top of page
WHAT'S NEW IN THE WORLD OF EXPERIENCE
A collection of posts from our founder on all things experiential
There’s a Reason CEOs Call Us.
Our work shows up in annual reports, SEC filings, investor briefings, earnings calls, and analyst reports. Record performance. Revenue growth. Market expansion. Customer loyalty. Enterprise-wide transformation. Not claims we made. Direct evidence in the most important conversations that CEOs and CFOs lead. These are results our clients reported to shareholders, analysts, and the market, directly attributing the impact to our work. And year-over-year performance results that s
The AHA Group
6 days ago2 min read
My Personal Philosophy
I have never been particularly interested in moderation. Not because I think everything should be extreme, I just think there is something far more interesting in the combination of range, depth and intensity. And I've been thinking about those three things a lot lately. When something captures my attention, I tend to follow it a very long way. Horses led me to four years of varsity equestrian at Dartmouth, and a lifetime passion for jumping, dressage, cross-country, saddle s
The AHA Group
6 days ago2 min read
My gut reaction was “That’s impressive... is it over yet.”
I was sitting with a luxury-brand CEO who had just spent an hour telling me all the stories he wants to tell his customers and all the ways he wants to bring his brand to life. He called it customer-centricity. I cringed. The brand was at the center. The customer, a prop. When did the customer become merely the audience for all of this? I find myself having some version of this reaction more and more with luxury CXOs. We are living through one of the great farces in luxury: b
The AHA Group
6 days ago2 min read
Why We Built Our UHNW Archetype Model
I was in Wyoming yesterday for an event and found myself in the bar afterwards having drinks with three billionaires. We were discussing experiences, how expectations change over a lifetime, and how little companies really understand about the diversity of wealth and what it means to truly connect with someone whose net worth is ten figures. These are three men who made their fortunes in three completely different ways. Good friends. And yet largely indistinguishable to almos
The AHA Group
6 days ago2 min read
“I am literally numb from the boredom and disappointment."
But I’m putting on a fake smile to get through the appointment.” I do this all the time in luxury. So do many HNW and UHNW customers. I spend much of my life inside ultra-luxury boutiques, hotels, residences and showrooms, as both buyer and adviser. The lapses in judgment, design, and execution at six- and seven-figure price points are something more serious: they expose how little of a brand’s celebrated discernment makes it to the guest. Here is my dirty [baker’s] dozen of
The AHA Group
6 days ago2 min read
The Homogenization of Luxury Retail
At dinner last night, a VVIP client reduced billions of dollars of luxury retail investment to eight words: “The Salon is rare. The experience is anywhere.” Touché. I wanted to high-five him. If your luxury brand has private appointment spaces, this applies to you. Every luxury retailer we begin working with delivers some version of very nice, very ordinary luxury they have convinced themselves is special. The brands convinced they are even more exceptional are not exem
The AHA Group
6 days ago2 min read
I evaluated billions of dollars of luxury spend targeted at the UHNW
Last week, I spent hours evaluating billions of dollars of luxury spend targeted at attracting the UHNW. If I’m honest, I was bored, really bored. Imagine the buyer. I was judging a major international branded residences competition, with brands including Armani, Karl Lagerfeld, Six Senses, St. Regis, etc. I went in expecting to see the future. Instead, after listening to some architects wax lyrically for 20 or 30 minutes about a groundbreaking new way of living, I found myse
The AHA Group
6 days ago2 min read
Luxury Brands & UHNW in China
One of the most dangerous assumptions Western luxury brands can make in China is that the status they’ve earned over decades will continue to belong to them. It won’t. Across our work with luxury brands and UHNW clients in China, we are seeing the most sophisticated consumers quietly change the basis on which a brand earns its place in their purchasing hierarchy. Quiet luxury is one visible expression of it. But the more consequential shift is this: The burden of proof has mo
The AHA Group
6 days ago2 min read
Luxury's Most Interesting Exception
Growth can be a remarkably effective blindfold. The stronger the numbers become, the easier it is to mistake market momentum for business strength. I rarely publish at this length on LinkedIn, but sometimes content only becomes truly useful when the evidence is allowed to accumulate. It is grounded in work we are doing now with a historic jewelry maison ready to question the conventions of the high jewelry experience itself. It examines what may be taking shape beneath one of
The AHA Group
6 days ago1 min read
Bespoke Automobiles
“Why didn’t they do that?” is what owners of bespoke automobiles asked me over dinner in Monterey last week, as we compared Rolls-Royce Private Office, Bugatti Sur Mesure and Porsche Sonderwunsch commissioning experiences. As they described what each experience had been like, I shared a few ideas of my own. Not on the car. On the experience of commissioning it. That’s when I heard: “Why didn’t they do that?” More than once. Which is interesting given how much these programs a
The AHA Group
6 days ago2 min read
The Challenge for Wealth Management
There is an industry that still believes deeply in the strength of its HNW client relationships. Yet only 17% of its wealthy clients say they are actually receiving a quality, personalized experience. And the data only gets worse for everyone in Wealth Management. In 2019, 39% of HNW clients relied on a single wealth management firm. Today, just 19% do, and 81% now maintain multiple relationships. That is a sizeable shift, but many firms will still tell you, “We’re exceptiona
The AHA Group
6 days ago2 min read
Changing the Game in Luxury Hospitality
Our team just finished building a new hotel concept and brand for a client in the Middle East. And we built it in a way that fundamentally challenges how luxury hospitality has been developed for decades. We didn’t start with a location and ask what belonged there. And we didn’t build a beautiful asset and then ask a brand, service model and experience to make it distinctive. We reversed the entire logic. This developer and their investors understood that in a saturated ultra
The AHA Group
Aug 182 min read
HNW and UHNW customers aren’t fooled by your segmentation.
