Selfish Elites, Independent Geeks
Apple's marketing tends to feature the iPad as a sexy leisure device for watching movies, reading books, browsing the internet and flipping through family photos. Despite this, we found that people interested in business and finance are much more likely to be iPad Owners than those interested in movies, music, books and literature, the arts, the internet, video games, shopping, food and drink, nightlife or family. While this seems at odds with Apple's marketing, it makes sense in the context of the Owners' general psychographic profile. iPad Owners are an elite bunch. They're wealthy, highly educated and sophisticated. They value power and achievement much more than others. They're also selfish, scoring low on measures of kindness and altruism. As can be seen in the chart below, we found that people with all or most of these qualities, whom we call selfish elites, are roughly 6 times more likely to be an iPad Owner than the average person.
iPad critics, on the other hand, tend to be independent geeks. They prize self-direction, shun conformity, and are interested in video games, computers, electronics, science and the internet. One of the strongest single indicators of being an iPad Critic is a preference for the Linux (a do-it-yourself operating system for super geeks) over Windows or Macintosh. Even Mac users are more likely to criticize the product than Windows users, the PC population being the least geeky of all. If at this point you're imagining the ****c young male geek, your stereotyped imagination is right. iPad Critics do tend to be young men. To add even more color: they tend to have no children and little interest in family.
Why are selfish elites adopting the iPad and independent geeks ridiculing it? We only have data on the who, not the why, but I'll offer some possible explanations, starting with the geeks.
What do selfish elites see in the iPad that others don't? Perhaps nothing. Five hundred dollars is a lot to spend on an untested product, maybe it's just a matter of affordability. The data, however, show that people who have all the traits of the selfish elite except wealth are much more likely than the average non-wealthy person to wish they can afford an iPad. Also, the upper ****as a whole is more likely to be undecided about the iPad or simply not want it. It's only when we narrow in on multiple elite traits, including sophistication, achievement, education and wealth, that we see a strong likelihood of being an iPad Owner.
Complete Study: http://mytype.com/blog/?p=109
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