Even though Italian writer Cesare Pavese gave us this undeniably wise comment that ‘everything is a luxury, starting with being in this world’, rather basically we still need to define what luxury should mean.
Our playbook reads as follows: craftmanship, beauty, design, perfection, exceptionalism, exquisite aesthetics all backed by obsessive founding beliefs, and possibly a culture and values rooted in a very specific local past.
Ideally a luxury brand founder story about an innovator beating tough economic times or hard personal circumstances. Or a contemporary ‘David versus Goliath’ brand narrative featuring a young entrepreneur wanting to do better than the established big guns.
Founder stories are important. By celebrating them, a brand can show consistency and, as a result, trust.
Luxury means authenticity. Credibility and honesty help make a brand unique. The marketing world, framed by eco-consciousness and the lack of trust we have in so many other areas of our lives, demands transparency.
Building brand authenticity takes various forms: like using nature to signal quality, commitment, and resources from faraway places using rare raw materials; traditional craftsmanship to signal heritage; and sincere stories of innovations, originality and sustainability.
And history is important in luxury. Compared to others, luxury brands are unusual in this one metaphysical sense as their ‘birth’ is more crucial to marketing than most. ‘Founded in...', 'Established in...', and 'Since...' are core features of much messaging and logo design..
Luxury brands always get the language right. We like words as opulent and crafted as the products we are selling. Everything should taste delicious, be sumptuous, lusciously fragranced, handcrafted, timeless, exquisitely finished and made to last forever.
We like to get the aura and ambience right. We understand how the cues of art, history and culture ennoble brands and customers. To create the right aura, you must be as real and pure as possible. Think art galleries or five-star hotels.
Lastly and most obviously, know thy customer. UHNW’s and HNW’s are a famously hard-to-reach niche group. Market research is an essential part of any serious company’s marketing plan. It dictates brand strategy, informs resource allocation, and helps brands understand their consumers.
Though quantitative market research (usage and attitude studies) has always been with us, going beyond the numbers has always interested us – and is especially relevant for marketing luxury brands.
Anew luxury brand and research consultancy strives always for deeper insight into human behaviour, and the experiential part of being a luxury brand consumer– not just the process of buying, but the actual experience of owning and consuming a product/service. And understanding the context surrounding consumers when they make their choices.
We want to know the role of emotions, feelings, moods, and other affective aspects of consumption. It matters in luxury brand marketing.
Get the right luxury brand experts to help
Whether it is insights from market research, luxury brand strategy development, new brand names, luxury logo design, messaging, luxury copywriting, online and offline content or coffee table books we are London-based luxury experts.
We help companies - such as Peninsula Hotels, Bombardier, Universal Music, Boodles, and Hatch Mansfield - increase brand profitability through sharper insights, distinctive propositions, creative ideas and faultless execution.
We are particularly adept at working directly with luxury brands, business owners, start-ups and entrepreneurs who are committed to sustainability, outstanding quality and craft.
To get in touch do drop us an email. We'd be delighted to meet for a coffee, either face-to-face or virtually to discuss your brief
