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HOW SHOULD LUXURY BUSINESSES APPROACH THE “R” WORD? October 05, 2011 (0 comments)
New York—Should a luxury business react to talk of a possible double-dip recession? And if so, how?
Last week, The Centurion reported that U.S. luxury spending—indeed, spending in general—is thus far holding its own against the economic doomsayers. But the bouncing stock market, continuous stream of negative news, and all that angst going on in Europe, there’s reason enough for concern. After all, a mental recession can be as difficult for a luxury retailer as an actual one.
Luxury Daily.com recently polled some leading pundits in the luxury space to see how they believe luxury brands should react to talk of a possible second recession. There are some widely differing views as to how likely that scenario is. The optimists, such as Chris Ramey, president of Affluent Insights in Miami, FL, and Shenan Reed, chief creative officer at Morhpeus Media, both feel it’s a lot of chatter but not necessarily reality, and that the affluent market is in a good place.
But Pamela Danziger of Stevens, PA-based Unity Marketing is the leading pessimist, who maintains luxury marketers need to take the threat of a recession very seriously and plan for it, rather than ignoring it.
Other views on the likelihood of a recession fall somewhere between the two, but all agree about how to deal with it as a luxury marketer or brand: stay true to who you are, don’t compromise your quality, focus on the customers who have the money to spend, and give them a reason and an experience that’s worth spending to have.