What do luxury brands have in common

My daughter is an absolute brand fanatic. She lives for those Target shopping trips. The ads speak to her. The experience is superior to any other store. And she loves the products they carry. Designer partnerships and clever, creative advertising. Target spends 2. Pay Less. Target has successfully associated its name with a younger, hipper, edgier image than its competitors. Target stays relevant by keeping up with the latest fashion trends and aligning itself with the right designers.

The right stars. The right brand affiliations. Branding requires constant diligence. To remain emotionally connected to your tribe, you have work at it on a day-to-day basis. Because an iconic brand does not guarantee business success. Was Saturn iconic? Certainly for a few years in automotive circles.

And Ermenegildo Zegna runs their own factories that weave the fabrics that they use in their suiting. Often luxury brands started life with teams of skilled workers in small workshops, so artisan craftsmanship becomes central to their identity.

Gucci emphasised this in their 90th anniversary advertising campaign, where they featured black and white photos of their workshops from the s, pointing to the consummate crafting knowledge passed down from generation to generation. Sometimes their mystique revolves around an exceptional founder, such as Coco Chanel or Salvatore Ferragamo. With no history to speak of, new luxury brands must rely instead on powerful and captivating brand stories — or brand positioning what is brand positioning?

The s have introduced the idea of high-end brands reaching new audiences by collaborating with high-street chains, producing limited editions that customers fight to get their hands on for just a few weeks. It combines scarcity with a mass approach that drives desire but safeguards the brand from overexposure — and makes the product, service or experience seem more valuable.

It's rarer, so being seen with a luxury brand identifies you in a way that's separate from more common items. The look of a luxury item should communicate its stature and uniqueness. Customers long to identify with brands who celebrate their own sophistication with excellent design and aesthetics. The aesthetic a luxury brand presents should communicate the quality underlying it.

Luxury has to be built on reality. Increased ability, better materials, and durability are all real. The price reflects the increased expense of incorporating these elements into a luxury product. The look is created to set these qualities apart in a distinctive way. These things are real. Yet luxury is also a belief. Many luxury brands don't succeed because they don't get enough of their target market to believe in that brand's meaning.

What gives your luxury brand meaning that's more enjoyable to a customer than the next luxury brand? They have to access some meaning through your brand that they can't find elsewhere.

Many beautiful, capable, and well-made products are viewed as very common because their brands make their profit through accessibility. They aren't viewed as luxury items because they're common and easy to own. The final component of a luxury product is its rarity. If it's difficult to access or own, it's luxurious. Starbucks introduced take-out coffee and changed our relationship with the drink. You assess your product or service, and how it is assembled or supplied and how people access it — and perhaps take inspiration from a different category to breathe new life into it.

But what flavour do you give your brand? And when Burberry opened their Taipei flagship , Creative Director Christopher Bailey created a digital weather experience that rained clear confetti with leaves blown around by wind machines, taking customers on a spiritual journey to England. Putting your luxury brand into a carefully considered physical space and inviting customers into it is a powerful way of communicating your message. Burberry created a digital weather experience when they opened their Taipei flagship store that rained clear confetti with leaves blown around by wind machines, taking customers on a spiritual journey to England.

Some luxury brands have learned the power of limiting supply or access.