  Paul F. Nunes and Brian A. Johnson
Harvard Business School Press
A dramatic shift in income distribution has emerged over the last three decades, heralding the rise of a huge and affluent new consumer group that has gone largely ignored by marketers. This pathbreaking book explores the implications of this phenomenon for business—and outlines a new approach for wooing and winning the “moneyed masses.”
In 1970, one out of every 27 households earned a six-figure income. Now that ratio is closer to one out of seven. As important as this growth in income is the growth in buying power this newly affluent group is assuming. The problem for marketers is, as their incomes have grown larger, these consumers have been spending relatively less, a phenomenon that translates into billions of dollars in discretionary income up for grabs by companies that can create the right offerings.
In Mass Affluence: Seven New Rules of Marketing to Today’s Consumer, marketing experts Paul Nunes of the Accenture Institute for High Performance Business and Brian Johnson explore how this broad-based increase in wealth has and should inform marketing strategy and practice. Nunes and Johnson argue that today’s mass market is radically different than the post-WWII middle class that inspired the first mass marketing movement. Yet neither today’s “one-on-one” marketing strategies nor traditional mass marketing approaches are adequately serving—or even addressing—the unmet needs and desires of this wealthy consumer segment.
Drawing on an extensive examination of public data and the authors’ proprietary consumer research and consulting experiences, Mass Affluence outlines seven new rules of mass marketing aimed squarely at the “moneyed masses.” To apply these rules, companies must undertake a three-step process of marketing reinvention:
- Capture new market positions that seize the “middle ground” between unaffordable “luxury” items and affordable but inadequate offerings.
- Redesign offerings to satisfy those positions.
- Reconfigure the channels and promotion of these offerings.
"Recently there has been a string of intriguing books about the growing affluence of American society, from "Affluenza" to "Bobos in Paradise." For marketers of all types, however, Mass Affluence (Harvard Business) is the most straightforward guide to figuring out how to translate this phenomenon into sales and profits and the products that will generate them."—The Washington Post
Download a free chapter from the book now. [PDF, 346K]
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