**Karen Weiner Escalera, president & chief strategist at KWE Partners, details the importance of Generation Y in the future consumption of luxury goods**
CONSUMERS
Generation Y: Luxury’s Most Buoyant Market
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Credit: This is the featured image credit
Over the last decade, collaborations between luxury brands and contemporary artists have gone beyond mere artistic partnerships towards a new kind of luxury branding.
PARIS – Art and fashion have always developed side by side, for fashion, like art, often gives visual expression to the cultural zeitgeist. During the 1920s, Salvador Dalí created dresses for Coco Chanel and Elsa Schiapparelli. In the 1930s, Ferragamo’s shoes commissioned designs for advertisements from Futurist painter Lucio Venna, while Gianni Versace commissioned works from artists such as Alighiero Boetti and Roy Lichtenstein for the launch of his collections. Yves Saint Laurent’s vast art collection, recently auctioned at Christie’s in Paris, testified to his great love of art and revealed the influence of a variety of artists on his own designs.
In the 1980s, relationships between luxury brands and artists were advanced when Alain Dominique Perrin created the Fondation Cartier. In the Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain, a book marking the foundation’s 20th anniversary, Perrin says he makes “a connection between all the different sorts of arts, and luxury goods are a kind of art. Luxury goods are handicrafts of art, applied art.”
The Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemparain building in Paris
**Karen Weiner Escalera, president & chief strategist at KWE Partners, details the importance of Generation Y in the future consumption of luxury goods**
Karen Weiner Escalera, president & chief strategist at KWE Partners, details the importance of Generation Y in the future consumption of luxury goods
Eye opening facts for affluent brands: Generation Y (born 1977-1994) is the biggest generation in U.S. history and represents the largest consumer group in U.S. history – an estimated 83 million strong or roughly 25% of the U.S. population. Gen Y out-numbers Boomers (born 1945 – 1964) by about 4 million and is replacing them as the most important economic force.
With a taste for luxury developed through flash-sale websites, Gen Y shoppers are increasing their spending with full-price luxury retailers. Gen Y’s annual spending power exceeds $200 billion and they also influence another $50 billion in purchases. By 2017, Gen Y will eclipse Boomers in spending power.
Advice to marketers – if you’re not already capitalizing on this opportunity, you need to start. Marketing channels play a huge role in targeting Gen-Y. While print continues to be a primary source for information on prestige brands (#1 source for women, #2 for men), word of mouth recommendations from family/friends are also crucial (#1 source for men, #2 for women).
“ They are the hardest-to-reach but freest-spending generation. This group of super-consumers have an “always-on” connection to social media and the Web ”
Not surprisingly, Gen Y has embraced social media and blogs for information – they are more likely to listen to each other than listen to what marketers and previous generations are telling them. They are the hardest-to-reach but freest-spending generation. This group of super-consumers have an “always-on” connection to social media and the Web, mainly through mobile devices. Some, like Red Bull, have sidestepped traditional media altogether and created their own documentaries around extreme sporting events that bring its values to life.
How to earn respect when talking with Gen Y: authenticity. Authentic is cool. And they won’t waste time on companies that aren’t being real with them. Who has been successful at marketing to Gen Y? Internet-savvy and youth-aware companies such as Apple, Jet Blue, Trader Joes, Jones Soda, and Mountain Dew, to name a few. How do these companies speak to this demographic?
– They don’t talk down to them.
– They don’t push their brands in their faces.
– They let their raving fans do the job for them.
– They like somewhat quirky, simple and high quality.
– They’ve created a parallel between the brand and Gen Y’s favorite things to do.
Karen Weiner Escalera and the Hotel Sales and Marketing Association International (HSMAI) will be leading a Live Facebook Chat on Travel Trends and PR in a Social Media World on May 15 from 2-3pm EST. Luxury Society readers are invited to view the LS Event Page or contact Karen for further details
