Luxury Consumers' Attitudes & Motivations Report: How The Mindset Of The Affluent Consumers Has Changed In The Current Recession And What It Means For The Retailers And Brands That Market To Them

Unity Marketing introduces its first in-depth attitudes and motivations study of the luxury consumer market. In this new study, Luxury Consumers' Attitudes and Motivations Report, Pam Danziger, Unity Marketing's lead investigator, probes the mindset of today's luxury consumer to uncover the keys to marketing effectively in the current economy. This report is filled with facts and figures, but it doesn't stop with the data -- It pushes further to help marketers and retailers put the information and insights to use. The goal is to translate research-based findings into information that marketing executives can use to make critical strategic and branding decisions.

The underlying premise of this study of luxury consumer attitudes is simple: Changes in consumer behavior -- what they buy and how much they spend -- follows changes in their attitudes -- why they buy. This report focuses on affluent consumers' underlying attitudes and motivations in their luxury purchases and luxury lifestyles. It examines how affluents are responding to the current recession, as well as their overall feelings, attitudes and motivations that drive them to pursue a luxury lifestyle in general. The goal is to understand how the affluent consumers' mindset and psychology is making over the luxury market and creating a 'new normal' for luxury marketers in the future.

Specifically, the research goals of this study are to:

• Understand what luxury means to affluent shoppers today and whether their concept of luxury has changed since the recession began;
• Explore consumers' perception of their favorite luxury brands and whether they are trading down to less expensive brands;
• Define what 'value' means in the consumers' shopping psychology and how affluents interpret 'value' when considering a particular purchase;
• Understand how sale prices and discounts influence luxury consumers in purchases of both luxury goods and services;
• Learn how the recession is changing these luxury consumers' lifestyles;
• Compare luxury consumers' overall attitudes about their luxury lifestyles today with how they felt in 2007, prior to the recession and economic crisis;
• Identify the personalities that make up the current luxury market; and
• What the changes in luxury consumers' attitudes and motivations mean for the future of the luxury market.

Being forewarned is forearmed -- This study gives marketers data and insights they can use to plan for the future

The past two years have been a period of dramatic change in the consumer economy overall. High unemployment, decline in the housing market, and the global recession have hit consumers at all income levels, but uniquely in this current market it has caused dislocation and distress among the affluent consumers, defined as those with incomes corresponding to the top 20 percent of U.S. households with average income of about $200,000.

In times of dramatic changes like these, many analysts look to the past and what happened in other recessions to help predict the future. But the fact is no previous recession has been anything like this one, so past behavior can't predict the future.

What Unity Marketing relies upon as its crystal ball to see the future is to study the mindset and psychology of the consumer. Every three months, Unity Marketing conducts an in-depth survey among affluent consumers to measure what they are buying and how they feel about their current economic situation. With the results of this survey the affluent consumer confidence is measured and reported as the Luxury Consumption Index (LCI). The LCI has proven to be statistically correlated to affluent consumers' reported spending. These regular, routine tracking studies enable Unity Marketing to keep its fingers on the pulse of the American luxury market.