Breaking Into the Luxury Consideration Set

How a Premium Automaker Used Cultural Intelligence to Unlock New Growth Among Asian American Buyers — Driving Dealer Momentum and Stronger Sales Growth

The Challenge

A global premium automotive brand had strong brand equity in the U.S., but it faced an important strategic gap.

Consumers respected the brand for its engineering quality and safety leadership, yet it was not consistently appearing in the luxury consideration set for key multicultural buyers — particularly Asian Americans.

At the same time, the company was repositioning the brand for the future, evolving from a legacy luxury automaker toward a modern identity centered on electrification, design innovation, and progressive premium values.

To accelerate growth, the brand needed to:

• Increase cultural resonance with high-value multicultural luxury buyers
• Strengthen relevance with Asian American consumers — one of the fastest-growing luxury vehicle segments
• Modernize its premium positioning without alienating its loyal customer base
• Ensure new campaigns would resonate authentically across diverse audiences

The company partnered with Collage Group to uncover the cultural drivers shaping premium automotive purchase decisions and identify new opportunities for growth.

The Cultural Insight

Using Collage’s Brand Cultural Fluency Quotient (B-CFQ) and proprietary cultural audience data, the analysis revealed a clear opportunity.

While the brand performed strongly on trust, it significantly under-indexed on the drivers that influence purchase consideration:

• Cultural fit with multicultural lifestyles
• Resonance in brand storytelling
• Emotional memories and advocacy

Among Asian American luxury buyers specifically, the brand was respected — but rarely top-of-mind in the luxury consideration set.

Collage uncovered three cultural drivers shaping premium vehicle purchase decisions.

Craftsmanship Defines Premium

Asian American consumers strongly associate luxury vehicles with visible craftsmanship, thoughtful design details, and quality materials.

Family Approval Drives Consideration

Luxury vehicle purchases often carry multi-generational influence. Messaging that reflects family pride and shared success resonates strongly.

Heritage Signals Credibility

Brands with authentic legacy and purpose build stronger advocacy — particularly when heritage is framed as forward-looking innovation.

These insights revealed a powerful opportunity: the brand’s design heritage and engineering credibility already aligned with these values — but those strengths had not yet been translated into culturally resonant storytelling.

The Strategy

Collage partnered with the brand to translate cultural insight into a focused creative and media strategy designed to unlock growth among multicultural premium buyers.

Key initiatives included:

Reframing Premium Through Craftsmanship

Creative messaging emphasized design precision, quality materials, and engineering heritage — signals strongly associated with luxury among Asian American buyers.

Centering Family and Shared Success

Campaign storytelling incorporated modern family dynamics and multi-generational moments to reflect authentic cultural experiences.

Linking Heritage to Electrification

Rather than abandoning its legacy, the brand positioned its long-standing engineering expertise as the foundation for its electrified future.

Testing Creative Through CultureRate Ad Measurement

Collage evaluated campaign concepts using its CultureRate methodology to ensure messaging resonated across multicultural audiences before launch.

The Results

Within months of launching the campaign, the brand saw measurable momentum across key audiences and dealerships.

+28% Increase in Purchase Intent Among Asian American Consumers

The campaign more than doubled pre-campaign interest levels.

Strong Halo Effect Across Multicultural Buyers

• +19pp purchase intent lift among Black consumers
• +18pp purchase intent lift among bicultural Hispanic consumers
• +10pp purchase intent lift among acculturated Hispanic consumers

Improved Competitive Positioning

Following the campaign, the brand’s cultural resonance with Asian American luxury buyers reached parity with leading Asian luxury automotive brands.

Driving Dealer Momentum and Stronger Sales Growth

The increase in brand consideration translated into stronger showroom traffic and increased vehicle sales across key multicultural markets.

Strategic Investment Shift

Encouraged by the results, the company set a new objective to allocate 40% of future marketing investment toward multicultural audiences, embedding cultural intelligence into its long-term growth strategy.