The difference between a millionaire and a billionaire?

A million seconds is 11 days. A billion seconds is 31 years.

Having a billion dollars is great, but having a billion seconds is priceless.

A lot of us are time billionaires without realising, if you’re in your twenties you may be lucky enough to have two billion seconds left.

We may all wish to be billionaires, but to think about it differently, what would Rupert Murdoch, who’s worth $18 billion and is 92 years old, pay if he could take the next five years of a younger person's healthy body, mind, etc.

The picture below shows a 90-year life in weeks, and it's a startling reminder of how short life really is when you break it down.

As we go into a new year, it’s important to remember the value of time and the fact that there is no amount of money in the world that can purchase immortality.

This idea of being a time billionaire immediately creates an opportunity to lean into your greatest resource... time.

Spinning this back to advertising, one of the campaigns that stood out to me in recent times is by Ruavieja, a Spanish liquor, with the campaign called The Time We Have Left.

The insight which sparked it was that as a society we live in autopilot mode. Devoted to work and we’re not using our time wisely. On top of that, technology has invaded our lives and takes up most of the small amount of time we do have left.

It is a common tradition in Spain to take a digestive liquor like Ruavieja after lunch or dinner to make the meal last longer. This tradition and many others are disappearing because nowadays nobody has time for anything and everyone’s always in a rush.

So Ruavieja built an algorithm that calculates how much time we have left to spend with the people we care about most and then brought people into a room to show them the shocking stats, making a film showing people's reactions.

The campaign was such a success, that after two weeks, the brand decided to cancel its digital media spend and used the money to directly pay for bus tickets for people to visit loved ones who live far away but whom they wanted to see more often.

This was clearly a campaign which resonated with everyone who saw it.

With modern technology, the average human will likely live into their early 80s. A billion seconds is just over 31 years. The 20-year-old has two billion seconds. The 50-year-old has one billion seconds. The message of the campaign and an important one to reflect on as we go into a new year is to take a step back and ask yourself... do I invest my capital based on the greatest resources that I have access to?

For some of you, that resource is money. But for most, that resource is time. Use it wisely.

I wish everyone a Happy New Year, and success in 2024, I thought no better time to post on a nice light-hearted topic to kick-start the year!