Sensible, actionable advice for anyone hoping to move a brand into the upper echelons of retailing.
A fashionista offers marketers advice for connecting with the elusive luxury customer.
In a world where suburban teens tote designer handbags and Prada is available at the local outlet mall, how is luxury defined? As more consumers gain access to ostensibly high-end goods, many luxury brands are struggling to distinguish themselves while retaining the aura of exclusivity. How does a luxury company ensure that its products get into the hands of the “right” customer? And how does it hold on to a shopper “whose needs are constantly growing and changing”? These are questions that Phillips tackles in this marketing guidebook for those who want to grab the attention—and the dollars—of the ultrahigh-net-worth shopper. Each brief, easy-to-read chapter delivers a single marketing lesson, whether it’s the benefits—and hazards—of licensing a luxury brand, the importance of cultivating a smaller, elite clientele rather than courting mass appeal, or the dangers posed by counterfeiters. Charts and graphs illustrate concepts such as the “luxury consumption pyramid,” and callouts draw attention to key points. Like a textbook, chapters end with a list of lessons learned and a question for readers. Some of Phillips’ insights are common sense; most luxury marketers have probably realized the importance of having easy-to-navigate, smartphone-optimized websites, for example. But the handbook also offers on-point guidance on tapping the fast-growing global luxury market, noting that elite shoppers from countries like Brazil and China are big consumers of luxury goods, but simply opening new stores in these markets may not guarantee growth. Instead, a smarter approach could involve developing online sales, producing regionally tailored products (such as Hermès saris for the Indian market), and building overall brand awareness to capture tourist shoppers. Other useful tips include guidance on creating spin-off children’s brands, which provide a luxury consumer a chance to “indulge in a form of shopping that can be rationalized as selfless,” the changing habits of the high-end shopper, and how embracing a sustainable business model can benefit both the environment and the bottom line.
Sensible, actionable advice for anyone hoping to move a brand into the upper echelons of retailing.Pub Date: July 14, 2012
ISBN: 978-1475113327
Page Count: 256
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Aug. 20, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our...
A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.
The author of several scholarly texts, Kahneman (Emeritus Psychology and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.) now offers general readers not just the findings of psychological research but also a better understanding of how research questions arise and how scholars systematically frame and answer them. He begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as “lazy”: We don’t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in psychology and statistics (regression to the mean, the narrative fallacy, the optimistic bias), showing how they relate to his overall concerns about how we think and why we make the decisions that we do. Some of the later chapters (dealing with risk-taking and statistics and probabilities) are denser than others (some readers may resent such demands on System 2!), but the passages that deal with the economic and political implications of the research are gripping.
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-27563-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
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A passionate and accessible guide to humanizing the workplace.
Helbig and Norman present a game plan for making leadership more responsively human.
In this expanded update to The Psychological Safety Playbook: Lead More Powerfully by Being More Human (2023), the authors provide “practical strategies for responding to resistance, sparking change, embodying the change we want to see, and moving forward deliberately,” specifically in a business setting. They suggest ways to encourage what they call “changemakers” through the use of five key “plays” from their playbook: Communicate Courageously, Master the Art of Listening, Manage Your Reactions (“shift from automatic reaction to conscious response to stay better connected to yourself and others”), Embrace Risk and Failure, and Design Inclusive Rituals. The goal is to ensure that organizational cultures promote psychological safety, guided by leaders who “walk the talk” by emphasizing their own humanity at every turn. (“We must be the first to share our own failures with our teams, which will start to make it possible for others to do the same.”) This call for example-setting is sounded throughout the book as Helbig and Norman urge their target audience (leaders and would-be leaders) to go beyond mere instruction and instead embody the qualities they want to see in their subordinates, such as continuous learning, active curiosity, and self-reflection. Each chapter includes a detailed “Recommended Reading” section and text with extensive numbered and bulleted points formatted to make the core concepts more immediately digestible. The authors effectively employ clear and empathetic prose to assure readers that psychological safety is slow to build and quick to break, observing that such safety requires steady attention and delivers outsize payoffs as a result. They refreshingly ground a great deal of the material in psychology and neuroscience, pointing out, for instance, that research has demonstrated that the parasympathetic nervous system responds to honest appreciation, which improves creative thinking. Some wistful readers might consider some of the authors’ suggestions beyond the reach of their own organizations, as when group facilitators are advised to “gently intervene when someone dominates the conversation,” but hope springs eternal.
A passionate and accessible guide to humanizing the workplace.Pub Date: May 19, 2026
ISBN: 9798993550503
Page Count: 170
Publisher: Crazy Idea Press
Review Posted Online: April 23, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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