4-Jun-10 9:00 AM CST

Is Luxury Dead? Maybe Not According to Consultant Tim Arnold

Co-hosts Brad Forsythe and Ray Schilens interview Tim Arnold, consultant and founder of Possible 20. Arnold’s 35 years in the advertising and communications business defies definition. An agency president and multi-national board member; a regularly published columnist; a global account leader; a musician who’s produced numerous commercial tracks as well as the first GoDaddy.com Super Bowl TV commercial; director of global business development for a 135-office multi-national agency. He founded Possible 20 some twenty-five years ago to accommodate his consultancy work for agencies, start up businesses, corporations and entertainment companies.

He likes to describe his day job, as he titled one of his most-responded to Adweek columns, “Making Stuff Happen.” Current media projects include: Producer, attached to “We Be Kings,” an independent feature-length film to be directed by Toby Hubner; promoting two syndicated television and web specials: BodyDoubles, a search for the world’s most stunning twins, and AIA’s Architect Challenge, a design competition among emerging professional architects (American Institute of Architecture).

As Director, Business Development for DMB&B, where he also sat on the board, he led the agency out of nowhere into one of Adweek’s Top 10 new business performers; as President, McCann Amsteryard, he led that agency to its most profitable year to date; at D’Arcy, St. Louis, he wrote the strategy for and launched “This Bud’s for You,” and led that brand to record growth for 10 years; at Scali, McCabe, Sloves he led the Hertz business (yeah, OJ) and launched their #One Club Gold; he ran the Burger King business for J. Walter Thompson and later took DMB&B’s BK business from 3 to 28 countries.

These many adventures provided Arnold with numerous experiences and stories, many of which he brought to his regular column for Adweek Magazine for three years; he continues to publish guest columns in both Adweek and Advertising Age, as well as on a political blog (www.fogcityjournal.com).He has a regular guest teaching assignment at the University of Missouri School of Journalism and has taught at the Miami Ad School and Columbia University.

These are the many vantage points he brought to his latest effort for AdAge:“Is Luxury Dead?Maybe Not,” based on a ground-breaking study from Dwell Strategy + Research, San Francisco.According to survey respondents, “luxury” brands are no longer important to these “New Affluents,” or even relevant.Neither is over all “social status,” they say.As Arnold dug deeper he discovered some fascinating implications from this study that extend way beyond what most of us typically view as so-called wealthy consumers.

For entertaining advice join hosts Ray Schilens and Brad Forsythe for a lively and informative discussion.