Acknowledgments
Creating Trading Up involved the work of many contributors.
Trading Up would not exist without the early and continuing efforts of a number of champions, advocates, and partners. Bill Matassoni, a legendary figure in the world of consultancy marketing and now the steward of The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) brand, recognized the potential of our ideas early and helped shape them. He helped put together a formidable team of partners, including our agent, Todd Shuster of Zachary Shuster Harmsworth; Adrian Zackheim, the founding editor of Portfolio and a renowned figure in the world of business books; and our collaborating writer, John Butman. John was a fantastic writing partner—collaborative, strongwilled, kindhearted, and fun.
Most of the members of our core team were based in the Chicago office of BCG, and were responsible for gathering data, conducting content research, and helping to develop and refine our ideas. Special thanks go to Jill Corcoran, a member of the team from the beginning, who has made many valuable contributions as researcher, analyst, project manager, thought partner, and spokesperson. Thanks to Tamara Duker, also a long-serving team member, for her diligence, insight, analytical skill, and good humor. Thanks to key team members Jonathan Cowan and Suzy Oudsema for their many contributions to the work of research, analysis, and idea development. Tina Choi, Aaron Dannenbring, Lily Yao, Danielle Harbison, Mary Egan, Tony Massaro, and Angela Petros conducted research into specific categories and helped us understand the implications of their findings. Jeannine Everett, based in the Boston office, led the effort in developing our consumer survey and understanding the emotional spaces surrounding trading up. Special thanks to Christine Beauchamp, one of the first team members from BCG, now at The Limited, for insight, spark, and creativity. Special thanks to Patrick Ducasse and Jean-Marc Bellaïche, particularly for spear-heading our research into trading up in Europe. We also want to acknowledge our BCG partners Barbara Hulit, George Stalk, Miki Tsusaka, and Adrian Walti for their help and support.
We received valuable support and guidance from our senior management at BCG—Carl Stern, our former CEO; John Clarkeson, our chairman; and Hans-Paul Buerkner, who succeeded Carl as CEO in the spring of 2003. Thanks to them for understanding that a body of work that combines data with anecdotes, sociology with business practice, and rationality with emotion, is a wonderful expression of the BCG ethos and expertise.
An important and enlightening part of our research was the interviews we conducted with the leaders of our featured New Luxury companies. We greatly appreciate the time we spent at BMW with Dr. Michael Ganal, worldwide sales manager, and Jim McDowell, vice president of North American marketing; at Mattel with Bob Eckert, CEO, and executive vice president, Ellen Brothers, president, Pleasant Company; at Limited Brands with Leslie Wexner, founder and CEO, Ed Razek, chief marketing officer, and Dan Finkelman, senior vice president; with Grace Nichols, CEO, Victoria’s Secret; Ronald Shaich, chairman and CEO, Panera Bread; David Overton, CEO, The Cheesecake Factory; Mats Lederhausen, president, Mc-Donald’s Development Group; Joe Foster, marketing director, Whirlpool Brand Fabric Care; Gordon Segal, founder and CEO, Crate and Barrel; Jess Jackson, founder, Kendall-Jackson; Jim Koch, founder, The Boston Beer Company; at Callaway Golf with Ron Drapeau, president and CEO, and Larry Dorman, senior vice president, global press and public relations; with Mark King, president, TaylorMade; and with Dr. Jordan Busch, cofounder, Personal Physicians HealthCare, and an instructor in medicine at Harvard Medical School.
We thank the dozens of consumers we interviewed, both formally and informally, as part of our research. Many of them appear in the book, and although we gave them fictitious names, we did not invent details or alter their stories or the critical details of thir lives. We also thank the 2,300 consumers who participated in the HarrisInteractive poll and the dozens of those who agreed to further interviews with our team. We also conducted a series of focus groups with Whirlpool customers, and we very much appreciate their enthusiastic participation. In the course of our work over the years, we have visited and interviewed hundreds of consumers, and we thank them for their comments, ideas, attitudes, and insights.
We and our core Trading Up team have had the benefit of an expert and hard-working support team. In Chicago, Kristin Claire, Debra Price, and Marge Branecki were our key administrative team members. Vera Ward, Pat Heidkamp, Bill Hagedorn, Jill Jaracz, and Wanda Perkins provided extensive and knowledgeable research support. Our thanks for varied contributions to our BCG colleagues Eric Gregoire, Peter Truell, and Susan Bergel in New York; KC Munuz, Jeri Herman, Christine Vollrath, and Irene Blach in Boston. Thanks to Sally Seymour, based in Chicago, for writing advice and counsel.
