The reason I use the quotes around non-premium buyer when referring to MB and BMW is b/c that phrase doesn’t really have any clear meaning. Are we just referring discretionary income? Potential income? Percent of discretionary income that the potential buyer is willing to spend on something unnecessary (a “luxury” car, not a car in general)?
I imagine there’s plenty of “rich” people who drive Buicks. Most/all of those people will never send the $ required for an “actual” luxury brand b/c that’s not what their priority is. Not a particularly useful group of buyers to a company that wants to maximize profit on each unit sold (and not just gain it by sheer volume).
OTOH, I imagine there’s lots of people who might be stretching a bit to get into an A/CLA/2 GC. Perhaps those people absolutely can be convinced to spend more $ on a car that perhaps they can’t truly comfortably afford. Those buyers are probably pretty important to a luxury brand (but obviously not as important as the people who can easily afford an S-Class or G-wagen). Presumably the Buick group and the MB/BMW groups will respond to different types of marketing.
So different marketing and market positioning does affect whether a brand is considered premium in the buyer’s mind.
But, again, not a business or marketing person, so… It’d actually be really interesting to hear from someone who does car marketing.
And back to the thread about the TLX. 