The importance of influentials: Luxury’s next battleground
Partner content
Luxury consumers are a buoyant audience cohort, according to Ipsos’ Global Influentials 2025 report. So what does it take to earn their trust?
At an exclusive Harrods breakfast recently, Ipsos unveiled Ipsos Global Influentials 2025, a read on the top 20% of households by income, and company leaders, across 43 markets.
Ipsos data shows these households hold more than $115 trillion in liquid assets and generate roughly $23 trillion in annual household income.
Put simply, they control the money, and their behaviour sets the pace for both B2C and B2B. The panel from Harrods, HSBC Private Bank and Diageo Luxury Company landed a simple truth: in luxury, the experience is everything.
Ipsos finds that 70% of ‘Global Influentials’ say “luxury is about making me feel special”, and Laura Pearce of the Diageo Luxury Company put it plainly: the one‑to‑one magic creates a halo effect that scales. That starts by crafting the story.
When a private blending, cask opening, or distillery occurs, turning it into a crafted experience resonates with your clients and boosts brand favourability in a competitive market. With nearly half of ‘Global Influentials’ (45%) actively seeking products and experiences that are truly exclusive, luxury brands can step into this place and make a real, lasting impact.
Despite the noise in the macro environment, this influential audience is buoyant. For a start, they are decidedly more optimistic about their personal finances (87%).
When the broader market tightens, they keep spending; during COVID, overall consumer spend fell, yet luxury spend increased. As Harrods’ Jocasta Pana noted, high spend consumers are more eager to spend with brands that truly understand their niche pursuits.
Where trust is built
For media leaders, this alters where trust is built, as channel trust matters as much as audience size.
When it’s breaking news or business decisions, websites and TV dominate as first ports of call (for business and economic information, 36% go first to websites, 16% to TV; for news and current affairs, 31% to websites, 26% to TV).
This is an audience that values credibility (seven in 10 are willing to pay for news they trust), and nearly 46,000 company leaders in this project trust quality newspapers and television to provide an accurate understanding of world issues. 56% of company leaders say they’re more likely to buy or consider brands advertised in international media, a statistic that prompted pens to scribble in the room.
Trust also accrues in the “boring but brilliant” parts of the journey.
If the booking flow is seamless, the packaging tells a story, and the follow‑up feels like a thoughtful human, your cost of acquisition falls over time because trust compounds.
By explaining the value exchange plainly, offering customisation, and using credible and reliable data, these marketers are empowered to delight rather than stalk. In luxury, retargeting fatigue isn’t a metric you can afford.
HSBC Private Bank’s Steve Thomas said it best: “It’s not about what money can’t buy, it’s about what money can’t think of.” Luxury has always monetised time, access, and ingenuity; the difference now is that the experience itself must be designed as the primary creative asset, with the product serving as the souvenir of the moment.
The heartbeat of luxury purchases is curiosity around narrow interests. This has a lock-on for editorial and media partnerships that go deep.
The appetite is there: 45% of ‘Global Influentials’ are actively seeking true exclusivity, and even outside classic luxury categories, you see the same instinct (57% prefer high‑performance, fun‑to‑drive vehicles).
All of this comes down to empowering people to make informed decisions.
Two‑thirds of ‘Global Influentials’ have the final or primary say in household financial decisions, making understanding these audiences more critical than ever. By giving teams autonomy, tools, and data to act in the customer’s interest, brands and media can capitalise on this to deliver a unique, informed service.
Early AI adopters
Of course, AI was discussed during the panel segment, and Ipsos Global Influentials has unprecedented insight to share on this.
This audience skews early in adoption, with 42% saying they’re among the first to adopt technologically innovative products, and they’re leaning into AI in practical ways.
In travel, only a small share has used AI for planning tasks so far (typically 7–8% across activities), but interest is high for the near future: 58–68% say they’d use AI to find the best deals, translate languages, suggest restaurants, choose destinations and plan itineraries. With the basics out of the way, the tech makes luxury service feel more human, not less.
If Ipsos’ sample of the top quintile by income signals where luxury is heading, the direction is clear.
Growth will come from experiences designed to be shared, from earned trust, and personalisation led by data. In that world, the media plan doesn’t start with the purchase. It begins with service.
Beckie Goodfield leads a team of over 40 media experts at Ipsos focused on custom media and technology research and insights.