What do luxury brands think millennials want?
Watchmakers Omega, Breitling and Tudor and jeweller Qeelin tailor products to meet needs of young, ‘incredibly savvy clients’ with an eye for uniqueness
One of the most talked-about topics in the luxury goods industry is, “what do the millennials want?”.
To answer that question, we need to first define “millennials”.
There is no consensus on exactly how old millennials are, but Pew Research Center has drawn a line “in order to keep the millennial generation analytically meaningful”.
The institute will use 1996 as the last birth year for millennials, which means they are 22 to 37 years old this year.
That also means that most of them are in the workforce, and many are likely to have achieved financial success.
Millennials are incredible savvy clients. Nowadays, there’s a whole world of information at their fingertips to help them understand and discover the jewellery market
It is no wonder that the luxury brands are paying heed to their needs and wants.
Georges Kern, CEO of Swiss luxury watchmaker Breitling, says: “The beauty of today is that you can reach clients quicker than before.
“The millennials have to be taken into account. I truly believe analogue watches will live on – but to sell a product which is perceived as 250 years old, you have to communicate in new ways, which reflect how these millennials are consuming fashion and everything they buy.
“The way you talk, how after-sales are provided, how you communicate, how you sell – all that must be digital even though the product is analogue.
“You have to work with your own digital advertising, YouTube, influencers, online, offline and in points of sale and remember that the decision to buy a watch can take a year to make.”