Are Premium Brands Unlucky in This Election Year?

  What this year’s election could mean for your high-end brand.   Premium brands were forecast to face a difficult year in 2016, according to Bain & Co. Compounding this insight is historic data showing that election years tend to be difficult for high-end brands. Learn what the rest of this year will spell for your high-end brand sales […]

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Best Marketing Practices Among High-End Home Brands

Five things you can do to dramatically improve your marketing performance.   A few years ago, one of my high-end home brand clients was asked to participate in some benchmarking research from a leading management consulting firm. The consultants were studying a handful of leading consumer brands in order to capture some of the best […]

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Down But Not Out: How Affluents Shop for High-End Home Brands

You know the story, but do you know the lessons learned from it?    Prior to the global financial crisis, affluent consumers spent above their means, in large part due to phantom-like perceived wealth. “Their housing values were going up and their 401k’s were going up, so they felt wealthy and tended to spend above […]

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Beyond the Purchase of High-End Home Brands

Buying decisions continue to be made after the actual purchase. Marketers of high-end brands understand Plato’s description of emotion and reason as two horses pulling us in different directions. After all, it can be painful when you’ve carefully helped a customer along the path to purchase, only to have her return the product the following […]

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Stakeholders Need Numbers to Realize the Value of Marketing

  Sometimes CMOs have to help other decision-makers understand that marketing entails more than advertising—particularly in the case of high-end brands. A recent study from Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business, Stanford University and London Business School examined 506 CEOs of large corporations and found that 25 percent have a marketing background. In this sizable […]

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Is the Year Ahead a Threat or an Opportunity?

Is the Year Ahead a Threat or an Opportunity? For Marketers of High-End Brands, the Answer Is Yes Your consumer is evolving in dramatic ways, your job may be in jeopardy, and your team is cranking out irrelevant content. Nobody ever said it would be easy. As marketers of high-end brands face down the new […]

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Aspirations of the Millennial Homeowner

And how they will impact high-end brands To understand the heart and mind of a person, look not at what he has already achieved, but at what he aspires to. That simple quote from Gibran helps me understand what’s going on in the housing market with Millennials. A couple of years ago, I theorized that […]

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The Myth of Working vs. Non-Working Dollars

A new way of thinking for marketers of high-end brands Recently, I was asked by a client to lower the fees on a targeted digital campaign because the ratio of “working dollars” to “non-working dollars” was out of whack. The problem wasn’t that the fees were too high; rather, the media dollars were 60% lower […]

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High-End Humor for the High-End Brand

This post was written by the Upward Home team Humor is often the key ingredient in an advertising video gone viral. When we associate a high-end home brand with the great laugh we experienced, (thanks to its effective advertising campaign) we are hardwired to buy the product that made us feel good. Laughter Breeds Brand […]

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Digital Storytelling in the High-End Market

  Affluent Consumers want a connection. Not a sales pitch. Affluent consumers buy differently. They research large purchases and seek not only a wise choice, but also genuine benefits and an authentic experience. In fact, 70% of affluent consumers say they prefer to learn about a product or service through content rather than traditional advertising. […]

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