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A Very REAL Threat...
The democratization of*stupidity. - Rants - Autoextremist.com ~ the bare-knuckled, unvarnished, high octane truth...The democratization of luxury - which finds luxury automakers pushing down into more mainstream segments with product entries that have enough design cues and engineering features to qualify as the “real thing” – at least to consumers who wouldn’t have considered the brands before - is now consuming everything in sight in this business.
Some manufacturers (BMW and Mercedes-Benz, to name just two) insist that the democratization of luxury is merely the cost of doing business at this point, that it’s a required operational strategy in order to increase volume and profitability, attract younger buyers and buyers new to the brand, and to ensure these companies’ ultimate long-term success.
But the ever-present danger is that in the process of embarking on this strategy, the luxury brands are upending the market’s stability and demeaning and degrading their brand integrity, bringing their “specialness” into question.