In recent years, many companies have sprung up that offer luxury companies ways to tap the new affluent class, the ‘new rich’ in Japan. Their methods range from high class, exclusive magazines, over collaboration marketing with exclusive credit card companies such as Diners Club, to more sophisticated approaches that include the creation of marketing environments and exclusive clubs and services for a limited audience. Many companies offer a list of HNWIs and grant their clients access to those individuals, others offer concierge services or high-class personel for the execution of events. The quality level of the different solutions varies tremendously, and most infomaterial was available only in Japanese. This section offers detailed information on the different concepts.

Consumers shop in different ways and they form their opinions prior to purchase in different ways. The social networks that consumers interact with are a major part in creating role-models and social codes that form the context of consumption. The conceot of consumer levels tries a new approach for categorizing luxury consumers, by not differntiating them by wealth level or income, but by their different social networks. We come up with three levels that show different social patterns and incentive structures. The analysis will differentiate between consumer level 1 people who buy products of a luxury company but do not have the assets or income to qualify them for a rich lifestyle, who use luxury consumption as a way to distinguish themselves within their limited social mobility, consumer level 2 people exhibiting a high salary that enables them luxury consumption in certain categories, but not in all, who use luxury consumption to define their way up the social ladder, often within a corporate environment, and consumer level 3 people encompassing both HNWIs and individuals with an extraordinary income, qualifying them for an active premium consumption lifestyle and with access to extensive social networks and connections.

Acquiring customers for luxury brands must be differentiated by wealth level and the customer's marketing exclusivity, meaning the inclination of a consumer to be not receptive for mass marketing environments and mass media. The theory is that the higher the wealth level, the less receptive the customer is to normal marketing channels. The introduced concept of marketing exclusivity offers a way for luxury companies to assess their own customers and to find channels that will be able to establish a connection. It offesr a way of categorizing environments and situations by the differences in marketing activities that are possible there. Marketing is not only created by companies`marketing department. It is created in interaction with the cutsomer. The most exclusive of all environments is personal communication between high-class indivuduals. This exclusive word of mouth is what luxury companies should aim for.