speed have in common? - keeping one's perspective - Editorial

American Demographics, Nov, 1997 by Diane Crispell

What do jingle bells, niche marketing, and measures of walking speed have in common? They point to the importance of keeping an eye on the forest even as we climb, chop, or hug our respective personal trees.

Several articles this month focus on the importance of breadth. Joe Turow's recent book, Breaking Up America, explores the down side of the rise of target marketing (page 51). Turow argues we are in danger of losing the sense of unity that binds a society. Because so many niche-oriented products, services, and media are targeted to smaller and smaller groups, we are less and less likely to view any part of the world from a common perspective.

Even as our media world becomes more personal, our access to the world becomes broader. One problem in trying to interpret a global wealth of information is incomparability. Kip Cassino's AdWorld model (page 57) makes a concerted stab at compiling and reconciling information about media spending in different countries.

In the same way, Robert Levine's cross-national pace-of-life measures attempt to provide comparable information about a culturally specific concept: time. The excerpt from his recent book, A Geography of Time (page 20), is fascinating in that rankings-obsessed way we have. It informs us that New York City pedestrians are not the speediest, and public clocks are more accurate in Romania than Japan. It is also humbling in the self-deprecating way Levine discovers "American" time is far from universal.

You don't have to cross the border to learn this, of course. We all function at different paces, usually to the detriment of our personal relationships. Whether you are on a road trip with children, shopping with a spouse, or playing golf with a friend, the potential for time conflict abounds.

The culture of time plays a role in work relationships, too. Thirty-seven percent of U.S. executives surveyed say the single most important trait of a team player is someone who "meets deadlines," according to Accountemps, a company that provides temporary financial staffing services. Executives value this time-oriented attribute more than people who avoid office politics, are pleasant to work with, and who "support his or her supervisor." These were American executives, remember. The answers would probably not be the same in India, where Levine says as much as half of work time is spent socializing. In such a culture, being pleasant is an important part of the job.

Our story on holiday shopping (page 42) illustrates another type of temporal breadth-the extension of what began as a single day of Christian religious observance into a year-round merchandising opportunity. I myself exemplify this phenomenon. I often buy holiday cards at half-price sales in January. I always buy at least a few gifts in the spring and summer and stash them away. But I also join the throngs after Thanksgiving and continue shopping until the last minute. I will not pay $150 for a UPS Christmas Day delivery, though.

I have my limits.