"See, I Told You So!"When you're in the advertising business, one of the things you do daily is peruse reams of other people's research. These are mostly published " white papers", studies and surveys conducted nationwide in hundreds of different markets for hundreds of different products. Pretty dry stuff, for the most part.Every now and then, however, you run into something that's right up your alley, a study that pertains specifically to a product or service you're involved with. Even better is when that study confirms a trend that you've suspected was happening, but had no way to prove it. A couple of weeks ago, I found just such a study that was conducted by GPI MarketWatch, a New York research group commissioned by a Hartford, Connecticut real estate developer. The developer had asked GPI to provide statistics on the most favorable places to build a development of second homes, summer homes and vacation getaways. They were obviously looking for a place where people would most naturally want to invest.
"Of all positive respondents, a sizable majority defined the ideal locale as one which is as different in geography and climate from their primary residence as possible, but remains easily accessible, requiring little time or effort to reach." The overview went on to explain that people clearly prefer a place that makes them "feel like they're in another world", but that they would like it to be "within an hour or two" of where they live. In their summary, the top three major metropolitan areas in the country where extraordinary geographic and climatic diversity occurs within such a limited area were: Los Angeles, California; Santa Fe, New Mexico; and Phoenix, Arizona! Needless to say, a smile crept over my face as I laid the report aside. It was 1:00 p.m., the second week in December, and the crackling wood stove tried to make me forget it was only 39° outside, even though the sun shone brilliantly on the Mogollon Rim and the slowly melting snow. I knew that if the weather ever got to be too much to bear, in just over an hour I could be pulling off my sweater in 73° Scottsdale air. For me, since I live here full-time, it was one of those rare occurrences in life when you discover that you're actually ahead of the curve. For a moment there, I thought I knew what Rush Limbaugh must feel like every day! PS: If you're curious about what things look like around here, take a cyber-stroll thru any one of our four Galleries in the RIMages section of the site. Click the button and enjoy!
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Although GPI's client would not allow them to publish the raw data, they
had released an interesting "overview" of the study's findings:
