For example, in the 1980s people were very upfront about using conspicuous consumption as a means of impressing others. Impressing others is still very important to some people, but in the more tempered 1990s, it's not the driver it used to be. The affluent like to feel they're getting something for their money, Langer says. They watch their money as much as everybody else, and they don't want to feel that they're being ripped off. Forging a relationship is another key component in marketing to the affluent, Langer says.
Affluent people feel tremendously pressured in terms of their time and their resources.
Cathy Chute is publisher of Harvard Magazine and executive director of the Ivy League Magazine Network, a national network of nine university-based magazines that reaches alumni from the seven Ivy League schools, Stanford, and Harvard Business School. It's different from what they have with Martha Stewart Living or Town and Country. People read university magazines when they're in a receptive mood. They read for a connection with the past and when they are thinking about who they really are and why they are happy or glad they went to Harvard or Yale or Brown. Searching for acceptance by association, advertisers of high-end automobiles, expensive liquor, and luxury vacation packages have flocked to the Ivy League.