ABSTRACT
The headline of a recent ad for Pegasus, a line of bathroom fittings by Home Depot, says, “Luxury is only for the privileged? What gave you that idea?” Today, the promise of the good life, the ultimate experience of luxurious living, is made to mass-market consumers by products in virtually every category. Silverstein and Fiske (2003) refer to this as the emerging “new luxury” market and describe it as a recent socioeconomic trend in which middle-market consumers trade up to “products and services which possess higher levels of quality, taste, and aspiration than [other] goods in the [same] category but are not so expensive as to be out of reach” (Silverstein and Fiske 2003, p. 1). Thus, the new luxury market is not restricted to conventional luxury goods such as diamonds, furs, and expensive cars (referred to by Silverstein and Fiske as “old luxury”), but may include any products at the top of their category, from sandwiches (e.g., Panera Bread) to body washes (e.g., Bath and Body Works). According to Silverstein and Fiske (2003), new luxury products are premium goods that connect with consumers on an emotional level.
