The Picture of Luxury: Millennials’ Relationship with Luxury Brands: An Abstract

Given the growth of the luxury market, the size of the millennial cohort, and millennials’ growing interest in luxury products, it is vital for luxury marketers to gain insight into these millennial consumers to build consumer-brand relationships with them now as they start to enter their peak earning years. The purpose of this research is to examine millennials’ relationship with luxury through a content analysis of 630 luxury collages (10 collages each from 63 college-age millennials) to determine what represents luxury to them, how millennials perceive the consumer-brand relationship, and who they are as luxury consumers. The college students created personal collages that represent their thoughts and feelings/emotions, experiences/memories, ideas/perceptions about luxury brands and who consumes them, consumption motives, product usage/shopping occasions, and/or relationships with luxury brands. Each collage includes pictures/photos/images along with a typed description/summary that explains what each collage represents. A content analysis of the collages involved three judges. The PRL reliability measure ranged from 0.72 to 0.97 indicating the categorization by the judges was reliable. The results suggest millennials are pro-luxury and represent a vibrant current and future luxury segment. Millennials see a wide variety of luxury categories and brands that meet their needs for luxury. For luxury marketers, this is a segment amenable to luxury goods, services, and experiences, and inroads have been made by luxury brand marketers as seen in the collages. Millennials see luxury as addressing both out-of-reach or aspirational luxury as well as masstige or affordable luxury. Luxury marketers can build brand relationships with millennials with entry-level products as the millennials are current luxury consumers and see this consumption expanding in the future. Key luxury characteristics for millennials vary from other generations as they are looking for fashion, hedonic value, technology, and the need to demonstrate their extended self rather than rarity. Finally, who they see as the luxury consumer is influenced by social media, celebrities, friends, and family.