“I know exactly what they track, and I find it mildly offensive because it’s obvious and archaic. It has absolutely no value to me as a client.” said a tech millionaire. A few weeks ago I was at a dinner with UHNW customers of one of our clients, and we got onto the topic of how luxury brands segment “the wealthy.” UHNW individuals know they are being profiled this way. And the feedback was scathing. “I know that they use my net worth and purchasing patterns to put me into th
The AHA Group
Aug 182 min read
The evolution of buying behaviors and decision-making in HNW and UHNW markets.
Last week, the CFO of a multi-billion-dollar luxury brand dropped by a session I was teaching. He liked it so much, he cancelled all of his afternoon meetings to stay to the end. The topic? The evolution of buying behaviors and decision-making in HNW and UHNW markets. Over six weeks of almost continuous work travel, I have delivered versions of this briefing to sales organizations across luxury retail, private aviation, wealth management and luxury automotive. And I keep comi
The AHA Group
Aug 182 min read
"Most people don't realize how quickly they're revealing what they don't know."
"Most people don't realize how quickly they're revealing what they don't know." I hear some version of this constantly from HNW and UHNW luxury buyers. "My team, my family office, and I get sold to every day. Usually by people who know everything about the product they're selling and almost nothing about the life I'm actually living.” They are right. Whether it's private aviation, luxury retail, hospitality, wealth management, or another affluent-facing business, there is an
The AHA Group
Aug 182 min read
Something every luxury brand needs to hear.
Last night, over dinner in Portofino, an UHNW guest of our client netted out something every luxury brand needs to hear. I asked him what keeps him returning so consistently to this brand every quarter, year after year. He replied, "Aside from the quality, they have helped me develop my life over the years in ways I didn't expect, and they treat me with such care that feels like family - only more loyal, with more wisdom, and better taste." He spends millions annually with th
The AHA Group
Aug 182 min read
I knew exactly what had gone wrong with this luxury brand.
Somewhere in a conference room months earlier, someone had written, "We need to create more memorable moments." I could see the evidence everywhere. Here's the problem: affluent and ultra-high-net-worth clients have already moved on. Like way on. What feels extraordinary to an organization often feels remarkably familiar to someone who experiences the world's best brands every week. The objective isn’t to design specific moments. It’s to design brand DNA into everything. Ever
The AHA Group
Aug 182 min read
From July 9-17, I will be in Milan
From July 9-17, I will be in Milan and the surrounding region with members of our executive leadership team working with our clients in the luxury and ultra-luxury retail and hospitality sectors. These organizations are making decisions that will shape client engagement, brand relevance, and competitive position for years to come as they navigate an increasingly competitive luxury landscape. While our schedule is largely committed, we do have limited remaining capacity for a
The AHA Group
Aug 181 min read
Luxury brands are still teaching old hospitality models
I've spent the last several years listening to luxury brands explain how they plan to win High-Net-Worth clients. The answer is remarkably consistent. And remarkably wrong. "Luxury brands are still teaching old hospitality models. Good thing that's not us." Except IT IS. Along with the majority of luxury brands who still believe the secret to winning HNW and UHNW can be found in a hospitality training program. According to Bain's 2025 Luxury Study, the top 2% of luxury custom
The AHA Group
Aug 182 min read
The most powerful expressions of a luxury brand don't happen in stores
They happen in stories. In our work with Rolex, the challenge was never creating meaning. Rolex already possesses extraordinary meaning. The challenge was translating that meaning into something people could physically experience. Into signatures, rituals, environments, and moments that allow the customer to move from observer to participant. This is why the new Rolex boutique located on a mountain top in the Swiss Alps is so compelling. Most brands still think about physical
The AHA Group
Aug 182 min read
Ready to Make Your UHNW Customer Experience Exceptional?
Our clients contact us with a distinct business challenge in mind - how can they strengthen the experiences they deliver to their affluent and UHNW customers, better prepare their people to engage their customers, or simply how to win and retain more UHNW customers.
Sometimes that work begins with a consulting engagement. Other times, it is a one-day executive facilitation session, sales training, wealth briefing, or an UHNW keynote.
We welcome your inquiry through our contact page or directly to William Andrews at williama@ahaexperience.com.
bottom of page