Skip to Main Content
HBS Home
  • About
  • Academic Programs
  • Alumni
  • Faculty & Research
  • Baker Library
  • Giving
  • Harvard Business Review
  • Initiatives
  • News
  • Recruit
  • Map / Directions
Working Knowledge
Business Research for Business Leaders
  • Browse All Articles
  • Popular Articles
  • Cold Call Podcast
  • Managing the Future of Work Podcast
  • About Us
  • Book
  • Leadership
  • Marketing
  • Finance
  • Management
  • Entrepreneurship
  • All Topics...
  • Topics
    • COVID-19
    • Entrepreneurship
    • Finance
    • Gender
    • Globalization
    • Leadership
    • Management
    • Negotiation
    • Social Enterprise
    • Strategy
  • Sections
    • Book
    • Podcasts
    • HBS Case
    • In Practice
    • Lessons from the Classroom
    • Op-Ed
    • Research & Ideas
    • Research Event
    • Sharpening Your Skills
    • What Do You Think?
    • Working Paper Summaries
  • Browse All
    • Archive

    Let Them Eat Cake: Marketing Luxury to the Masses—As Well as the Classes

     
    The evolution of the luxury market, and how to impress future shoppers.
    4/25/2005

    The author of Why People Buy Things They Don't Need has written a practical guide for luxury marketers based on a two-year survey of luxury consumers. As Danziger sees it, the first decade of the twenty-first century is the age of luxury, and a new generation of consumers is searching for happiness.

    Luxury, she writes, is "that which nobody needs but desires." Luxury is "about the consumers' fantasies, hopes, and dreams and not really about the physical or material realm." People shop in the luxury market to gain new experiences rather than to get more stuff; luxury shopping is an experience "everyone everywhere" at every income level values, enjoys, and may be willing to pay for.

    In the author's view, marketers who want to win in this area must:

    • Learn what luxury means to consumers.
    • Build more luxury value into products and brands at every price point.
    • Be aware of how the experience they are selling will meet or fail to meet a customer's shopping goal. (For instance, fashion, she writes, needs to deliver a "beauty experience.")

    She first provides a 5P luxury marketing paradigm: Product, Pricing, Promotion, Placement, and a fifth P, People. She then probes in detail the different types of luxury consumers, their dominant characteristics, purchase behavior, and inner lives, including their motivations and drives. She then shifts attention to three types of products: home luxuries, personal luxuries, and so-called experiential luxuries.

    Finally, Danziger addresses practical questions of pricing and branding. In the last chapter she sums up with eleven key lessons for marketing to luxury consumers, including, for example, "Give your luxury consumers an exit ramp off the mass track" and "Nurture brand evangelists to spread the word about the luxury values your brand delivers." Abundant examples, cases, and tips are provided throughout. An additional section of the book called "Personal Perspective on Luxury" provides insights into the luxury field from twenty-eight marketers from such companies as KitchenAid, Starwood, and QVC.—Poping Lin

    ǁ
    Campus Map
    Harvard Business School Working Knowledge
    Baker Library | Bloomberg Center
    Soldiers Field
    Boston, MA 02163
    Email: Editor-in-Chief
    →Map & Directions
    →More Contact Information
    • Make a Gift
    • Site Map
    • Jobs
    • Harvard University
    • Trademarks
    • Policies
    • Accessibility
    • Digital Accessibility
    Copyright © President & Fellows of Harvard College