Project Description
Behind closed doors with China’s luxury collectors
The brief
A Swiss luxury group, owner of some of the world’s best-known jewellery and watch houses, was building a global picture of its clients: how they live, what they value, and what they expect from a luxury brand. China was the market it understood least and needed most. It asked us for ten filmed interviews in Shanghai and Beijing, inside the homes of real clients, across five profiles running from old-money Conservatives and status-conscious Insiders to young Conspicuous buyers, Aspirants and Discreet occasional buyers.
Why it was hard
In China, wealth is private. The people the client wanted to meet do not answer panel invitations, and they do not let strangers film their jewellery boxes for a cash incentive. Many have staff whose job is to keep people like us out. On top of finding them, every respondent had to be the real thing: a genuine owner of the pieces they showed, with a collection that matched their profile.
How we did it
We recruited almost entirely through personal networks. Sophia and the team worked through private bankers, club members, luxury retail contacts and past respondents, and each introduction came from someone the candidate already trusted. Several agreed only after meeting Sophia over tea first, to understand who would be in their home and why. In the end guanxi, not money, opened the doors.
Every candidate was checked before the client saw a name. We confirmed profile fit through a full screener by phone, cross-checked purchase history and collection details with the introducer, and reviewed photos of key pieces in advance, so there were no surprises on the day.
Sophia conducted the interviews herself, in Mandarin, with a two-person crew using small cameras and no lighting rigs, so homes felt like homes rather than film sets. Respondents walked us through watch safes, jewellery boxes, dressing rooms and handbag collections, and talked about why each piece mattered. A Beijing Conservative explained the watches he was keeping for his son; a young Shanghai Conspicuous buyer showed us which pieces she wore to be seen and which she kept for herself.
Afterwards our translators produced full English transcripts and subtitled every film, so the client’s teams in Europe could watch the interviews as if they had been in the room.
What the client got
Ten intimate films and transcripts, one or more for each profile, which fed directly into the group’s worldwide client segmentation. They showed the client something it could not see any other way: its most valuable customers, at home, speaking freely.
What it shows
When the respondents are the hardest people in China to reach, panels and cold calls do not work. Trusted networks, careful verification and a founder who handles the most sensitive conversations herself do.
Services: hard-to-reach recruitment · ethnography and home visits · in-depth interviews · translation
