Millennials, Fine Jewelry & the Luxury Category
13 Dec 2016

Millennials, Fine Jewelry & the Luxury Category

Written by: Rachael Ryan

Millennials are the most researched subgroup of the 21st century – and yet, they still seem to be misunderstood. Everyone wants to know more and more about the generation. A look at millennials and the jewelry industry can give us some insights.

Who are Millennials?

Millennials are technically anyone born between 1982 and 2002, but most importantly they are the buying generation. They’re taking over from the Baby-Boomers who are retiring both from work and they’re hanging up their consumer shoes too. Despite marketers obsessing over millennials, they are still often dumbfounded by them. Just when marketers think they have them all figured out, millennials change their habits and leave everyone bewildered.

For example, millennials were buying luxury goods such as fine jewelry. Millennials spent $26 billion on diamonds in 2015. But since then, the attitudes of affluent millennials have changed. 6.2 million millennial households earn more than $100,000 a year and they will take over the luxury consumer market by 2018-2020 – that means they need to be understood and luxury brands need to research them in order to appease this headstrong generation.

Market research is invaluable in this situation; here are a few speculations as to why millennials have become indifferent to the opulence of luxury jewelry brands.

  1. Millennials are incredulous towards big luxury brands.

    They want to pay big bucks for an individual experience rather than a brand that everyone has. The generation prior to millennials would pay vast amounts of money to have luxury, classic pieces of jewelry to display their wealth and standing in society. Millennials are not purchasing fine jewelry, they are more interested in spending the same money on a one-of-a-kind, once in a lifetime experiences.

  2. Milestone purchases.

    Millennials don’t want a piece of jewelry to define them – they want sentiment behind it. Most millennials will only buy a luxury good as a milestone or to mark an occasion, while this has always been partially the case – it is now the sole selling point of luxury jewelry. Millennials are not likely to impulse buy a luxury item; there must be a deeper level of emotion attached to a piece. This is why luxury jewelry brands such as Pandora are so popular – each piece is unique to the owner and every part of the piece has a story to tell that is exclusive to the person wearing it.

  3. Technology is a new luxury.

    The number of millennials that own a fitness watch and the number of millennials that have a classic wristwatch are almost equal. This is a two-sided argument, if you want your luxury brand to be successful then your brand needs to have a successful online presence that resonates with this savvy generation. Millennials read on average 13.9 reviews online before buying a product, and they normally only buy products that have been recommended by loved ones or people they trust.

There are many other factors that come into play here; millennials get married later in life and their engagement ring is ordinarily their introduction to fine jewelry purchasing, millennials are experience-oriented and want to be unique, therefore often look for one-of-a-kind jewelry that has a story behind it, among other reasons.

Check out some of our most recent posts from our strategy and advertising research blog here:

  1. Blockchain & the Markest Research Industry
  2. I’m Just Not That Into You: Exclusivity or Bad Marketing?
  3. Is Your Research Stuck in the 1980s: Update Your Brand Tracker!
  4. Market Research Doesn’t Need to Be Boring: Improve Data Visualization
  5. Tips For Building Brand Strategy for a Successful Brand
  6. What’s the Difference Between Quantitative and Qualitative?

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Why Research is Necessary When Launching a Brand
06 Dec 2016

Why Research is Necessary When Launching a Brand

Written by: Rachael Ryan

In Why Secondary Research is so Important When Launching a Successful Brand, we spoke about the importance of this type of research in launching a new product or service or even when relaunching an already existing brand. In order to launch a successful brand, market research is a crucial aspect of the process.

That research is twofold. The first part is utilizing secondary research. Secondary research is best to describe as research that is already out there. It gives you the basics of what you need to know, it explains the state of the market today, who are your competitors and a basic understanding of your prospects and current customers.

Once you’ve done some background secondary research – now jump into doing primary research and start analyzing the original, fresh, new data to determine what is best for your brand. Primary research can take many shapes and sizes, some examples include surveys, interviews, focus groups, etc.

Primary research can help with several aspects of a brand launch:

  1. Segmentation research – determining who is your high-value customer
  2. Naming research – evaluate the best name or logo design for your brand
  3. Claims test – assess the message or combination of messages that resonate with your target audience
  4. Package testing – find the ideal design and message for your product
  5. Ad concept testing – discover the perfect advertising campaign for your brand.  Using an advertising optimizer is an ideal way to do that. Provoke Insights to offer an Ad Optimizer.

Next, you need to determine what sort of primary research you want. Are you looking to do qualitative or quantitative research? Do you want to know the opinions, needs and wants of just a select few? Or are you interested in gaining knowledge and intelligence on as many potential customers as possible? Surely, you want to know what a large majority of your target audience wants? In most cases, people want to sell to a lot of people – in this case, the most fruitful form of research will be to conduct surveys.

What do surveys achieve?

  1. Through survey data, we can gain information on a lot of people and then make calculated and educated projections of what the large majority of your target audience wants.
  2. Conducting surveys will keep your brand launch consumer-focused and it means that you will stay on track to having the most lucrative product/service you can have. It will also reduce your risks.
  3. Your communication will be more effective and efficient. Instead of using trial and error to see what resonates with your audience you can ask them what they want to see and hear. This way your communication with them will work from the get-go.
  4. Most importantly you’ll be relevant to those who matter the most.

Surveys are not an easy task and there are a lot of hurdles that you can possibly fall down on, for more information about conducting a successful survey, have a look at Provoke Insight’s blog on what to watch out for when writing your survey. Once you have all of the data that the surveys will generate, your brand will be in the best possible position to launch or relaunch.

Check out some of our most recent posts from our strategy and advertising research blog here:

  1. Blockchain & the Markest Research Industry
  2. I’m Just Not That Into You: Exclusivity or Bad Marketing?
  3. Is Your Research Stuck in the 1980s: Update Your Brand Tracker!
  4. Market Research Doesn’t Need to Be Boring: Improve Data Visualization
  5. Tips For Building Brand Strategy for a Successful Brand
  6. What’s the Difference Between Quantitative and Qualitative?

Sign up for our newsletters here!

Follow our social media accounts:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/provokeinsights

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/provokeinsights/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/provoke-insights

Keep on the lookout for more blog posts from us!