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WHAT'S NEW IN THE WORLD OF EXPERIENCE
A collection of posts from our founder on all things experiential
Modern Luxury
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
Oct 62 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
Oct 62 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
Oct 62 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
Oct 62 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
Oct 61 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
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
This Is the Dangerous Trap Making Businesses Bland, Forgettable and Easy to Ignore
I attended three events last week hosted by three different luxury brands. By the end, I could have covered the logos and struggled to tell you which brand hosted which event. This epidemic of sameness runs through luxury retail, private clubs, wealth management, hotels, and countless other industries. Most leaders cannot see the degree to which they have homogenized their offerings. Take private aviation. Most private aviation companies have hired an "experience leader" from
The AHA Group
Aug 181 min read
I’ve been in 8 private clubs in the past two weeks.
Very few people experience this particular category of luxury in that kind of concentration. The cumulative effect is powerful. It’s rare to get to see these types of clubs back-to-back, but there are lessons for everyone in my read-out for our client. These are all clubs that have opened in the past two years, and I was fortunate to accompany several HNW / UHNW members on visits as their guest. I’ll net it out: the gap between perceived differentiation and actual differentia
The AHA Group
Aug 182 min read
One Thing That Should Terrify Luxury Brands
I regularly talk with millionaires and billionaires as part of our client engagements and here’s one thing I hear time and again that should terrify most luxury brands. Ultra-high net worth (UHNW) individuals - founders, family office principals, business magnates – are changing their relationship with luxury. They are emotionally disengaging. They are no longer impressed. Many are actively bored. We heard the same sentiment repeatedly, “Every luxury experience today feels
The AHA Group
May 152 min read
Luxury hospitality is entering an unforgiving era.
[response to "In a Sea of Sameness, We're Choosing Control"] Luxury hospitality is entering a far more unforgiving era. Distinctiveness now has to outperform financially. What makes this strategically important for the Kempinski brand is not just ownership. It is the ability to control the economic engine of the experience itself. Most luxury hospitality groups are still treating experience and profitability as competing forces. One side protects the P&L. The other protects t
The AHA Group
May 151 min read
The Growth in Branded Residences
The branded residence sector is projected to exceed $1 trillion in value globally by 2030. This is no longer just a real estate category. It is becoming one of the most important luxury experience categories in the world. I’m honored to join the judging panel for the inaugural Global Branded Residence Awards, hosted by Boutique Hotel News, taking place this October in Dubai, alongside an extraordinary international panel representing some of the most influential names across
The AHA Group
May 151 min read
The AP x Swatch Collaboration (my take)
Luxury brands almost never recover once they teach the public they want attention. Which is why the AP x Swatch collaboration is so interesting. The luxury industry is discussing this as though it is a “good collab” or a “bad collab.” It is neither. It is a category decision. Luxury brands are increasingly splitting into two completely different strategic groups: Cultural Scale Brands and Prestige Distance Brands. Those are fundamentally different luxury equations. And whethe
The AHA Group
May 152 min read
Luxury brands are making a dangerous miscalculation
Luxury brands are making a dangerous miscalculation: they believe they are far more differentiated than they actually are. I was speaking recently with the GM of a luxury hotel who proudly described their Baccarat chandeliers. Around the same time, the Captain of a luxury yacht walked me through their mid-deck meditation garden. The problem is not that these things are unimpressive. The problem is that nearly every serious competitor now has their own version of the same form
The AHA Group
May 152 min read
This UHNW misunderstanding is costing luxury and ultra-luxury brands.
This UHNW misunderstanding is costing luxury and ultra-luxury brands. Luxury brands are misunderstanding one of the most important behavioral traits at the highest levels of wealth. As wealth increases, the desire to visibly belong often decreases. Despite spending enormous amounts of time and money studying high-net worth consumers, luxury brands misunderstand this constantly. Aspirational affluent, emerging affluent, and emerging millionaire consumers are highly open to tas
The AHA Group
May 152 min read
"Be Experiential". That Means... Nothing
Let me tell you what "be experiential" actually means in practice: nothing. It means absolutely nothing. It is a sentence that sounds like strategy and requires nothing of the person saying it. The same goes for "create emotional connection" and "personalize every touchpoint." These statements have occupied every conference stage, every strategy deck, and every LinkedIn feed for thirty years. The vocabulary has not changed and neither has the outcome, because execution is a f
The AHA Group
May 72 min read
Every luxury brand wants to be unforgettable.
Almost none strive to be indispensable. That distinction is now defining. Those are not versions of the same thing. Memorable is an outcome. Necessary is architecture. The reason almost no luxury brand has built for necessity is that the industry defined itself, from the beginning, as the opposite of essential. That self-concept is now a competitive liability. Indispensable is the new competitive moat. A client who loved the experience will come back. Until something better a
The AHA Group
May 72 min read
WSJ is reporting that hotel brands are rushing into the private members club business.
WSJ is reporting that hotel brands are rushing into the private members club business. Fascinating. And telling. Here is the problem. Luxury hotels already have a sameness problem that most haven't solved. Walk through most five-star properties globally and you will find the same aesthetic, the same programming, the same choices, with a handful of rare exceptions. Now those same brands want to run clubs. Operating a club is not operating a hotel. Different drivers, metrics, a
The AHA Group
Apr 122 min read
The boardroom was full of smart, earnest people....
The boardroom was full of smart, earnest people who genuinely believed they were delivering a world-class experience. Forbes Stars on the wall. Michelin Keys on the website. Standing ovations at the conference the week before. For most organizations, that is the destination. They were not wrong that they were good. They were wrong that good was enough. The client data I walked them through that morning told a different story. Not a dramatic one. A precise one. What their gues
The AHA Group
Mar 272 min read
The Shift in Luxury Branded Residences
“I’ve watched owner behavior in luxury branded residences for over two decades. The shift in the last twelve months is notable”, a CEO shared with me in a recent meeting. He wasn’t describing market softness. He was describing something more precise and more actionable. Today, a signed contract is now the beginning of the evaluation; it is no longer the end of it. Most luxury developers still think a sell-out is the finish line. At the UHNW level, it’s now the starting gun
The AHA Group
Mar 272 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.
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