Caitlin Graham | Director of Strategy & Performance
In a world of instant gratification and endless choice, how important is brand building versus performance marketing?
Based on recent GWI consumer studies, I would argue that it’s not a choice between the two; rather, brand building remains a critical component of any omnichannel performance marketing strategy, where modern marketing laws of growth still apply.
In high-value categories like luxury and fine jewelry, the line between "planned" and "impulsive" blurs. What appears spontaneous often follows weeks, months, or even years of build up. To capture these moments, brands must move beyond point of purchase tactics, building consistent connections across touch points to ensure top-of-mind awareness when the customer is ready to buy.
The Reality of the "Planned Impulse"
GWI’s report, Connecting the Dots 2026 reveals that among people who say they are “always impulsive” when buying luxury, half admit they already have a specific product in mind.
The researchers suggest that "What we call ‘impulse’ often reflects the activation of latent desire, not the spontaneous generation of it."
This is supported by the deep dive report Loudr commissioned with GWI, Inside the Luxury Consumer, which found that jewelry buyers plan an average of 18 days in advance, when buying something for themselves “just because”.
However, behaviors vary significantly by generation:
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Millennials & Gen Z are 21% and 16% more likely (respectively) to plan 1–2 months in advance for self-gifting. They are doing the research, vetting brand credibility, and price shopping before making the purchase.
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Baby Boomers, who over-index on brand-loyalty vs. younger generations, are 58% more likely to plan a "just because" purchase the same day they buy it. Yet, for major milestones or gifts for others, they are 86% more likely to plan 1–2 months ahead.
Regardless of the timeline, while the purchase may feel impulsive, the groundwork was laid long before, whether through weeks of research, or years of brand building.
Staying Top-Of-Mind and Front of Shelf
In the modern marketing classic How Brands Grow, Professor Byron Sharp challenges conventional wisdom with evidence-based "laws" of marketing from the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute. Two core principles, referred to as Laws of Growth, include "Mental" and “Physical” availability.
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Mental Availability is the concept that brands must build recognizable assets (slogans, colors, jingles) so consumers easily recall the brand during a purchase.
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Physical Availability is the concept of making sure the product or service is highly visible, easy to buy, and accessible across various channels. As the lines between online and in-store blur, this means staying “front of shelf” across both physical stores and digital touchpoints, from brand websites to search engines and social media.
Mental availability ensures that when a customer's latent desire naturally peaks, your brand is the automatic answer. Physical availability ensures that in the moment of "impulse" your brand is easy enough to find that a customer won’t simply buy from a competitor who is more accessible.
The Modern Omnichannel Blueprint
How do these concepts manifest in today's luxury landscape? They combine to create a seamless, omnichannel strategy.
Inside the Luxury Consumer, highlights the importance of the online-to-in-store shopping experience:
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82% of jewelry buyers research online before purchasing in-store.
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75% buy in-store after discovering the piece online.
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74% use their mobile phones to look up reviews and prices while standing inside the physical retail store.
Customers discover brands across diverse channels from TV to social media, while increasingly using AI tools for research and comparison. Traditional search, brand sites, and in-store browsing remain the primary drivers across brand discovery, research, and purchase.
Brand Consistency Is the Strategy
The modern luxury consumer is in a constant state of discovery and researching, perpetually seconds away from a purchase.
To win, brands cannot rely on a single channel or last-minute discount alone. Instead, they must build an ecosystem that reinforces recognition and credibility. By balancing mental availability with physical availability, in-store and online, brands can ensure a frictionless path to purchase.
This is where full-service marketing earns its keep as the only model built to manage mental and physical availability at once, across every channel the modern luxury consumer touches.
Want the full data behind these insights? Download Loudr's Inside the Luxury Consumer report for the complete breakdown of how today's buyers research, discover, and decide.
