The BES (Business Elite Survey) is a survey on the Middle East Business Elite and senior male Arab Executives. The survey was conducted in KSA, UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Qatar. This study measures the Businessmen Media consumption, TV Viewership, Print readership, Radio Listener-ship and Internet usage. The BES is part of an international family of Business surveys, conducted by IPSOS in the entire world.
The people interviewed in this study are the decision makers, those responsible for the expenditure budgets in the largest companies in the Middle East.
The BES Executive is a senior manager, working in a reputable company; he is a business decision maker, an international traveler, doing business outside his country; and, he is an IT user.
The study was conducted between December 2004 and January 2005, and will be repeated each year. It will also be extended to cover more countries. The respondents were interviewed face to face, through telephone appointments. They were asked questions about their media consumptions. They were also questioned extensively about their lifestyle, i.e. purchase decisions, investments, credit cards, business and personal travel, job title and responsibilities, luxury purchases, the cars they drive, etc... They were also asked to answer questions of a demographic and personal nature.
The study included a total of 1,600 persons selected for interview, to serve as a sample representing the estimated 1,318,000 Arab Businessmen in the five mentioned countries.
The outcome of this study was very interesting for a number of reasons. If we look at the age of the businessmen interviewed, we find that around 60 percent are between 25 to 39 years of age, and around 75 percent earn between US$ 60,000 to $ 84,000 per year.
Their main source of business and financial information is the newspaper followed by television. As for their media consumption, these businessmen watch more TV late at night, so their peak time of watching TV comes around Midnight. In terms of Print readership, about 81 percent of them read any daily newspaper, 51 percent read any weekly magazine and 33 percent read any monthly magazine.
In the Radio category, results showed that 63 percent are Radio listeners, and their peak listening-time is around 9 in the morning.
93 percent of the surveyed Arab Businessmen use the English language in Business, and around 66 percent specify or recommend a brand for their purchase for Business purposes, while around 72 percent approve and authorise the purchase. Regarding their personal purchases or investment, the survey showed that around 68 percent have done a personal investment in the last 12 months.
If we take a look at their personal travel habits, 91 percent travel outside their country, while only 9 percent do not travel. Their yearly average trips for vacation is 1.4 trips per year, and more than 50 percent travel in first and business class even for vacation. Around 54 percent rent an apartment for their vacation. With regards to their business trips, 71 percent are business travelers, 60 percent travel in Business and first class in their business trips, and around 80 percent of them stay in hotels while traveling for business.
As for their assets ownership, the charts show a pattern of frequency in the purchase of mobile phones, laptops, plasma screens, watches, cars, TV sets, and surround systems per year.
Concerning their financial habits, around 70 percent of them own at least one credit card, and they use it for more than 47 percent of their purchases. These figures of course, vary from country to country, with the lowest percent of credit card ownership identified in KSA. 77 percent get assistance for their investments, and only 16 percent own a life insurance.
As for Internet usage, it appears that 75 percent are Internet users.
Finally, this study is a pre-eminent tool in any media plan to reach the top Arab executives in the Arab world. Most of these people are very hard to reach in any study, and cannot be reached in any general media study. That is why they were interviewed through this special Business Elite survey. This study is loaded on IPSOS STAT proprietary media planning software, and is used by Advertising agencies and media planners, to reach the executives of the Arab World.
This study will be repeated once each year and will cover also other new countries year after year.
© ArabAd 2005
