Mass Affluence: Seven New Rules of Marketing to Today's Consumer [Hardcover]

Paul Nunes (Author), Brian Johnson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 2004

This is the first book to explain how the fundamentals of marketing strategy must change in response to this broad-based increase in wealth. The authors specifically addresses how to fine tune a mass marketing approach that captures the value created from greater consumer affluence. After years of expensive and largely ineffective attempts at one-to-one marketing and other complex varieties of micro segmentation, the business environment is ripe for a switch back to the relative simplicity of a mass marketing mindset. It flouts conventional wisdom. The authors' in-depth research uncovered that today's "moneyed masses" are completely different than the mass market of decades past in terms of how much they have to spend and what they are willing to spend it on. It reveals the mass marketing strategies a range of companies have already successfully used to hit pay dirt with products ranging from oral care to laundry detergent to exotic automobiles.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"...lots of advice that marketers can sort through and apply." -- The Globe & Mail, November 24, 2004

"It's hard to imagine a business where these insights wouldn't be relevant." -- The Washington Post, 10 October, 2004

"When it comes to targeting affluent consumers (i.e. upper-middle class and above), this books is Mass Marketing 101." -- Journal Gazette, 21 September, 2004

In this extremely well-researched and witty volume, Nunes and Johnson rewrite the rules for marketing to today's consumer. -- CHOICE, March, 2005

From the Inside Flap

"Today's companies believe that they can only make money by selling to the low-end or high end of the market, or by selling one-to-one . . . Nunes and Johnson convincingly show a fourth way, tapping into the mass affluent sector. Contrary to the doomsayers, mass marketing isn't dead–if you use their seven rules to position, design, and reach the moneyed masses." —Professor Philip Kotler, Distinguished Professor of International Marketing, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University

"A must read for today's brandbuilders. Great insight into how brands must be positioned and marketed for profitable growth in the next five years."

—Will Kussell, Chief Operating Officer, Allied Domecq QSR

"Full of fresh and practical ideas, Mass Affluence integrates true understanding of today's consumer with new strategies for mass marketing. "

—Nan Meehan, General Manager, Parker, Waterman, Sensa and Rotring, and Vice President, Sandford Corporation

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 269 pages
• Publisher: Harvard Business Review Press (September 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1591391962
• ISBN-13: 978-1591391968
• Product Dimensions: 6.5 x 1.1 x 9.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #413,981 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Paul Nunes is a consummate student and thought-leader of high performance business. His research in high performance business has helped shape Accenture's strategic vision as well as its critical imperatives for change for well over a decade. He currently serves as the Executive Director of Research of the company's global think and act tank, the Accenture Institute for High Performance. His leading edge ideas and business insights have resulted in scores of articles and book chapters on marketing and business strategy, which have been featured in top publications like Harvard Business Review, MIT Sloan Management Review, Fast Company, Conference Board Review, and Wired among many others, as well as many of the world's top newspapers and magazines.

In addition to coauthoring the award-winning book MASS AFFLUENCE: 7 New Rules of Marketing to Today's Consumers, Paul has recently coauthored JUMPING THE S-CURVE: How to Beat the Growth Cycle, Get on Top and Stay There. JUMPING THE S-CURVE, the culmination of over a decade of Accenture research on high performance business, shows how companies can avoid fatal growth stall and thrive by leaping from one successful business to another.

Paul's foray into the shifting landscape of high performance business began with his education at Northwestern University, where he earned both his Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science and his Master of Science degree from the Kellogg School of Management. Since joining the company in 1986, he has also directed research for Accenture's Technology Assessment Group, a think tank aimed at forecasting elements of IT evolution most relevant for business, and has led a global technology support group before helping found the Accenture Institute for High Performance. His research has earned him numerous invitations to speak at top business schools (including Harvard, MIT Sloan, Wharton, Dartmouth, and INSEAD), a trusteeship of the Marketing Science Institute, and a U.S. patent for his method of improving companies' innovation processes. His work on Accenture's High Performance Business marketing campaign received the 2006 Bronze Anvil award from the Public Relations Society of America.

Paul writes and consults, and works on his recent passion of piano playing, from his adopted home city of Boston.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 23 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Lead, Follow, or Get Out of the Customer's Way September 21, 2004

By Robert Morris HALL OF FAMETOP 100 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

Nunes and Johnson help to increase our understanding of an especially powerful trend in contemporary marketing: creating or increasing demand for customized products or services which have been mass produced primarily for affluent consumers. This is a complicated subject in that, as recent research clearly indicates, many of these same products and services also appeal to less affluent consumers. This is precisely what Michael Silverstein and Neil Fiske discuss in Trading Up: The New American Luxury in which they refer to "products and services which possess higher levels of quality, taste, and [key word] aspiration than [other] goods in the [same] category but are not so expensive as to be out of reach...[trading up to products and services which] sell at much higher prices than conventional goods and in much higher volumes than traditional luxury goods and, as a result, have soared into previously uncharted territory high above the familiar price-volume demand curve." According to Nunes and Johnson, what is needed is "an approach that considers the facts about mass affluence and delivers a comprehensive view of how companies can change their marketing strategies to capture the value created from greater consumer affluence. That is why we wrote this book; that's what we're attempting to provide."

