For nearly a decade marketers have been talking about the rise of “inconspicuous consumption”: elite consumers’ growing affinity for discreet rather than traditionally branded luxuries. Giana Eckhardt, a professor of marketing at Royal Holloway, University of London, watched with interest as the trend developed in Europe and the United States. But it took a 2012 sabbatical in China to convince her that this was a global phenomenon to which she—and every chief marketing officer in the luxury sector—should devote full attention.
A version of this article appeared in the September 2015 issue (pp.26–27) of Harvard Business Review.