Listening To Your Customers – Not For Luxuries

I do not understand luxury products and services but I understand the market and consumer behavior. In the spectrum of consumption, these fall in the hedonistic end and are more of conspicuous consumptions.  Do the rules of marketing – segmentation, market research, customer preference, willingness to pay. etc – apply to marketing luxuries?  No says Jean-Noel Kapferer and Vincent Bastien, co-authors of  “Luxury Strategy – Break the Rules of Marketing to Build Luxury Brands”  in their article in Financial Times.

Listening to the consumer is the best route to a lack of differentiation, and failure to inspire the dream – the two levers of desire that are the only paths out of the recession in the luxury world.