We also received valuable support from a number of outside contributors. At Sommerfield Communications in New York, Frank Sommerfield, Penny Peters, and Elizabeth Koons expertly helped us bring our ideas to the press and the outside world. At Harvard Business Review, we developed a fruitful working relationship with Ben Gerson, Suki Sporer, and Cathy Olofson, who helped us shape our ideas and material for the HBR audience. Ashley Siegel and Jonathan Dowds assisted John Butman in conducting the literature review and managing the voluminous materials and many tasks of writing; Toni Baccanti developed the customized database that holds and optimizes those materials. Elyse Friedman provided expert copy editing.
Throughout the course of our work on the book, we have turned to our partners at BCG for their ideas, insights, and counsel. We are fortunate to have a worldwide network of people with extraordinary expertise and experience in a wide range of practices, disciplines, and industries. Thanks go to: René Abate; Nina Abdelmessih; Charbel Ackermann; John Akin; Harri Andersson; François Aubry; Brad Banducci; Felix Barber; Julie Barker; Mary Barlow; Tommaso Barracco; Ivan Bascle; Pedro Bastos Rezende; Herbert Bauer; Jorge Becerra; Marc Benayoun; Joël Benzimra; Kilian Berz; Rohit Bhagat; Laurent Billés-Garabedian; Lamberto Biscarini; Eric Bismuth; Rolf Bixner; Mark Blaxill; Renata Bochi; Ralph Boehlke; John Bogert; Marcus Bokkerink; Elaine Boltz; Philippe Bongrand; Michael Book; Lucy Brady; Andrew Brennan; J. Kevin Bright; Christophe Brognaux; Sophie Bromberg; Charles-André Brouwers; Vivian Browning; John Budd; Marc Budim; William H. L. Burnside; Sylvia Butzke; Charmian Caines; Alain Calmé; François Candelon; German Carmona; Paul Carr; Phil Catchings; Jean-Michel Caye; Christian Cerda; Jacques Chapuis; Thierry Chassaing; Vincent Chin; Soyoung Choi; Tina Choi; Hervé Chopard; Jeffrey Chua; Raffaele Cicala; Stéphane Cohen-Ganouna; Jennifer Comparoni; Christophe Condat; Alessandro Coppo; Thomas Corra; Carlos Costa; Ken Crumley; Stefan Dab; François Dalens; Nan DasGupta; Joe Davis; Niamh Dawson; Emmanuel De Courcel; Jesús De Juan; Bruno De Saint-Florent; Filiep Deforche; Michael Deimler; Ulrika Dellby; Sebastian DiGrande; Yves Djorno; John Dunlap; Sylvain Duranton; Christophe Duthoit; Muzaffer Egeli; Petter Eilertsen; Henry Elkington; Laura Entwistle; Pedro Esquivias; Philip Evans; Jeannine Everett; Paul Fenaroli; Alastair Flanagan; Colm Foley; John Frantz; Michel Frédeau; Mark Freed-man; Grant Freeland; Daniel Friedman; Ian Frost; Xavier Galtier; John Garabedian; Gerardo Garbulsky; Jeff Gell; Marc Gilbert; David Gilmour; Reginald Gilyard; Marin Gjaja; Karen Gordon; Paul Gordon; Emile Gostelie; James Goth; Gregory Gottlieb; Antoine Gourevitch; Oliver Graham; Cliff Grevler; Claus Peter Groos; Howard Grosfield; Robert Grübner; Steven Gunby; Manish Gupta; Julie Han; Tracy Hankin; Gerry Hansell; Nicolas Harlé; Brian Harris; Jens Harsæ; Pat Heidkamp; Andre Helfenstein; Katrina Helmkamp; James Hemerling; Jérôme Hervé; Dieter Heuskel; Ralph Heuwing; Matt Holland; Dave Houggy; Hubert Hsu; Emmanuel Huet; Rich Hutchinson; Jean Manuel Izaret; Alan Jackson; David