Why do luxury website demad such a premium.

Why do luxury web sites demand such a premium over mass market sites? In truth the mass market sites hit many more consumers and are substantially cheaper to advertise
on. The reason is that a luxury product
like a yacht or a private jet, or expensive jewelry, an exotic car, and other
items that sell in the millions of dollars pays so much more, for so many fewer
views, is they offer “qualified hits”.
It you are selling a $22, 000,000 Falcon jet the manufactures are more
interested in reaching 10 qualified viewers instead of a million viewers that
could never afford their product. A
luxury brand is accustomed to paying in the 10’s of thousands of dollars in
advertising for each actual sale.
Also, on a class site advertisers pay for
exclusivity and the security that a mass product will not be featured. In other words NetJets will not be next to a
Kmart ad. Product brands, just like
people, are associated by those that they surround themselves. A class site is like a private membership
club where only the “right” brands can become members; keeping up the
exclusivity.

Remember that Blue Chip Company does not mean a class product. There are many items that are made for the masses that are a good product but they are still made for mass
distribution. This is a fact that many
marketers not trained in luxury marketing do not understand. American Express green card, Bacardi rum,
Levi jeans, apple computers, blackberry….these are all mass produced items for
mass consumption. It does not mean that
the companies are not blue chip or that the product is not of quality….it means
that it is not an exclusive, limited edition /quantity, hard to acquire, luxury
product. All of these could advertise on
FaceBook, but Graf, NetJets, Ferrari, Bentley, Ferrety, etc can not. What drives the price up more is the lack of websites
that meet the class marketing requirements so scarcity drives the CPM premium
up even more.

Many mass sites only get $15 CPM and websites like ASW get $55 CPM while hitting fewer viewers, but hit a larger number of qualified viewers and they create a branding influence, As ASW is an elite
site, private membership by invitation only the advertising brands are
benefiting by association with the ASW brand.
Another reason these site get a premium is that luxury products are
paying to share in the sites “brand premium” ….purchasing affiliation
perception.

The luxury brands are only too happy to pay this premium as they are use to spending millions more on TV and Magazines ads, which reaches far fewer “Qualified luxury consumers”. Creating
luxury web sites where premium luxury branding is adhered to, has created a
great growth opportunity in this economy.
Many sites trying to reach this pent up demand has unfortunately turned
to former executives of Yahoo and Google and they have created the same mass
sites with better pictures. They have
ignored the quantifiable luxury marketing knowledge and as a result their sites
have failed. Examples of this would be the
Luxury Index site or Who’s Who in America site. True luxury
marketing experts are much fewer than their mass marketing counter parts. Mass marketers are confused by the anomaly of
the last 10 years where many mass brand stuck the word “luxury” in their
advertising. An example of a site that
utilizes the word luxury but clearly is a site aimed as the mass market is The
Luxury Spot.