Know-How Exchange : Advertising/PR

Dear rjohnni ,

Is there a trend in value based buys? Yes.

All perceptions of good and bad are based on desired or undesired outcome. When the result (for the customer) of the exchange of goods and services as a proportion of benefits over costs is measured as higher in terms of gain over expenditure, the result can be said to be good value (or great value, or any other superlative). The opposite is also true.

The big pink elephant in the middle of the room here is perception.
What is good? What is bad? What is value? Your definitions of these things can be wildly different to someone else's and much of this is fueled by want, desire, demand, and affordability.

You asked four questions. Here's my humble two cents' worth:

* Do we see a clear data emerging of consumer clusters?
Yes. Rich people are spending less visibly but they are still spending and still getting richer. Following a 27 percent decline in 2008, the millionaires' club in the US grew by 16 percent in 2009.
Source: https://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-03-09/u-s-millionaires-ranks-rose-16...

* Do we see a particular pattern of stimuli? Yes. Scarcity has always been a front runner. When currencies fall in value, rich people move their money to commodities with higher returns, which is why gold retains its value. This is one of the factors behind gold prices increasing as a declining result of investor confidence in world stock markets.

* Will various Socio Economic Classes react differently to different offers? Any data or theory? Yes. One theory is that the shinier the object or goal, the longer the process takes to drive the sale to completion. Take a $2 burger and a $250,000 automobile. Wildly different products, wildly different buying decisions. But they both lead to a gain of sorts for the specific consumer depending on his or her needs and their relative ability to pay the price and not feel too hard done to as far as their bottom line is concerned.

* Luxe brands promos and customer reactions? The bigger the brand and the higher the price, the better the promotional offer and follow up has got to be because it's the reactions of other people that customers are showing their new BMW or Rolex to
that drive social proof, want, desire, envy, and the whole notion
of keeping up with the Joneses. Many rich and wealthy people spend money lavishly not for themselves, but to impress (and intimidate) other (less well off) people.

I hope this helps.

Gary Bloomer
The Direct Response Marketing Guy™
Wilmington, DE, USA