Jacobs; Dan Jansen; Yvan Jansen; Jill Jerez; Jim Jewell; David Jin; Dan Johnson; Mark Joiner; Barry Jones; Lidia Juszko; Osamu Karita; Errol Katz; Gerhard Kebbel; Donna-Marie Kelly; Ben Keneally; Simon Kennedy; Jaap Kerstjens; Nicholas Keuper; David Kim; Suyeong Kim; Kermit King; Mark Kistulinec; Martin Koehler; Kim Wee Koh; Satoshi Komiya; Dietmar Kottmann; Jeffrey Kotzen; Elena Krasnoperova; Stephen Kremser; Matthew A. Krentz; Kaj Kulp; Doug Kush; Marion Kusterer; Robert Lachenauer; Jonas Lagerstedt; Edwin Lai; Federico Lalatta Costerbosa; Alvin Lam; Mathieu Lamiaux; Peter Lawyer; Jean Lebreton; Marjorie Lee; Rich Lesser; Kevin Lewis; Tian Shu (Carol) Liao; Tomas Lindén; John Lindquist; Alexander Lintner; Derek Locke; Roland Loehner; Ross Love; Mikael Lövgren; Jim Lowry; Mark Lubkeman; Tom Lutz; Robert Maciejko; D. G. Macpherson; Katherine Manfred; Joe Manget; Sharon Marcil; Todd Marsh; Tony Massaro; Bjørn Matre; Steven D. Matthesen; Bengt Maunsbach; Heino Meerkatt; Antonella Mei-Pochtler; José Manuel Méndez; David Michael; Arnaud Miconnet; Anna Minto-Sparks; Arnon Mishkin; Takashi Mitachi; Jean Mixer; Heinz Möllenkamp; Neil Monnery; Nuno Monteiro; Sandy Moose; Yves Morieux; Atsushi Morisawa; Jeff Mory; Kiyan Nouchirvani; Holger Odenstein; Paul Orlander; Shinji Oshige; Kent Owens; Sang Yong Park; Boyd Pederson; Stephanie Peponis; Wanda Perkins; Guillermo Peschard; Pramoad Phornprapha; Nicola Pianon; David Picard; Stéphane Potier; Anthony Pralle; Paige Price; Daphne Psacharopoulos; Collins Qian; Stuart Quickenden; Stefan Rasch; Vaishali Rastogi; Martin Reeves; Michael Regnier; Joey Reiman; Axel Reinaud; Byung Nam Rhee; Laurent Richaud; David Rickard; Martina Rißmann; Félix Rivera; Philippe Roch; Catherine Roche; Tad Roselund; François Rouzaud; Richard Rubenstein; Immo Rupf; Carl Rutstein; Hideaki Saito; Rohan Sajdeh; Camille Saussois; Katharine B. Sayre; Olivier Scaramucci; Jacob Schambye; Jan Scheffler; Eddy Schmitt; Wouter-Jan Schouten; Erik Schumacher; Just Schürmann; Friedrich Schwandt; Naoki Shigetake; Harold Sirkin; David Skeels; George Stalk; Peter Stanger; Simon Stephenson; Karen Sterling; Abraham Stern; Carl Stern; Rainer Strack; Hiroaki Sugita; Greg Sutherland; David Tap-per; Lars Terney; Steven Thogmartin; Frédéric Tiberghien; Peter Tonagh; Carlos Trevijano; Ricard Tubau; Jari Tuomala; Kazunari Uchida; Tetsuya Uekusa; Rob van Haastrecht; Laurent van Lerberghe; Bruno van Lierde; Geoffroy van Raemdonck; Mark Verheyden; Nicolaus von Hardenberg; Carina von Knoop; Kevin Waddell; John Wallace; Bernd Waltermann; David Webb; Thomas Wenrich; Tania Elizabeth Whyte; Jens Willenbockel; Alan Wise; John Wong; Wendy Woods; Thomas Wurster; Yuichi Yatsuhashi; Xudong Yin; Jun Yokohama; Byung Suk Yoon; Mehmet Yukselen; Marie-Thérèse Zambon; Yu (Vivian) Zheng.
In addition, we would like to acknowledge the contributions of other local colleagues in Chicago, including Georgia Alexakis; Nik Bafana; Patrick Campbell; Kristen Didio; Steven Gearhart; Karthik Hariharan; Doug Hohner; Dennis Howe; Sims Hulings; Paul Jene; Kevin Kornoelje; Kelly Ladiges; Jill Linderoth; Katie Moody; Julie Nelson; Hajo Oltmanns; David Panzer; Gaurav Sharma; and Terrilynn Short.