status’ of the brand and a cool distance from consumers. This attitude spells
unprofessionalism and neither inspires nor endears the customer to the brand.
The customer interface and after-sales staff are important in luxury retailing
and brands ought to invest heavily in them through expert training in sales,
personal selling, customer service and brand stewardship.
Ambassadorsof a luxury brand are the people that provide the brand with
life. They are used by luxury brands in a peculiar way to promote the brand
through ‘giving it a face’. This involves using strong personalities that are
connected with the brand to act as either the brand ambassadors or a symbolic
figure linked with the brand. These personalities range from the designers and
creative directors of luxury brands, to chief executives or prominent figures
in the brand’s management team. They could also include external public
figures that are not involved in the brand’s product design or management but
have been adopted by the brand to become a part of its ‘face’.
There is a difference between ‘People’ in the luxury branding mix, such as
ambassadors and the ‘People’ that feature in the advertisements and other
promotional activities of luxury brands. The people we are talking about here
have a consistent and long-term relationship with the brand. As ambassadors
of brands, they are a permanent part of the brand unlike the people used in
advertisements who could be changed seasonally.
The people who act as brand ambassadors include creative directors such
as John Galliano of Dior, Marc Jacobs of Vuitton, Jean-Paul Gaultier of
Hermès and Karl Lagerfeld of Chanel and Fendi. Others are chief executives
and senior managers such as Sidney Toledano of Dior; Bernard Arnault of
LVMH and Frédéric de Narp of Cartier. Yet there are those that are both pres-
idents or senior executives of luxury brands and at the same time the creative
directors. This group includes Giorgio Armani, Muiccia Prada, Donatella
Versace and Tamara Mellon of Jimmy Choo, among many others.
Brand ambassadors often become household public names and sometimes
celebrities in their own right with a personal brand value. They represent the
brands both in their personal and public lives and are the expected faces at all
public events involving the brand or the wider fashion industry. For example
Donatella Versace acceded in an interview that it is impossible for the Versace
brand to function without her because there is nobody that can represent the
brand the way she does. She is also widely believed to be a fashion diva,
which is an indirect definition of a celebrity. On the personal level, her home
in Italy is an extension of the Versace brand. Donatella represents Versace just
as Tom Ford represented Gucci and Karl Lagerfeld currently represents
Chanel and Fendi.
There is yet another small group of ambassadors who are not directly
linked with the creative or business aspects of luxury brands but have become
‘muses’ or ‘eyes’ or ‘noses’ for the brands. Their principal role is to bring
inspiration and fresh ideas to luxury brands through their fashion vision,
chapter 5 165the art of creating and managing luxury fashion brands