So you want a pack of those new 500-thread-count sheets, but don’t want to spend the $300-plus to acquire such a coveted luxury? Today, you have the option of heading over to your local Winners store, where, after a little hunting, you could find those same extravagant sheets for a more palatable $160.

Winners – a place where you’ll find Coach handbags alongside Charles David shoes at a reasonable price – has built a growing empire by putting such luxury within the reach of the average Canadian, and despite a tough retail climate, the chain is continuing to grow. In fact, Winners plans to open an additional 13 stores in Canada in 2003 on top of its existing 146 locations.

This success hasn’t gone unnoticed: the apparel retailer is just one example of a larger trend towards making luxurious items – typically the domain of the affluent – accessible to the middle-market consumer. Marketers of all stripes have been stepping up to the plate lately to deliver luxury to one and all by creating entry-level products at lower price points, and delivering merchandising schemes that link the high- with the low-end as a way to take the concept of luxury to every price point.

‘The notion of accessible luxury is a very positive trend in the marketplace, driven by the recognition that the luxury consumer is in all of us,’ says Stevens, Penn.-based Pam Danziger, a luxury marketing expert and author of Why People Buy Things They Don’t Need. ‘It’s about marketing not just to the classes, but to the masses.’

Danziger says consumers’ increased desire for luxury items can only grow in the coming years, a trend which stems from a number of factors. The first is a huge emerging segment of empty-nester baby boomers with more cash to spend on themselves. According to the latest census figures, the total number of people aged 45 to 64 grew by 36%, to 7.3 million, between 1991 and 2001.

The second is an overall increase in average market income for Canadian families, up to $61,600 in 2000 (an increase of 4.5% over the previous year), according to the latest numbers from Statistics Canada. The longer-range outlook shows that the average market income has increased by a significant 19% since 1993, when it was at a 10-year low of $51,900.

Danziger also attributes growth in luxury to a change in consumer psychology: consumers now view luxury as something to which they are entitled. As such, middle-market consumers are ‘reaching up for luxury’ in categories they are passionate about. ‘The change is ‘I’m entitled to luxury,’ and that is a very different point of view [from years past],’ says Danziger. ‘What was once considered luxury is now considered ordinary. In the 1960s, it was luxurious to have an air conditioner and maybe you’d have one air-conditioned room in your house. Today, most people wouldn’t think of buying a home unless it was air-conditioned. What is luxury at one time becomes expected, the rule, the norm in another time.’

One of the top categories in which marketers have been opening up the field to lower price points is luxury cars. Mercedes-Benz, for one, has been offering entry-level versions of its vehicles for several years. In the 1990s, the company modified one of its 190-class vehicles by taking out some features, such as power windows in the back doors.

‘People went nuts for it,’ says JoAnne Caza, Toronto-based director of marketing for Mercedes-Benz Canada. ‘It allowed them to make the jump into the Mercedes-Benz brand.’

Then, in 2001, the company revamped its C-class vehicles. The original, with all features included, is priced at just under $67,000, but the new-generation models are all priced below $40,000. ‘It’s a pretty broad range,’ says Caza. ‘There are different levels to appeal to the various levels of income.’ In 2005, Caza says the brand will be launching an A-class vehicle that will likely sell for under $30,000.

These pricing initiatives are part of Mercedes’ current ‘You’re Ready’ positioning – an attempt to change the consumer mind-set that a luxury purchase should be put off. A brand commercial by Toronto-based agency Lowe Roche, titled ‘The Story of Raymond,’ which aired for four weeks in May, sought to reach out to consumers who had always wanted a Mercedes but didn’t feel it was the right time in their lives. Caza says the company is currently tracking the commercial, and while she can’t yet definitively assess results, she says the ad has achieved tremendous anecdotal response thus far.

Meanwhile, a print campaign for the C-Coupe is currently running in newspapers across Canada. Says Caza: ‘The message is a fun and performing Mercedes-Benz at an affordable price. The approach is somewhat more whimsical than one would expect from us.’ The ads, also by Lowe Roche, feature car interiors with hula girls and other items attached to the dashboard.

Danziger says that the entry-level approach has been an effective strategy for Mercedes. In her own research with Stevens, Penn.-based Unity Marketing, she says that while some consumers view the scaled-down automotive models, for instance the C-class, as a ‘Mercedes-Benz minus,’ the majority hold the opinion that the car is ‘still a Mercedes.’ She notes that, for the most part, car manufacturers have done a good job of ‘managing their brand down,’ however, Danziger cautions there are risks involved when a brand tries to be all things to all people, and she cites Volkswagen’s recent foray into the luxury market with its Phaeton sedan, priced at over $60,000, as an example.

Danziger says the gap between the pricing of the Phaeton and VW’s Golf model, which runs at under $30,000, is too wide, and she suggests that staggering the price points as the brand moved upmarket would have been a better strategy. ‘It’s very hard for a company like VW to live at both ranges of the extreme.’

