Bob Shullman

Articles by Bob All articles by Bob

• All Affluent, Wealthy, And Luxury Consumers Are Not The Same in Engage:Affluent on 06/16/2017
  

  Recently I attended a conference that focused on marketing to affluent consumers. As I listened to a day's worth of presentations, I realized that the speakers were using the market descriptors "affluent," "wealthy," and "luxury" interchangeably. However, based on the work we have done in these three market segments, we must note that while they overlap somewhat, the three categories relate in most respects to consumers with different demographic and behavioral profiles.

• Attention, Affluent Marketers: Please Watch Out For The Gap Between Millennials And Luxury in Engage:Affluent on 05/03/2017
  

• Luxury, In The Words Of Female And Male Luxury Buyers in Engage:Affluent on 04/05/2017
  

  This month's column follows up on the many comments we received from readers of last month's column, "Luxury, In The Words Of Upscale Americans," which focused on the differences in how upscale Americans, as defined by their spending power (i.e., their household incomes and wealth), describe luxury in response to the following question: "When you read, see, or hear the word luxury, please describe briefly what you think about."

• Luxury, In The Words Of Upscale Americans in Engage:Affluent on 03/01/2017
  

  This month's column follows up on comments we received from readers of last month's column, "Luxury, In The Words Of Today's 3 Major Generations," which focused on the differences in how Millennials, Gen-Xers, and Boomers describe luxury in response to the following question: "When you read, see, or hear the word luxury, please describe briefly what you think about." This month we focus on descriptions of luxury among the following two segments of consumers based on their spending power.

• Luxury, In The Words Of Today's 3 Major Generations in Engage:Affluent on 02/01/2017
  

  Luxury, affluence, and wealth marketers define their target markets in many different ways (by income, wealth, generation, buying habits, attitudinally, etc.).

• It's Now 2017: Time For A Reality Check Regarding The Luxury Marketplace in Engage:Affluent on 01/04/2017
  

  As 2017 begins, we believe it's a good time to take a deep dive into which American consumers are actually buying luxuries. Listening to luxury and affluent brand marketers as we continually do, we find that many of them focus their attention and marketing efforts solely on very high-income and wealthy consumers.

• The Idle Rich Aren't Really So Idle After All ... And, Yes, Money Can Buy Happiness in Engage:Affluent on 12/07/2016
  

  When marketers to affluent Americans think about how to reach and potentially communicate their messages to millionaires in ways beyond the traditional and beyond today's many digital media channels, they need to realize that millionaires are really different from mainstream consumers. Also, not surprisingly, the millionaire generations differ materially from one another.

• The Generation Gaps When Communicating with Millionaires in Engage:Affluent on 11/02/2016
  

  This month's column builds upon last month's column, "If You Think All Millionaires Are The Same, Think Again," and delivers our current insights about how millionaires differ from the average American in the way they communicate with other consumers and how they view and hear marketers' messages and advertising. The wealthy, defined for this column as America's millionaires with personal liquid assets of $1 million or more, differ from the average American, and they differ from each other as well, especially when you look at them across generations.

• If You Think All Millionaires Are The Same, Think Again in Engage:Affluent on 10/05/2016
  

  Affluence marketers define their targets in many different ways (for example, by income, wealth, generation, buying habits, gender, or attitudinally). We believe that affluence and wealth are in the eyes of consumers and marketers. This column provides selected insights regarding wealthy American consumers (18 or older) in total and among adults with personal liquid assets of $1 million or more segmented by generation. Based on our survey and on Bureau of the Census statistics, we estimate there are 19 million millionaires as defined by their personal liquid assets.

• Affluent Should Mean Different Things to Different Marketers in Engage:Affluent on 09/07/2016
  

  As we start working with our new clients, we listen very carefully to how they define their current marketplaces and target audiences. According to Webster's dictionary, affluent means "having a large amount of money and owning many expensive things." When we follow up and ask marketers what they consider to be "a large amount of money," their responses usually focus either on their customers' household-income levels or their customers' net worth.

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