placing the advertisement of a product such as expensive jewellery or leather
handbag on a billboard in a highly tourist district of Paris could be a tool to
invite wealthy tourists to purchase the particular product or to visit the
brand’s store while in Paris. In this case, the advertisement is brand-specific.
Advertisements could also have a hybrid objective between brand and prod-
uct specificity but if the objective is not set prior to deciding the medium, then
the result could be counter-productive.
Luxury brands often feature products, models, celebrities and society
personalities in advertising to reflect the brand essence and message. In addi-
tion to these, other tactics that generate rapid and instant publicity or rejuve-
nate the brand have been adopted. For example, Tom Ford has been known to
use the ‘Sex’ concept to sell luxury. As the Artistic Director of Gucci, he over-
saw the use of a controversial print advertisement in February 2003 featuring
a female model displaying her pubic hair shaved into the Gucci logo. The
picture shows the model pulling down her underwear to reveal Gucci’s G
logo, with a male model crouching between her legs. Needless to say, this
advert generated great public coverage. Tom Ford again applied the ‘Sex’
advertising concept by featuring pornography stars as models in the 2006
print advertisement for his own branded sunglasses. Reports indicate that the
models were also paid to have private sex on the set of the photo shoot in
order to effectively transfer the ‘feel’ of sex onto the print adverts.
Additional advertising tactics include the use of a brand’s origin, location,
history and heritage as a source of its credibility and communications. This
could be done through pictures, words and products. For example, Bally
includes the tagline ‘Since 1851’ in its print adverts to reinforce its history;
Lacoste’s print advert has featured a 1921 picture of company founder Renee
Lacoste playing tennis, to underline the brand’s long history and sports asso-
ciation. Also Burberry used images of London, the English lifestyle and a
British celebrity, Rachel Weisz, to advertise its 2006 fragrance Burberry
London (Figure 5.17); and Jean-Paul Gaultier uses a similar tactic of selling
‘Frenchness’ in its Spring/Summer 2006 advertising campaign.
The effectiveness of advertising can be measured in different ways. The
factors that are considered in this exercise are the following:- The persuasion level of the advertisement in terms of creating a favourable
consumer predisposition towards the brand and its offerings. - The accomplishment of the message delivered in terms of understanding
and conveying the brand essence. - The level of delight and enjoyment of the advertisement to consumers.
- The result from tracking the pre- and post-awareness level of the brand and
products. - The result from a panel research regarding the long-term advertising effec-
tiveness. - The impact of the advertisement compared with those of competitors.
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luxury fashion branding