Honors Students' Abstracts
Maintaining Luxury Brand Success in an Economic Crisis
Louise Santos
The marketing mix consists of product development, placement, promotion, and pricing. Marketers must carefully select strategies within these elements that will satisfy the needs and wants of their target market. Within the various pricing strategies, marketers can pursue a premium pricing platform in which the price is set substantially higher to promote an association with luxury and elite reputation for those who can afford such products. Luxury brands such as Mercedes-Benz and Chanel have this very reputation by which consumers clearly identify them with a higher prestige because of the high price that must be paid for their products. This study will explore the impact of the 2008 economic recession on the success of luxury brands and goods in the marketplace. Through examining the psychological motivations associated with luxury product consumption, brand management strategies, and sales trends from the past four years, this study will reveal that luxury brands have not only survived the economic crisis, but have, in fact, thrived.