Michael
J. Silverstein
is a senior partner at The Boston Consulting Group. He has consulted
with the world’s leading consumer and retail companies. He
is co-author, with Neil J. Fiske, of Trading Up: The New American
Luxury (Portfolio) which introduced the trading up concept
that middle class consumers will distort their spending to pay a
premium for goods and services in certain categories of great personal
value to them into the business lexicon. It was a BusinessWeek
bestseller and winner of the Berry-AMA Book Prize for best marketing
book of 2003. Trading Up was released in a revised and
updated hardcover edition in 2005, has been translated into 12 languages,
and will appear in paperback for the first time in spring, 2008.
Michael also authored Treasure Hunt: Inside the Mind of the
New Consumer (Portfolio 2006) which broadened the concept of
trading up to include all levels of spending and all classes of
consumers; it showed that all consumers are on a treasure hunt,
trading up in some categories of goods and trading down in most
others, regardless of income.
As a Senior
Partner and Managing Director of The Boston Consulting Group, Michael
has worked with some of the most important and successful consumer
companies in the world. He is considered the leading authority on
consumer purchasing behavior and consumer-driven innovation and
has been quoted widely in The New York Times, The Wall Street
Journal, BusinessWeek, Forbes, Fortune, The Economist, USA Today
and many other leading publications. He has appeared on CBC, CNN,
Fox, CNBC, ABC and other television networks. During the past five
years he has given the keynote address at more than 150 major conferences
with a total of over 50,000 attendees.
Kate
Sayre
is a Partner in the New York office of The Boston Consulting Group.
She leads the local consumer goods and retail practice as well as
the firm’s global efforts on the topic of marketing effectiveness.
Kate has consulted for leading media, consumer, and retail companies
as well as governments and not-for-profits. While her work has spanned
a variety of strategic and operational issues, she has deep expertise
in strategies driven by consumer research and insights, branding and
marketing effectiveness. She is a passionate mentor and advocate of
women at BCG and beyond.
Kate began her career as a brand manager in Austria and has lived
and worked in eight countries in Europe, Asia, and Africa. She holds
an MBA from Insead and an MA in International Politics and Economics
from Johns Hopkins SAIS.
John
Butman, collaborating writer, has helped to develop and create
more than fifteen books, including two best-selling collaborations
with Michael J. Silverstein: Trading Up and Treasure
Hunt. John’s works have been translated into twenty languages,
sold over a million copies, and appeared on the bestseller lists of
The New York Times, BusinessWeek,
Globe and Mail, and The Boston Globe.
