Why? It is so important when you use celebrity endorsement that the celebrity matches the brand DNA and the brand values.
Jaeger Lecoultre's values are elegance, 'savoir faire' and precision.
Who denies that Diane is not elegant and does not look educated?
My opinion? Well chosen Jaeger! Congratulations!
Like every aspect of the brand, it has to match the general values and DNA. It's the same thing for the celebrity endorsement!
Now let's hope she don't use white powder like miss Kate Moss...
I just stumbled upon this latest news of Ducati Motorcycles and I think this fits the course perfectly.
Ducati Motorcycles has recently collaborated with Cigarette Powerboats, to make a race boat called the Racing 42x Ducati Edition. Not a pure brand extension, but it leans towards this module.
Why did Cigarette work together with Ducati?
Both brands have, according to me, similar identities and values but in different product categories.
The brands stands for racing, speed and fun. Some parts of the visualization of the brands, as seen in last class, are the same as well. The colors, for example, are black and red for both brands, representing speed, masculinity and passion.
Both pictures are screenshots of the brands. If one wouldn't know. you would say that this is the same brand.
With similar values, both brands attract similar target audience. (with a different income probably!?) Therefore, the collaboration is a perfect fit!
Looking forward on buying such a boat, in some years ;-)
Allright! Another monday, another blogpost about last week's Managing Luxury Brand Class.
This time, however, I don't have a lot to say. The reason being, is that our class stopped after an hour and half.
The first part of the class, we had to give presentations about a brand that we had to come up with. We just had to do some 'brand empathy', giving a character, an identity, a DNA (which I talked about before) to the brand. We had the possibility of doing:
1: Creating a new champagne, focussed on rich youngsters
2: A boutique range of hotels for wealthy singles (age 25-40)
3: A private jet service for celebrities and sports personalities
Our group consisted of myself and Costantijn, so 'the guys' went for the champagne.
The champagne we created was called Hedone. Constantijn made a bottle on his computer using photoshop but I haven't got it on mine, so when I get it from him (IF I get it from him) I will post it on this blog.
The emotions for our champagne were images that our used for HEDKANDI, but we figured out that these images fitted the brand excellent.
For HEDONE, it is all about young, sexy, fun and extravagant.
A good sentence to go with our brand would be:
'Enjoy yourself, others will too'
This is sort of in the line with what we do for our project for mr. Paget. So we have an idea on what our target audience wants.
The other groups came up with other ideas:
One group also did a champagne. They didn't name it but it was all about the color purple. The champagne would be (almost) exclusively a drink for women. It represents female elegancy.
The packing would be of high luxury and the face for the brand would be the Olson twins. This group felt like they would fit their brand perfectly.
Wonder what they would call it though...?
A private jet company!
Prestigious, classy, comfort, deluxe, stylish...
Everything a private jet needs, and more!
The Jet Setter Company, with a logo in black and silver, fitting in speed and motion into the logo.
Wish they could give me a percentage on one though...!
The V Hotel. (No, no, we didn't get our inspiration from the W hotel!)
However, the V made sense in their explication. This hotel would be very exclusive and would be located in Soho. The name 'V' comes from the exclusive partnership with Vertu, offering the same concierge-service.
The focus in the hotel would be on the design, because Philippe Starck would design every room himself.
The last group did a hotel as well. They made a powerpoint so I don't have any visuals on their project but I will describe it.
They created a hotel, called Rendez-Vous. This hotel would have the typical French Baroque style. Pillows, chandeliers, red everywhere, cosy, intimate,... everything you can imagine. Just a shame I haven't got the visual to show you.
These small projects were actually also the introduction to the (short) lecture. The lecture was about creating Multi-faceted multi sensory luxury brands. This technique exists of visualizing the brand DNA and personality.
For example: What color would the brand be, what car would it drive, which person should it be?
We already did this in our first semester with mr. Paget. Here is the brand matrix (and an example of visualizing) of a luxury brand. The brand itself was called Black Diamond Vodka.
We did have some experience in visualizing a brand.
The lecture ended with some advise every luxury brand manager should consider!
The laws of marketing do not apply on luxury brands! There are many differences.
- Luxury brands sell on emotions. Without a story or telling people something, it will fail.
- - Brands live in our dream. A lot of these brands we aspire to, until eventually one day, we can buy them
- - Own/desired identity: Luxury brands has to fit our own (or wanted)identity and has to match our own values
- - Uniqueness: If a brand cannot offer something else than the competitors, you are just one in a dozen.
- - Illogical customer loyalty: Some brands see the loyalty go up, if their prices go up. A luxury customer is not the same a 'normal' customer.
Finally found some time to write about my second class of Managing Luxury Brands. God, what a week!
But we got Monday off, so Monday is working day.
