Trading Up: Why Consumers Want New Luxury Goods... And How Companies Create Them

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Summary: Start your luxury business now!
Review: The past fifteen years have been witness to both negative and positive shifts in the American economy. With the ever shrinking middle class, creating a larger gap between the rich and the poor, American industries are faced with either adapting to the consumer change or becoming extinct. A fairly new trend, which can trace its roots back as early as the 1930's, is the "trading up" phenomenon.

Michael Silverstein and Neil Fiske illustrate the American consumer's ever increasing need to create their individuality from the products they purchase, which creates a greater need for companies to specialize their product within their general market.

American consumerism has little to nothing to do with purchasing what one needs but focuses solely on what one wants. Trading Up is rife with stories from Callaway Golf to Victoria Secret and how each person had to take a risk in order to achieve the monumental success. "Trading up" utilizes emotional engagement as an essential factor in creating and advertising a product. The product must instill a sense of desire within the consumer enabling them to pay a high premium. Yet, emotional engagement is only the beginning.
Silverstein and Fiske refer to a "ladder of benefits", which are key factors in the "trading up" phenomenon. The "ladder of benefits" reshape and provide new meaning to an product already on the market. Through technical differences, superior functional performance and emotional engagement a company would be able to recreate an already existing product and sell it for a premium price. Trading Up is an excellent book to lay the groundwork for a motivated, creative, and business savvy individual, who is ready to take their industry to the next level. The middle class consumer is "trading up," will you?