population every season, then you’ve acceded to the absolutely powerful and
commanding brand strengths of luxury brands.
Now, take a look at the following brand logos:
The brand symbols shown are a mixture of luxury and prestige, premium and
mass fashion brands. When you looked at each of the logos, something
happened in your mind. You had a thought about every one of the brands, no
matter how fleeting. Now take another look at the logos, this time a little bit
longer. What connotations do you have from your perceptions of each of the
brands? If you make a note of them, you’ll discover from your list that you
already have an idea of their brand attributes, brand strengths and their level
of influence. You can gauge the brands that are likely to have a high brand
asset value, even without looking at their financial figures. If this is the case,
then you already know exactly what I’m talking about!
We as consumers expect luxury brands to be innovative in designing prod-
ucts and in creating trends. We don’t expect them to wait around to under-
stand what we want before creating them. We desire for them to understand
our psychology, changing tastes and way of thinking before even we do! We
expect them to be ahead of the game. We want them to analyse the current
trends, evaluate what needs to be changed, and to innovate and produce
desirable products that will appeal to us. And this is what true luxury brands
do. However, the magical offerings of luxury brands is reinforced through
branding.
Luxury brands didn’t happen by accident. There is no such thing. They
have been uniquely crafted through consistent and diligent strategies in brand-
ing, marketing strategy. They enjoy a specific position in the global consumer
world and branding spectrum as well as in the consumer’s subconscious.
The core characteristics of luxury brands are: brand strength,differentia-
tion,exclusivity,innovation,product craftsmanship and precision,premium
pricing and high-quality. It is the differentiated quality of the materials,
design and performance of a wristwatch from Chanel that separates it from a
basic functional watch sold at a supermarket. As a result, Chanel can charge
a premium price of $3,000 and the supermarket $30. It is also as a result of
the foresight and innovation characteristics of Louis Vuitton that the brand
introduced the canvas in the nineteenth century. It is the craftsmanshipand
precisionqualities that result in an eighteen-hour manufacturing process of
one Hermès Kelly bag by a single workman, from start to finish. It is the
chapter 1 11a question of luxury