Anyway, second class was all about the packaging of luxury brands and a luxury brand's DNA. But we started off by presenting ourselves to the class, again!
'Hi my name is Vic. I'm from Belgium. I did a Ba in Business Administration, followed by a Master in Marketing. I'm doing this MA because I'm very interested in the area of luxury. My area of interest in the field of luxury are night/beach clubs, alcohol, cars, technology, watches, etc. Just not the fashion side to it. I hope to get to know the differences between the management of luxury brands and normal brands. I also want to get to have an insight on how luxury brands make people want your products, without needing them!'
Mrs Gossain made us do this presentation because she promised to take the course to us. She will ( at least she promised! No pressure ;-) ) involve some examples from the areas in which we are interested, to make the course more interactive, tangible and interesting. Looking forward to that!
After the presentations the class really kicked off. It started with two lessons one should remember when it comes to luxury brands:
- A luxury brand (the story around it, the name, the mystery,...) has a higher value than its tastable equity.
- Luxury brands have a reputation that has to be respected. ( Louis Vuitton, for example, never do sales on its products)
Brand DNA
What is a brand's DNA? We already saw this subject in the classes of mr. Paget. From that class we knew that a brand can be visualized by using archetypes, a brand matrix and stylistic position.
Now we used a slightly different approach to a brand's DNA.
What makes a brand?
- Brand's vision: It defines what the brand is, and where it wants to go. It helps define the future aspirations of the company
- Brand Essence: This is the brand's DNA. It defines the 'gut feel' of the brand.
- Brand Positioning: The space a brand should occupy in the minds of the consumers within the competitive arena.
- Brand Values: What the company tries to achieve, in terms of performance, values, innovation, etc.
But what is the brand DNA exactly according to our class?
Brand Conception (understanding who you are as a brand), Brand Image (brand differentiation), Creator of the brand, slogan, creating dreams, colors, craftsmanship, specific style of the brands, heritage...
We were going in a good direction!
The brand essence (DNA) is fueled by: emotions, celebrity endorsement, visual code, style/photography, name, senses and experience.
Emotions
From one extreme emotion.
To another.
Do you need any other examples of how emotions fuel a luxury brand's DNA? ( The emotions have to be in line with the values and positioning of the brand. Can you imagine Tiffany making a commercial like the AP one?)
Celebrity Endorsement
The celebrity a brand choose, has to fit the image of the brand. There is an extra danger using celebrities as endorsement for your brand.
You might remember these cases:
And now? Stick with them or drop them?
It is an important choice that your company has to make!
Visual Code
Because who doesn't recognize following logos:
Style/Photography
Every respected brand has a certain style that is being used throughout everything they use. From websites, to advertising and the pictures of advertising.
Take Lamborghini for example.
Lamborghini uses the same style throughout their communication. Shops are black and white, pictures are black and white, and the website is black and white. They use a very minimalistic visual style so that all the attention is drawn to the cars.
Name
There is a big difference in the approach of using names between luxury brands and normal brands.
Normal, mass-market brands use names that are short and easy to remember.
This approach doesn't work for luxury brands. The name is something that fuels the dreams, the aspiration of a luxury brand as well. It cannot be meaningless.
Most of the times, the name of a luxury brand is the name of its founder or creator.
Some examples:
A name feeds the myth, feeds the emotions, feeds the WANT towards a brand.
Senses+Experience
Luxury brands also uses the consumers senses to feel the brand. The best example for using senses are car manufacturers . Inviting potential customers for test drives to smell the leather, hold the steering wheel, hear the motor, experience the speed.
Packaging
Packaging is an important part of the luxury brand strategy. Why?
Our mutual class answers: Brand Image, reproduction of product quality, first image/touch of the brand, cheap advertisement platform, built up the excitement, adding collectibles, etc.
The packaging of luxury brands also have in common that it is of a higher quality than normal packaging and that it complements the brand.
For example: Louis Vuitton packaging exists of a couple of layers. First you have to bought product. This goes in a bag like the brown one on the picture. The bag goes in a hard cardboard box, that eventually goes into a high quality, hard paper board bag.
The big question about packaging remains: Which packaging is the most successful of them all?
Well, we cannot give an answer to this. Packaging have to be integrated in the communication style of the brand. It has to fit the image of the brand, the values.
Two major lessons can be learned after having this class:
- Whatever you choose to do as a brand, make sure everything fits and is complementary. Do everything in line with your objectives, values and brand DNA. There are no exceptions to this rule, or you might bring doubt to the customers.
- Use your brand DNA wisely to differentiate yourself from competitors. Without a clear brand personality, you might end up being forgotten.
Up to next class, for which we have to make a mood board for and non-existing champagne brand for young and rich kids.
Like I said in last message, my ideas are always better when popping in my mind and I think I got myself a good one for the individual essay.
