How Deep-Dive Consumer Research Defined an Emerging Market and Helped to Create a Brand

摘要

There it was, displayed in a spread in the Christie's catalogue of distinguished residences and estates: a bunker-like, low-rise, meandering manor, the centerpiece of an expansive and beautiful Pacific oceanfront property. What was most breathtaking about the house, aside from the vista, was its USD17 million asking price. It was an architectural-kit house, with some Mediterranean bolted on to some Arts & Crafts, and all of it architecturally duct-taped to a basic California ranch style. The interiors were also a mishmash of misplaced whimsy and disintegrated style. While its asking price gave this Tuscan-Stickley-Chateau-Little-House-on-the-Prairie leader-of-the-pack status, its visual style of conspicuous affluence and blender architecture was common to many of the other very-high-price-point properties Christie's was flogging in its glossy catalogue.