There are many products and services today which are marketed as being ‘luxury’ or ‘premium’.
Luxury products, goods or services in years gone past were usually upmarket goods outside the reach of most consumers. Most consumers strived to save and purchase such goods so they could have some ‘luxury’, whether in the home (car, cosmetics, linen etc) or when on holidays (hotels, ships, tours etc). Today, luxury seems to be not reflected in exclusivity of the product or its price, but a potentially somewhat meaningless word placed on a label or in a brochure.
Premium used to mean the best or possibly of the highest standard, but today everything seems to be ‘Premium’, from beer to foods, cars to investments, and the list goes on.
Do these two marketing words still have the same meanings or impressions as they did a few decades ago? What do you think and do these terms affect your purchase decisions?
IME ‘luxury’ and ‘premium’ have become meaningless terms and part of marketing puffery.
Likewise ‘Pro’ was once a higher level product that now is usually nothing more than a higher priced or paid product with a few features that has little to nothing to do with ‘professional’ use or requirements.
Many products are still labelled as luxury or premium, and deliver on the traditional expectation from the terms, but that is not a given anymore so one must look ‘behind the claims’ to see what they mean, or don’t mean.
I only buy super premium or hyper premium if I can get it. Even so I find hyper premium is often not good enough. Marketeers must do better! It’s past time we had access to proper super duper hyper luxury premium.
I’ll be happy to pay for the lesser ‘standard’ grade product thank you. It’s cheaper and goes just as far as the ‘premium’ or ‘super’ grades of product.
I’m not sure whether others might see wisdom reflected in the boast that your choice of vehicle can only run on premium super.
One product I can confidently state as being premium is Coles Finest Angus Beef Rib Eye Roast as I posted in the “May Food Challenge - Your Favourite Meat” topic.
I managed to score 2 of them a couple of days ago marked down by 30% and we cooked 1 on our Weber Family Q last night which we ate for dinner last night and tonight, and we will again tomorrow night.
I cooked it until the Weber iGrill thermometer displayed 75 degrees and then rested it on a plate under foil, just the way my wife likes it, and when I carved it, the juices still appeared on the plate.
I normally cook my steaks rare, and I would not eat beef that was well done, but this roast is in a league of its own as the fat marbling obviously keeps it super moist and delicious, and the meat virtually melts in your mouth.
While these roasts marked down from $36.00/kg to $25.20/kg may not be in the “luxury” price category, the are the premium product in my opinion unless I ever get to try the Waygu equivalent, preferably with a marbling score of 9.
IMHO these words have lost their value when it comes to understanding the value or quality of products.
I guess it comes from two sides. The marketting gurus want to make their products seem better, and consumers want to think that they too can get top shelf products or services.
My view is that these words are as valueless as brand names are becoming with globalisation, where a multitude of brands are made in the same factory, with only slight variations to make each product different. Some of these brands were marketted at the luxury/premium end of the market, and others were at the cheap and cheerful end. Basically the same product just different brands with different price structures.
While there are people who aspire to have the material possessions owned by the rich and the famous or even just people better off than they are; marketting hyperbole will thrive.
Then we have ‘ultimate’ and ‘super ultimate’ and ‘exceptional’ . It’s mostly just puffery, used to hook buyers into spending their money on what they think is best but often in reality just ordinary, everyday, standard and other phrases denoting nothing special.
Marketing words annoy me-they form that gramatical class " the undefined comparative" along with “whiter than white” etc.
Marketing terms also lead to confusion. Is 5G the 5th generation of of mobile phone service or is it related to my home wifi that uses a 5Ghz carrier–yes I know but many of my freinds are confused.
For me Premium simply means the best that that particular vendor has available.
The definition from many online available dictionaries is
of exceptional quality or greater value than others of its kind; superior
Of superior quality
The definition of premium is something or someone of greater or superior quality
(with superior meaning of higher grade or quality)
None of the definitions actually state of the highest quality, they instead say of a higher grade or quality than normal grade or quality. How much better? Just has to be better by any degree.
Off to do some shopping. On my list are some ‘gourmet’ pies, some ‘home style’ chips, some ‘artisan’ bread, and anything that takes my fancy in the ‘traditional’ (insert country here) range.
I agree it is just puffery and at a level of puffery that is deemed legal because a “reasonable person” understands it is not the truth…there must not be too many reasonable people around as so many get conned by the advertising. As I keep saying it is time to stop this use of puffery.
