The HENRY Consumer: High Earners, Not Rich Yet.

HENRY – high earners, not rich yet – describes consumers who are high earners but whose income is largely dedicated to covering their high costs of living. First coined to describe a segment of millennials, members of Gen X and Boomer generations are now categorized as HENRYs if their spending behavior is driven by aspirational lifestyles they hope to fully afford in the future.

The high costs of HENRY lifestyles are often a combination of elite education, residency in high-cost-of-living areas and aspirational purchasing behaviors. Even receiving incomes within the top 20%, this segment currently has few assets saved and invested. Described as the “working rich,” HENRYs emerged as a target for financial services and wealth management – classified as a prime opportunity for brands to become a part of these consumers’ upcoming luxury lifestyle. Sharing the broader millennial generation’s distrust of traditional financial institutions, HENRYs are interested in digital offerings that provide personalized and accessible data, real-time education, and automated advising strategies.

Interested in learning more about the unique behaviors of HENRY consumers? Download the report here.

Feeding our hearts – and the community.

On January 20, we paused to serve our neighbors and communities in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service. This year, we gave our time to Second Harvest Heartland, whose belief is no one should ever go hungry.

Second Harvest provides children, parents and seniors the resources to find their next meal. They procure food from manufacturers, farmers, hotels and restaurants, and hold food drives where they are able to distribute enough food for more than 89 million meals annually, ensuring food safety throughout the entire process. This past Monday, we focused on providing food to the 1 in 8 children who don’t know where their next meal will come from. Alongside other community members, we sorted, repackaged and labeled donated items for children, parents and seniors. As a community, we packed 4,604 pounds of rice, which equals 3,936 meals.

We laughed, We cried, We watched a lot of ads.

Each year, our team attends a screening of the British Arrows Awards, which celebrates the U.K.’s most innovative, daring commercials. When you work in marketing, watching ads can spark a number of thoughts and emotions. Initial reactions (whether tears or laughter) quickly turn into “Wait, what was that brand trying to accomplish? Who were they hoping to reach?”

And in that spirit, here’s a short list of ads that stood out to our team­ – both as consumers and as marketers:

Great Shows Stay with You: Most networks promote their shows through trailers. Amazon Prime took a different tack, imagining a world where viewers become the characters they watch. Farfetched? Absolutely. But its originality creates memorability.

#PhonesAreGood: Culturally, our relationship with technology is under fire. In this spot, wireless provider Three combats the negativity by reminding us of the ways smartphones make our lives better.

Skittles Pride: Plenty of companies participate in cause marketing, but few are able to find such a natural, humble way to connect their brand to the cause. And don’t miss the latest campaign extension – limited-edition packaging created by artists, illustrators and designers who identify as LGBTQ+.

IKEA Ghosts: This one is just plain fun. Enjoy!

A Year Filled with Wisdom.

When we launched our Quote to Self project this past February, we were unsure where it would take us, who we would meet and if people would even participate. Asking the question “What advice would you give to your 15-year-old self?” turned into more than we expected. Check out a few highlights from our team:

• We met a man in Budapest who was reading on a bench by the Danube. When we asked him “The Question,” he thought about it, shook his head and said, “I can’t. That is too big of a question.” We were walking around a nearby park about an hour later when the same man came up to us and said excitedly, “OK, I have an answer now. I would tell myself not to be afraid. Fear is a lie. You can do whatever you want and be whatever you want to be.” We felt honored that he took the time to find us.
• On a very hot June afternoon, we came across a photographer from California who was visiting Minneapolis. He answered our question in an extremely positive manner: “It will work out, and in the end you’ll get to where you’re trying to go. Crawl before you walk, crawl before you walk.” We laughed with him and had a short conversation. Afterward, he took our photo and we parted ways.
• In Prague, on the Charles Bridge, we met a Scottish man who now lives and works in Prague. He said he rarely goes to the touristy parts of the city but felt the urge to visit that day. He, like most others we met, was skeptical upon our approach but quickly warmed up. We had a great five- to 10-minute conversation (much longer than most of our interactions), and at the end he said he was so glad he decided to follow his urge to be a tourist that day. His advice: “I trust my 15-year-old self to be the same as my now 50-year-old self. And I wouldn’t try to ask my 50-year-old self to give advice to me because I’m the same man as I was then and the same person. I don’t need to advise me and I couldn’t advise him.”
• We asked a mother at United Noodle (an Asian marketplace) with two kids under the age of 7 – one in her arms and another at her feet. At first she was flustered by the commotion and our request, but then she paused to think about it and looked at her kids. Her response was a mixture of reflecting on her life and thinking about her kids. It stayed with us because it was such a great dynamic of looking into the past and the future.

Now, that’s just a snippet of what happened in the last 10 months. To see more stories, visit our Quote to Self webpage or our Instagram gallery.

A Year to Celebrate.

As we reflect on 2019, our thoughts encompass joy, achievements, and also what we’ve learned. Yet if we had to describe the past year in one word, it’s definitely celebratory.

Here’s just a quick recap of what happened at Fusion Hill in 2019:

• We celebrated 15 years of business by giving back to five global organizations.
• We donated our research, strategy and creative services to help a nonprofit called Freeset deepen their global impact by shifting their brand positioning and developing fresh new creative.
• We launched a project called Quote to Self that took us across the globe to India, Austria, Hungary and the Czech Republic.
• Our director of research and strategy, Nina Gazel, won AdFed’s 32 Under 32 award.
• Our team went to 15 conferences around the U.S. and on one trend trip to Japan.

Heading into the busy holiday season, we hope you’ll find a moment to reflect on the joys 2019 has brought you too. And we hope Thanksgiving brings you time to relax and enjoy the people who are most important in your life.

See you soon, 2020.