The Media Diets of Luxury Consumers

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Luxury shoppers represent a small portion of the population, but their spending power demands brands understand them. This audience is hard to reach, but brands should know that luxury shoppers show outsized usage of social media platforms that cater to their needs, like LinkedIn and Yelp. They’re also more likely to use paid streaming services with no or reduced ads. For the purpose of this analysis, luxury shoppers are defined as financial elites who say they are typically willing to pay more for high-quality items — consistent with how consumers tell us they define luxury. 

The demographic make-up of luxury shoppers around the globe

There are distinct luxury consumer profiles between emerging and established economies. In established economies like the U.S. and France, wealth accumulates with age, but in emerging economies like China, India and Mexico, wealth is more concentrated among millennials and Gen Xers. Baby boomers comprise 42% of luxury shoppers in the U.S. and 4% of those in China.

Notably, the demographic makeup of these cohorts who have above-average income and investments skews older in the U.S. and France, while millennials dominate the group in China, India and Mexico. Men are more likely to fit the profile than women, everywhere except for China. Naturally, these well-off consumers also have a more positive financial outlook in every country except for France, which makes sense given the current political turmoil in the country.  

The media diets of luxury shoppers

U.S. luxury shoppers use niche social media platforms at higher rates than the general population. LinkedIn in particular sees the largest usage gap between luxury shoppers and the general population, with a 22 percentage point difference. LinkedIn users tend to be white collar professionals who are also more likely to meet the $75,000 annual income threshold for inclusion in this group.

Yelp’s reviews of restaurants and service providers also inherently cater to an audience that dines out and visits salons frequently. They also use WhatsApp to communicate with family and friends abroad more often. WhatsApp has become a sales tool for brands, particularly outside of the U.S. WhatsApp can support marketing, customer service and e-commerce for brands in addition to offering store associates a way to connect directly with high value customers. 

Luxury shoppers use subscription platforms at higher rates than the general population across the board too, except for Roku, a free option. Luxury audiences watching content on these platforms aren’t necessarily easy for advertisers to reach, as they’re often paying for tiers with limited or no ads. For the streamers, this is a lucrative audience who are less likely to churn their subscriptions in an attempt to manage costs.

Apple TV+ sees lower usage overall than the major streaming platforms, but its content clearly resonates with the U.S. luxury audience: There’s an 11 point gap between all U.S. adults and the luxury audience in usage, the highest of any platform surveyed.

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