The essay is all about a brand extension, existing or non-existing.
While walking in Selfridges searching a present for my girlfriend, I noticed a certain store that has a very specific brand identity and that holds very particular values. And it's almost Valentine, so everybody is in a romantic mood anyway! So, therefore my idea sort of looks like this, when I put it into pictures:
+
=
Ultimate Love and Romance Experience?!
Just a preview of an idea, a bit of a teaser. Will talk about this with my teacher and I will let you know my final idea. Not going in to deep on this right now.
First class of Managing Luxury Brands was an introduction class. The two lecturers are John Harrison and Serena Gossain.
Which topics did we discuss?
Well, like in every first class we did a little module introduction. Getting to know what the teachers are expecting of us. The most important part of this introduction was the explanation of the final grading for this course. We were given 2 assignments to finish by the end of this module:
- 1) The first assignment is a presentation on an existing or new brand expansion. I will think about this later. When something pops into my mind, it’s mostly a better idea than having a brainstorm session about it.
- 2) The second one is keeping a blog/diary/… That is exactly what I’m doing right now. I’m asking next week if it is possible to type it and do it like this, or to write it down and make it more ‘personal’. I’d figure out that will be Mrs. Gossain preference but she will have a hard time reading through my unreadable handwriting. It’s is in all our best interests that I do it like this. :-)
The 'theoretical' introduction to the course was coming from the book: "Luxury Brand Management: A World of Privilege", which I happened to read in the first semester. It was kind of nice seeing things you knew from reading that are used in an actual course. Money well spent!
The topics that we discussed from the book were the paradox of luxury brand management and we paid attention to an extract with some questions.
Luxury brands are managed different than mass brands because of following characteristics of the industry:
- -High Price
- -High Cost
- -Crafsmanship
- - Limited Distribution
- - Low Promotional Activities
- -Advertising with no sophisticated copy strategy
(Luxury Brand Management, 2008)
The management a luxury brand company needs, is therefore completely opposite of what a 'normal' mass product company is expected to do!
Following questions were added to the extract of the book.
Q1: Are there any other examples you can provide where design has been the highest priority?
A:
Yes, we can think of some examples! When you think of it, luxury brands are all about design. It doesn't matter if the design is ugly or not. Design is design, hate it or love it. Maybe this is one conclusion we could give on luxury brands? All of them are design-related, and you even hate this or love it!
Q2: Can you think of an example of where the design code may have actually hindered or damaged a particular luxury brand?
A: What is the one thing that you don't want to happen to your luxury brand? Right, get taken over by the 'wrong' parts of the social class! What do I mean?
The right market for Burberry?
I'm not sure Burberry did plan on getting popular in this segment of the 'Chavvy' market!
Another problem for luxury brands these days is counterfeit products.
"Sir, you are my friend! I will give you a special price on my LV-handbags. Fake? What do you mean fake?"
It's not only the obvious counterfeit, though. The 'better fakes' are much more damaging. These products are sold for a little bit less than the original price, but are being sold in normal shops and stores. These counterfeits are less of quality and therefore more dangerous to the image original brand.
Q3: What are the important factors when designing a luxury brand?
A: Identity and values people could believe in and identify themselves with.
Quality of products
A certain inaccessibility
Generating a want-effect
Being an aspiration for people
Differentiate themselves from customers
etc...
Many books are written on this topics but these were the ones my group (consisting of Chandni and Sonalika) came up with.
We also went over some slides with some intriguing questions like:
Who are the luxury clients? The rich? How rich? Everyone? There is no typical client!
What does luxury looks like? BlingBling or Subtle? Leather or Suede?
If we summarize all the above, there is one conclusion of how luxury brands communicate:
Luxury brands communicate through all of the 5 senses.
The last assignment was trying to feel the brand identities and brand values of some different brands.
Our selection of brands was:
Jimmy Choo: SATC, HIGH Heels, Sexy, Crystals, Stones, Bling Bling.
Hermes: French, exclusive, leather, heritage, horse and riding, scarves and bags, orange, exclusive, Victoria Beckham, Old Money
Gucci: Sexy, Italian/American, Tom Ford, The Gucci Logo, Green/Red
I think I did capture the DNA of the brands above... They are all fashion brands however, and since I am a guy I'm no specialist in fashion. Maybe we missed out something, but I am pretty sure I captured the most part of the brand DNA's.
As a final first impression of the course, I must say that I think the teachers are both real gentle people. I fear a bit however that we are going to see a lot of repetition from other courses of the semester during this class.
Anyway, time will tell if I'm correct or not
Off to next writing.
Later!
Vic
Note to self: DO NOT FORGET TO DO THE THINGS FOR NEXT CLASS: SMALL PRESENTATION AND BRINGING SOME PACKAGING WITH ME TO CLASS.
