"Most of the Affluent Aren't Brand Conscious"

October 31, 2013 Steve Wellmeier

That was the headline of an October 29th online article in Travelmarket Report: Voice of the Travel Professional and it caught my eye.

The article was an interview with Ron Kurtz, president of the American Affluence Research Center. It is a quick read, but I’d like to pull out a few of the main points that Ron makes in the article:

Most of the top 10% of the wealthy are self-made millionaires with little in common with the rich and famous seen on TV.
Significant percentages of the affluent consumers are either ignorant of or scornful of luxury brands, including hotel brands.

Professional Therapy: Build a Wall

October 25, 2013 Steve Wellmeier

Winston Churchill at Chartwell in the late 1920s.

Walls get a bad rap.

President Reagan famously challenged Mikhail Gorbachev in 1987 to “tear down this wall” while standing in front of Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate. And, while not quite rising to the infamy of the Iron Curtain, the barriers that create dreaded “silos” in our corporate and not-for-profit cultures have also fallen into disfavor in recent years.

But walls and, more precisely, building real walls can be a good thing. Read on, and I’ll tell you why.

The Thankfully Short Life of the Ultra-Yacht

October 3, 2013 Steve Wellmeier

The 100-passenger Newport Clipper docked in front of Factors Row in 1983, along Savannah's historic waterfront. Photo by Steve Wellmeier — The 100-passenger *Newport Clipper* docked in front of Factors Row in 1983, along Savannah's historic waterfront. Photo by Steve Wellmeier

More than a few years ago, my then-boss Paul Duynhouwer and I were struggling to come up with a slogan for our small ship cruise brand that would attract the attention of travel agents and potential customers.

Start-up Clipper Cruise Line had just launched its first ship, the 100-passenger Newport Clipper. We were determined to find the magic word or phrase that would establish the brand and set us apart from the competition.

We mistakenly let product features, great as they were, lead us to believe that they were what would be meaningful to our prospective customers. To our way of thinking, the shallow-draft vessel’s ability to dock in yacht havens like Newport RI, Bahia Mar FL and the Bitter End Yacht Club in the BVI suggested that we should convey the sense of owning your own prestigious 230-foot yacht and cruising like a millionaire.