Key Success Factors for Automotive Premium Brands in Answer to the Change of Luxury and Societal Changes

Mature markets, a new status landscape, and the change of values have led to a new way of luxury especially in industrialised, Western democracies like Europe, Japan, and the USA. More and more people in these mature societies are searching for a more sophisticated, more private, less material, and more value driven way of luxury than status cars convey. On the contrary emerging countries are showing rather ostentatious luxury consumption behaviour and developing their own luxury concepts. Apart from that the sustainability trend, new power-train technologies, new mobility concepts, and a new way of communication in the web 2.0 age are challenging the traditional positioning of automotive premium brands. Except for the energy sector no other industry consequently seems to be changing at the pace of the automotive and the luxury industry today. In view of the aforementioned amount and extent of changes analysing the change of luxury and implications thereof for the premium car manufacturers is an unsolved question and more up-to-date than ever before. To clarify this question this paper presents a research study based on the approach of grounded theory. For this interdisciplinary study a literature review and a qualitative expert interview poll with 34 experts from 9 different countries and 8 different industries as well as science were performed.In addition in order to testthe academic and the expert perspective three focus groups with young trendsetters between 25 and 35 were conducted. The results this paper presents support a paradigm change in luxury consumption and the understanding and usage of premium automobiles. Based on the findings conjectures regarding the change of luxury, the future of automotive luxury,and future success factors for automotive premium brands in this context are introduced.