Home Is Where the Style Is

New report gives home luxury marketers intelligence on design trends and consumer personalities

New trend report introduces the profiles of the affluent consumer most likely to shop for luxuries in their home and how best to sell to them

Stevens, PA  August 10, 2010 --  Luxury home marketers:  Describe your client.

• Is he a spare-no-expenses shopper buying the best-of-the-best to appoint his luxury home?
• Is she the consummate hostess, willing to hire a designer to help her create the perfect setting for her frequent gatherings?
• Is she a do-it-yourselfer, craving the satisfaction and budget-pleasing result of doing the work herself?
• Or does she shop only when she needs to replace a worn out item, then walk right by the most up-to-date styles in search of comfort; in other words, is she just not that into home?

If you can't answer this question with confidence, you are leaving money on the table and sales on the floor.  "Marketing isn't sitting back and waiting for the customer to come to you; you have to take your message to the customer," says Pam Danziger, president of Unity Marketing and author of "Home is Where the Style Is," the new report detailing trends affecting luxury consumers' home redecorating, remodeling, and improvement projects.

"In our research, we isolated four distinct personalities that make up the luxury home market," Danziger says.  These are:

• The Castle Keeper:  This is the luxury consumer that home marketers love to see coming, with their spare-no-expenses attitude toward shopping for their homes.  Their home is their castle, and they want their good taste to be recognized by their peers, so they tend to buy showpiece brands and the most prestigious home decorative items.
• The Hostess:  This consumer is focused on home entertaining and pleasing their guests.  They will shop in a range of stores and product categories and consult a decorator or designer, all in an effort to make the best impression on those who visit their homes.
• The DIYer:  This consumer takes a great deal of pride in trying out new ideas in her home, always on the hunt for inspiration and ideas to try.  She would never think of hiring a designer or decorator, as her home is her creation for herself.
• The Nester:  This consumer is happy with her home just as it is.  Style takes a back seat, because her home is all about comfort, and she demonstrates this by making her biggest purchases in categories that demonstrate her need for comfort.

"If you are a home luxuries marketer, it is not enough to offer a stylish, quality product.  You must understand who is most likely to buy your product, where they will shop, and how they will incorporate it in their lives.  This new report introduces you to your target market in a way you've never seen them before," says Danziger.

About "Home is Where the Style Is"

This new trend report is the result of a special investigation into how affluents decorate and remodel their home conducted in association with Unity Marketing's 2Q2009 Luxury Tracking Survey, conducted July 3-8, 2010.  A total of 1,349 affluent luxury consumers were surveyed about their major home decorating projects in the past year.  (avg. income $306,7k and net worth $15.2 million; age 44.8 years; 45 percent male/55 percent female).  The results of this investigation are compared with results of a similar survey conducted in 2Q2008.

Key Finding:  The market for home luxuries is hot right now

The market for luxury home is particularly strong right now, based on the survey results.  A majority of affluents (52 percent) surveyed were involved in a major home remodeling or decorating project in 2009 and first half of 2010 and they spent on average 40 percent more than home remodelers surveyed in 2008.  An equal percentage plan to make home changes in the second half or 2010 and through 2011.  This report gives home marketers the ammunition to strike while the iron is hot.

The survey questions were designed to help luxury home marketers and brands understand their affluent customers' needs and motivations in home decorating better in order to grow their businesses, included:

• Luxury lifestyle, i.e. do you choose most often the good, better, best option or is luxury just not a part of your lifestyle?
• Involvement in major home projects, including remodeling, redecorating, buying new home, buying second home, in past year or plans for next year;
• Amount spent or plan to spend on major home projects;
• Room or rooms in home involved in major home project or planned for major projects;
• Factors that influenced home purchases, such as value, store, internet research, designer/decorator recommendations, etc.;
• Sources for home shopping rated by whether the source is a regular, occasional or infrequent shopping destinations.
• Sources include department stores, home furnishings stores, discount store, internet, mail order, home improvement store, furniture store, specialty appliance dealer, interior decorator/home design store, mail order or television shopping;
• Use of a decorator or designer, including type of decorator, importance of services, such as access to furnishings not available elsewhere; expertise in combining colors; saves time; saves money, etc.;
• Favorite styles for home decorating; and
• Attitudes about home decorating and home styles.

Special Feature:  Four different luxury consumer personalities are identified, based upon a psychographic analysis of affluent's attitudes and motivations in home decorating.  Learn how to sell more effectively to each of these distinctive luxury home personality consumers.

This report tracks trends in home luxury market since 2008 

The results of the current quarter's survey are compared with similar survey questions presented in the 2Q2008 luxury tracking study.  This provides ability for marketers to track trends in the market for luxury home decorating and remodeling.

As each wave of tracking studies is fielded, special topics of interest to luxury marketers are researched in more depth and published in a separate trend report.  In the second quarter 2010 Unity Marketing's Luxury Tracking Study investigated the luxury home market.  The results of this investigation will be compared with results of a similar survey conducted in 2Q2008. 

Publication Date:  July 2010 (64 pages)

Price:  $500

About Unity Marketing's Luxury Tracking Study
Launched in January 2004, and every three months thereafter, Unity Marketing has measured the pulse of the affluent consumers in a longitudinal survey of 1,200+ affluent consumer households. Each quarter the Luxury Consumer Tracking Study reports what luxuries they bought during the past quarter, how much they spent, where they bought, the luxury brands they became aware of and used, and how they felt about their current and prospective financial status.  A total of 22 major categories of luxury goods and services are included in the poll, including clothing, fashion accessories, home luxuries, travel, dining and jewelry.

Based upon the results of the survey, Unity Marketing also publishes a Luxury Consumption Index which tracks how luxury consumers feel and helps marketers anticipate consumers spending in the coming quarters.

In addition every quarter a special investigation of key trends in the luxury market are studied.  In the current quarter luxury fashion and fashion brands were the topic of the special investigation.  The findings of this special investigation into luxury fashion is available as a separate trend report or as part of the full Luxury Tracking Report.

The Luxury Tracking Study is available as a subscription service, which includes four quarterly reports and two annual studies.  In addition each quarterly report is available in three editions:

• Quarterly Luxury Tracking Spending Summary (chapter 2 which includes topline spending and LCI data)
• Full Luxury Tracking Report (full detailed analysis of all products and services)
• Trend Report on Luxury Consumers & Fashion Purchases and Brands

(Please Note: Your subscription to this report may be applied to the sponsor fee to the  annual Luxury Tracking subscription for 2010 or Unity Marketing's Home Luxury Report 2010)