Aspirational brand

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In consumer marketing, an aspirational brand (or product) is one that a large segment of its exposure audience wishes to own, but for economical reasons cannot. An aspirational product implies certain positive characteristics to the user, but the supply appears limited due to limited production quantities.

An important characteristic of an aspirational product is that the part of its exposure audience that is at present economically unable to purchase it, thinks of itself as having a fair probability of at a certain point in the future being able to do so. This part of the exposure audience is referred to as the aspiring audience, whereas the part of the exposure audience that already can afford the product is called the consumption audience. Consumption audience and aspiring audience together form the aspirational product's target audience, which typically represents 30%-60% of the exposure audience

A special category of aspirational brands are super-aspirational brands.

As an example, to a European/American exposure audience luxury car maker BMW or watch maker Rolex typically are aspirational brands. However, to a Chinese exposure audience, BMW and Rolex may qualify as super-aspirational brands.

Weak aspirational brands have target audiences that are almost as large as their exposure audiences (e.g. mp3 player brands), and are therefore slowly becoming commodity brands, e.g. brands with consumption audiences that coincide with the exposure audience (and therefore, brands without an aspiring audience).

As a general rule, an aspirational brand and its products can command a price premium in the marketplace over a commodity brand. This ability can to a large extent be explained by the consumer's need for invidious consumption for which he is willing to pay a premium. The smaller the size of the product's target audience compared to the exposure audience, the more the product satisfies this need, and the higher the premium that such a consumer is prepared to pay.