About the Authors
Jim Taylor, Vice Chairman of Harrison Group, is among the country’s most respected marketing and branding consultants and has sold billons of dollars in professional services during his career. At Harrison Group, Jim directs syndicated research, consulting projects, and services to customers in the luxury, real estate, and financial services categories. Jim’s current clients include American Express and American Express Publishing, Chanel, Gucci, Bombardier/Flexjet, Montage Hotels, Dividend Capital Corp., UBS Private Wealth Management, Keeneland Farms, Fairmont Hotels, and Neiman Marcus, with active engagements covering targeting, brand strategy, market structure, sales forecasting, and concept development and ratification.
Jim has served as Chief Executive Officer of Yankelovich, Skelly & White; later, he was Executive Vice President and head of Hill & Knowlton’s flagship New York office. He was Chief Marketing Officer and partner at Ernst & Young, and he held similar positions at Gateway Computers, Iomega Corporation, and Lyle Anderson Company. Named “Marketer of the Year” by BrandWeek, one of America’s five leading business futurists by the Wall Street Journal, and among its distinguished alumni by his alma mater, Michigan State, Jim is a highly sought-after speaker on matters of technology; marketplace strategy; wealth marketing; trends in U.S. and international business; brand persona; and the integration of technology, culture, and business profitability. He has lectured at many of the country’s leading universities, including Harvard and Stanford, and for major business, governmental, and civic organizations. He has contributed articles to national publications such as Advertising Age, American Demographics, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, and USA Today.
Jim directs the Survey of Affluence and Wealth in America mentioned in this book, as well as syndicated studies on women, teens, and general-population issues. Jim is coauthor of The New Elite: Inside the Minds of the Truly Wealthy; his other books include The 500 Year Delta: What Happens After What Comes Next and The Visionary’s Handbook: Nine Paradoxes That Will Shape the Future of Your Business. Jim received his Ph.D. in communications from Michigan State.
Stephen Kraus is a recognized expert in consumer behavior, social trends, and sales training. With over two decades of experience in market research and social science, he provides consulting and research services to some of the world’s most successful companies. Coauthor of The New Elite: Inside the Minds of the Truly Wealthy, Steve is also author of Psychological Foundations of Success: A Harvard-Trained Scientist Separates the Science of Success from Self-Help Snake Oil. His articles have appeared in BrandWeek, AdWeek, the San Francisco Chronicle, Contemporary Psychology, and a variety of scientific journals.
Steve is a featured speaker at conferences across the country, where he discusses his insights into human behavior and their marketing implications for fields as diverse as technology, financial services, retail sales, media, and packaged goods. He has also spoken at numerous scientific conferences, including those held by the American Psychological Association and the Society of Consumer Psychology.
Steve was previously Vice President of Harrison Group and President of Next Level Sciences, and he spent six years as a Partner with Yankelovich Partners, where he directed the Yankelovich Monitor—the longest continuously running study of consumer attitudes and lifestyles in America. Steve received his Ph.D. in social psychology from Harvard University, and he twice won Harvard’s award for excellence in teaching.
Doug Harrison is the founding member of Harrison Group, which he established in 1996, building it from a single-person operation to one of the leading strategic research companies in the world. Harrison Group specializes in marrying attitudinal and behavioral information in producing actionable market segmentations, positioning/brand equity evaluations, new product forecasts, and product/price/design optimization—all with the goal of understanding the volume impact of marketing actions.
Prior to Harrison Group, Doug ran strategic research and volumetric forecasting at Yankelovich Partners. A veteran of over 700 forecasting studies, he has directed the brand positioning, product development, and targeting strategies for some of the world’s largest companies and brands, including Coca-Cola, Microsoft, Motorola, American Express, McDonald’s, Home Depot, Sara Lee, Honda, Yamaha, Louis Vuitton, T-Mobile, Neiman Marcus, Four Seasons, GlaxoSmithKline, Fleet Bank, Scotts LawnService, and InBev. Coauthor of The New Elite: Inside the Mind of America’s Truly Wealthy, Doug has a BS in business and marketing from Cornell University.
ABOUT HARRISON GROUP
Harrison Group is a market research and strategy firm headquartered in Waterbury, Connecticut, with offices in Boston, Seattle, and Phoenix. Harrison Group specializes in concept testing, forecasting, segmentation, branding, business consulting, and market modeling for some of America’s top corporations, including financial services firms; software, technology, and packaged goods companies; retailers; pharmaceutical manufacturers; and interactive entertainment companies. Harrison Group has research and consulting practices devoted to, among other specialties, wealthy consumers, luxury markets, and sales training. In August 2010, Harrison Group agreed to be acquired by YouGov plc, a publicly traded firm recognized as a global market leader in survey and market research, political polling, panel management, research operations, and business consulting.
We pride ourselves on providing clients definitive guidance on business decisions. We like to believe our firm is characterized by a passion for the truth—our hallmark is an intense curiosity about the truth of human ambition, acquisitiveness, engagement, market behavior, and social distinction.