The Alexander Report

Meet the Young Affluents. The generation of 40-and-under consumers – roughly corresponding to the Generation X and Millennial generations – is the “Want-It-All” generation that is coming into affluence with a ravenous appetite for the ‘good life.’ The fresh, unexpected needs and desires of the young affluents will be the most important trend to impact the global luxury market over the next decade and beyond. And savvy marketers need to be poised to meet the demands of this unique new force in the luxury marketplace.

Young affluents – consumers born after 1966 with rapidly rising incomes – will play an increasingly important role in the target market for global luxury marketers over the next ten to twenty years. This is true not just in the United States (with a median age of 36.5 years) or in the European countries (where the median age ranges around 40 years old), but in the developing luxury markets, like Brazil (median age 28.2 years), India (24.9 years) and China (32.7 years), where the population as a whole is more youthful.

Luxury marketers and retailers must ‘think young’ in order to understand the young affluents and to position their brands for the future in the developed and the developing markets. Luxury marketers must understand the unique desires of the young affluents, how they express luxury in their lifestyles today and how they will do so in the future.

What Do the Young Affluents Want and How Does It Differ from the Over 40 Crowd? (more…)

Ok marketing the iphone is not the exact same as marketing fashion. But I admit but do have to take a second to tip my hat to the amazing marketing job those folks have done over there at Apple. Our industry, for the most part isn’t about week long lines and switching networks or the general fiasco that preceded the iphone launch. However one thing that fashion can take from this nifty little gadget and the Apple company in general is the lengths people will go to once they are inspired.

I thought about it a while ago when I was working with one client on how they could gain more business from their existing retailers. I sat there dreaming up incentives, planning a media calendar, magazines they could advertise in, even an itemized budget…. then it occurred to me that for the most part customers don’t really don’t really need all that. People don’t really need a $500 dress, a designer yoga mat or a handbag that is equivalent to the down payment of a Midwestern home.

People just want to be happy…they want to be inspired to find the necessity to buy your product. This is not to say they don’t appreciate quality or a designer’s style acumen and attention to detail. It’s just to say that people are typically looking for a return on investment that is much more emotional than financial.

So no you definitely don’t have to be a self help guru to know you can’t buy happiness…however the average company who aspires for long term success needs to pay attention to the psychological focus of their customers. (more…)