Indeed they do, and with discipline and eloquence. Their material is carefully organized within four Parts: The New Rules of Positioning, The New Rules of Designing Offerings, The New Rules of Customer Reach, and then a final section which responds to the question "What's Next?" Then in their Epilogue, Nunes and Johnson share their observations and suggestions with regard to "Reenvisioning an Industry" (i.e. the jewelry and watch business), applying to it the "seven new rules of mass marketing" previously introduced and discussed in the first chapter.

Long ago, Warren Buffett suggested that price is what we charge and value is what the buyer thinks it's worth. I was reminded of that as I read Part One in which Nunes and Johnson explain "The New Rules of Marketing." These are not their rules nor are they even rules per se. Rather, they are strategies which the competitive marketplace has already determined are more appropriate to new realties. For example:

Old Rule: Avoid middle-market positions between low-cost and premium.

New Rule: Seize the new-middle-ground position, above the rest of the conventional offerings and below the ultrapremium solutions. (Please see Figure 2-1 on page 33.)

Old Rule: Produce less-expensive versions of luxuries to sell to the masses.

New Rule: Introduce new models of ownership that make a wealthy lifestyle, and even real luxuries, affordable to the masses.

According to Nunes and Johnson, traditional mass marketers can "play by the new rules" (i.e. can capture the spending of the moneyed masses) without sacrificing the former core mass market. How? Give customers the chance to spend more by offering new premium versions, adding on product upgrades and differentiated service levels to existing offerings. Also, honor customers with the recognition they desire by creating status levels that richly reward willing-to-spend customers in all of the ways they wish to be recognized. Also, offer the right price to each customer by using effective pricing to achieve differential margins based on qualities that aren't intrinsic to the offering. Customers may not always be right but, ultimately, their perceptions ARE market realities. They are asking different kinds of questions now. For example, "What does this [watch, handbag, dress, set of golf clubs, etc.] say about me?" Moreover, they are less concerned about a luxury item's purchase price than they are about ROI which includes enhanced self-esteem in their own eyes as well as in others'. New realities do indeed require different (if not "new") strategies by which to respond to them. Nunes and Johnson offer several in this book, anchoring each within a context of relevant information and appropriate examples. Well-done!

Those who share my high regard for this book are urged to check out James H. Gilmore and B. Joseph Pine's Markets of One: Creating Customer-Unique Value through Mass Customization, the aforementioned Trading Up, James B. Twitchell's Living It Up: America's Love Affair with Luxury, Virginia Postrel's The Substance of Style: How the Rise of Aesthetic Value Is Remaking Commerce, Culture, and Consciousness, Gerald Zaltman's How Customers Think: Essential Insights into the Mind of the Market, Joseph Epstein's Snobbery: The American Version, and Bill Stinnett's Think Like Your Customer: A Winning Strategy to Maximize Sales By Understanding and Influencing How and Why Your Customers Buy.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Why this one is a standout... February 22, 2006

By K. Corn TOP 100 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

There are zillions of books out there on marketing moderate to high end items, most of them repeating the same old principles (yawn). You certainly don't need to waste your time or money on those.

Happily, this one is different, showing sellers how to reach the elusive buyers who may fall somewhere between high end and moderate end...perhaps prefering items that fall somewhere between the High end of Moderately priced...or, if you like, the low end of Luxury. They'll spend plenty...but they have definite needs.

This book shows sellers how to appeal to those needs and to market the same (or similar) items in a way to appeal to diverse buyers.

By the way, it is always a plus when a publisher takes advantage of the "Look Inside the Book" feature on Amazon - and this publisher does. So don't take my word on the benefits of this book. Take a look at a sample page or two and see if it appeals to you.

I will add that there is a LOT of info crammed into this book and I learned quite a bit. I'd also recommend Let Them Eat Cake.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Not How...But Why Starbucks a Success September 26, 2004

By Rick Bannerot

Format:Hardcover

There are no lack of books on the market talking about affluent marketing, however Mass Affluence goes beyond a simple recitation of case histories and delves into the functional statistical realities that are driving today's Frapuccino fixation. Mssrs. Nunes and Johnson have a clear and articulate "voice" that takes very dry statistics and make them easily understood and accesible for today's marketers.

Pity the retailers and manufacturers that don't read and absorb these new fundamental truths behind why Starbucks is selling so many cups of coffee. While America has become enamored of darker roast coffees, the real fact is that their are incrementally more Americans able to afford a $4.00 cup of joe with a little carmel squirt and a dollop of whip cream.

Clear, consice, logical and well-presented, Mass Affluence is an empirical study on the shifting of American demographics and a guideline to changing how marketers approach bringing their wares to market.

Seldom have stats been used to make a more compelling arguement in such a readible way. Logic and intelligence combine to make Mass Affluence a compelling read.