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Let Them Eat Cake

Press Release

A New Age of Luxury Is Dawning and Baby Boomers Are the New Luxury Generation
Luxury marketing expert Pamela N. Danziger sets the record straight on the new luxury market in a new book, Let Them Eat Cake: Marketing Luxury to the Masses—as well as the Classes

Stevens, PA November 17, 2004—In marketing circles today the luxury market is all the rage. And no wonder, the affluent consumers have incomes two-and-one half times larger than the average and their households spend twice as much on all kinds of consumer goods and services. In her new book, Let Them Eat Cake: Marketing Luxury to the Masses - as well as the Classes, Pamela N. Danziger draws on an in-depth investigation of the luxury market to set out who the 'new luxury' consumer is and how 'new luxury' marketers can connect for greater marketing success.

"In the past few years, the luxury market has been 'traded up' and 'marketed down.' It's been 'masstiged,' 'democratized,' and 'reinvented.' And worst of all for marketers today, it's been 'obfuscated.' I wrote Let Them Eat Cake to set the record straight on the new luxury market and how marketers and retailers can tap its potential," explains Pam Danziger.

In Let Them Eat Cake: Marketing Luxury to the Masses—as Well as the Classes (Dearborn Trade Publishing, January 2005, $27, hardcover) Danziger explains how the only way marketers can win with consumers today is to enhance and build more luxury into their brands at every price point. The challenge is that the concept of luxury has changed as the tradition-bending baby-boom generation has evolved into the new luxury market.

Backed up by a two-year longitudinal research study of luxury consumers defined as the top 25 percent of U.S. households (incomes of $75,000 and above), Pam Danziger draws on 20 years of research experience to offer a new direction for luxury marketers. She discovered a totally new type of luxury consumers that she identifies as 'butterflies' —the affluent consumers who have emerged from their cocoons to reconnect with the outside world and who respond strongly to luxury goods and services that connect with their dreams, desires, passions and value system.

"Luxury is no longer something 'out there,' restricted by income levels, personal wealth, or spending budgets," Danziger says. "It's an experience everyone wants and believes they deserve. Today, everyone is part of the luxury market."
In addition to consumer research, Danziger provides insights from more than 25 trend-setting luxury marketers, including American Express, KitchenAid, Starwood Properties and Crystal Cruises. Let Them Eat Cake explains how today's luxuries become tomorrow's necessities by being reinterpreted down from the affluent 'classes' to the general 'masses.' The new book offers specific, actionable advice to marketers who will learn:

• The 7 things that every marketer needs to know about today's 'new luxury' consumer
  
• Where the 'new luxury' market has come from and where it is going with the baby-boom generation at the helm
  
• Luxury today is really a verb; marketers must transform their luxury 'thing' into an 'experience'
  
• The 4 personalities of luxury consumers—the Butterflies; X-Fluents (Extreme Affluents); Cocooners; and Aspirers—and how to market more effectively to each
  
• Luxury pricing is not about the money, but the meaning
  
• Exploding the 6 myths of luxury branding so marketers don't go wrong in their 'new luxury' branding efforts
  
• 11 lessons for marketing luxury to the masses and the classes and everyone in between.

The winning marketing strategies in Let Them Eat Cake are for every consumer marketer and retailer, regardless of where they sit in the luxury pricing spectrum—whether they target the mass market, the budget shopper, the affluent consumer or anyone in between.

"Let your customers go to Wal-Mart to get their plain white bread," Danziger says, "but when they come to you 'let them eat cake.'"

About Pam Danziger and Unity Marketing
Pamela N. Danziger is a nationally recognized expert specializing in consumer insights and president of Unity Marketing, a marketing consulting firm she founded in 1992. Advising such clients as LVMH, Lenox, Cartier, Spring Air, and American Express, Dazniger taps into consumer psychology to help clients navigate and master the changing luxury marketplace. She is the author of the recent book, Why People Buy Things They Don't Need: Understanding and Predicting Consumer Behavior (Chicago: Dearborn Trade Publishing, 2004).

She has appeared on CNN's In the Money, NBC's Today Show, CNBC, CNNfn, CBS News Sunday Morning, Fox News, NPR's Marketplace and is frequently called upon by the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, American Demographics, Women's Wear Daily, Forbes, USA Today, Associated Press, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune for commentary and insight. Unity Marketing publishes market research studies on the luxury market, jewelry, garden, pet accessories, home furnishings, gifts and collectibles, greeting card and stationery, tabletop, art and wall décor markets, as well as the Luxury Business newsletter.

About the Dearborn Trade Publishing
Dearborn Trade Publishing, a Kaplan Professional Company, is the nation's premier trainer and information provider for business and financial leaders committed to profiting from breakthrough ideas. Kaplan Professional provides licensing and continuing education training, certification, professional development courses, and compliance tracking for financial services, legal, IT, and real estate professionals and corporations. Kaplan Profession is a unit of Kaplan, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of The Washington Post Company (NYSE: WPO).