Though not a luxury brand per se, clothing retailer Gap also fell victim to consumer confusion when it introduced its Old Navy brand, says Danziger. She says the lower-priced Old Navy line was not distinguished in consumers’ minds, even though the company strategy was to situate the stores in strip malls, while Gap stores are generally located in shopping malls. ‘Consumers just looked at Old Navy as a cheaper version of Gap,’ says Danziger. ‘So it really threatened the integrity of the Gap brand. [Lately], they have been more successful at differentiating them, but it was dangerous when they came out with it at first. It’s very difficult to be a Tiffany and a Wal-Mart at the same time.’

This may, in fact, be sound advice for high-end gift retailer Tiffany & Co., which, while still very much positioned as up-market, offers special pricing on items ranging from silver pens and key chains to glassware through its business division.

Tiffany offers 10% to 15% discounts off annual purchases, totaling over $2,000. Many of the items are not available in Tiffany stores but through a catalogue and are used for corporate events and employee gifts, says Toronto-based marketing manager Anne Leger-Smith.

Danziger adds that Tiffany’s introduction of silver and glassware items to the line has allowed for lower price points. ‘Tiffany has been extremely successful in that $25-to-$100 range of impulse gifts,’ says Danziger. ‘So, you can own Tiffany even at a lower level.’

Danziger says one of the key ways to add value and credibility to a brand, no matter what the price range, is to understand the product from the point of view of the consumer. This was the insight behind Holt Renfrew’s World Design Lab strategy.

Created by Toronto-based Holt’s fashion director Barbara Atkins in 2001, the ‘lab’ is an area of the store modeled after a woman’s clothes closet that mixes high-end designer pieces with lower-price-point items and vintage. For example, a $1,400 Stella McCartney blouse might be paired with a $75 pair of jeans. ‘If [consumers] pick up an item that they love and it’s too expensive, they can find another item,’ says Atkins. ‘We’re not making everything so precious, so it’s a little bit more guilt-free.’

The mix-and-match boutique area is staffed by fashion stylists and is currently only available in Toronto, though Atkins says there are plans to expand the merchandising initiative to the Montreal and Vancouver Holt Renfrew stores.

Danziger offers a few final words of wisdom for luxury marketers seeking to broaden their client bases. ‘In effect, every luxury purchase is made based upon feeling. It’s about emotion, it’s not about the thing itself,’ says Danziger. ‘If [marketers] stay true to the experience delivered to the consumer they’ve come to expect, then I think they’re going to do very well.’

Tag taps Tiger for huge push

On the flip side of the trend towards democratizing luxury are the brands grounded in prestige that wish to remain that way.

Take upscale sports watchmaker Tag Heuer, acquired by luxury group Möet Hennessy Louis Vuitton (LVMH) in 1999, for example. Daniel Lalonde, North American head of New Jersey-based operations for LVMH’s watch and jewelry division, says there’s ‘no strategy in place’ to be anything other than what the brand has represented for the past 143 years: rooted in sport time-keeping and its core values of prestige, performance and precision.

But that doesn’t mean the brand isn’t trying to grow its customer base. Heuer is making a huge marketing push in North America for its watches this year (investing 35% to 40% more than last), spurred by several months of double-digit growth.

Signing golf star Tiger Woods as the new face of Tag Heuer last fall also prompted an extension of a media campaign by TBWAParis, under the positioning: ‘What are you made of?’

Expect to see a lot of Tiger and Tag on billboards, TV and in print, at least until the fall, says Lalonde, who adds that Woods is helping develop watches, including a golf watch, for the brand. ‘[Tiger is] one of the best-known personalities in the world,’ says Lalonde. ‘He’s a perfect fit with our brand values and we’re making sure he’s actively involved.’

L’Oréal goes (further) upmarket

L’Oréal Paris has always leveraged its French roots to project an upscale aura, but a new positioning will see it move further upmarket in an effort to become a true luxury brand. Efforts to reposition the line began earlier this year and coincided with the launch of new product offerings such as multi-tonal hair colouring system Couleur Experte and ultra-performance mascara Double Extend.

Ron Szekely, director of marketing for Montreal-based L’Oréal Canada, says the brand’s new luxury positioning is about growing the business, while enhancing consumer perception. ‘We saw ourselves as the top of the mass,’ says Szekely. ‘We have now rebaptized ourselves as a luxury brand that happens to be found at mass.’

The brand’s new positioning includes greater focus on adding prestige through revamped cosmetics packaging – new and existing offerings, for example, are being restored with new, champagne-hued casings. Meanwhile, in-store displays have also gone upscale. For example, the Couleur Experte brand uses more permanent and slicker-looking plastic displays, as opposed to the usual cardboard P-O-P.

Couleur Experte – a hair-colouring system that creates salon-style highlights at a fraction of the cost – was introduced when the home-hair-colour category was flat, says Szekely. ‘We needed to upgrade the [home-hair-colour] category, so we took our cue from what the luxury offering could be,’ he says. The suggested retail price? $26.95, which is about three times the cost of regular boxed hair colour.

So far, the response has been good. ‘Initial feedback from consumers who have tried Couleur Experte has been outstanding,’ says Szekely. ‘It’s the most successful hair-colour launch we’ve had.’