CONSUMERS

Trends Revealed: Luxury Brands Creating Enticing Experiences

by

Charlotte Wooding

|

This is the featured image caption
Credit: This is the featured image credit
Over the past months we’ve seen unique partnerships unveiled in the luxury space from Ethihad & Jimmy Choo to Michael Kors & Snapchat, all with the goal of creating enticing…

Over the last decade, collaborations between luxury brands and contemporary artists have gone beyond mere artistic partnerships towards a new kind of luxury branding.

PARIS – Art and fashion have always developed side by side, for fashion, like art, often gives visual expression to the cultural zeitgeist. During the 1920s, Salvador Dalí created dresses for Coco Chanel and Elsa Schiapparelli. In the 1930s, Ferragamo’s shoes commissioned designs for advertisements from Futurist painter Lucio Venna, while Gianni Versace commissioned works from artists such as Alighiero Boetti and Roy Lichtenstein for the launch of his collections. Yves Saint Laurent’s vast art collection, recently auctioned at Christie’s in Paris, testified to his great love of art and revealed the influence of a variety of artists on his own designs.

In the 1980s, relationships between luxury brands and artists were advanced when Alain Dominique Perrin created the Fondation Cartier. In the Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain, a book marking the foundation’s 20th anniversary, Perrin says he makes “a connection between all the different sorts of arts, and luxury goods are a kind of art. Luxury goods are handicrafts of art, applied art.”

The Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemparain building in Paris

Over the past months we’ve seen unique partnerships unveiled in the luxury space from Ethihad & Jimmy Choo to Michael Kors & Snapchat, all with the goal of creating enticing experiences for luxury consumers.

Over the past months we’ve seen unique partnerships unveiled in the luxury space from Ethihad & Jimmy Choo to Michael Kors & Snapchat, all with the goal of creating enticing experiences for luxury consumers.

Consumers are more demanding than ever and the luxury landscape is noticeably changing. As a result, a number of brands are exploring new ways to meet these evolving needs. From experimenting with new partnerships to amplify experiences, or leveraging social initiatives for success, marketers are covering new ground to connect with consumers.
And in a world where luxury is more accessible than ever, which brands are meeting these needs while remaining exclusive?

Here we’ve highlighted brands from the last month that are impacting the way the wealthy spend.

Enticing experiences

Luxury and experiences go hand-in-hand, and there’s now increasing pressure for brands to seamlessly integrate into the lifestyles of consumers. People want to experience a brand on their own terms, which means it’s time to reconsider traditional attempts to reach customers.

An example of a brand doing just that is Etihad Airways’ collaboration with the iconic footwear brand, Jimmy Choo. As the official airline of New York Fashion Week, Etihad co-hosted a Jimmy Choo themed VIP lounge at runway venue Skylight to enhance its presence and profile among NYC’s fashion elite. The lounge displayed 20 of Jimmy Choo’s shoes from the past two decades, as selected by creative director Sandra Choi.

Along with the airline’s cabin crew, the lounge served as a platform to represent Etihad’s on-board experience, showcasing furniture from Poltrona Frau, the creator of the exclusive leather upholstery for Etihad’s first and business classes.

Guests were also invited to have their initials monogrammed onto a luggage tag by an Etihad atelier, providing a true luxury experience for those who appreciate a personal touch.
This smart move positions Etihad as a fashion forward airline and nods towards the growing popularity of luxury shopping tourism, especially as airports are now one of the largest spending hubs.

Meanwhile, Aston Martin is inviting consumers to explore its brand through its first experience store, located in the heart of Mayfair, London. The new boutique highlights the exclusivity and elegance of the British Automaker, as well as helping to secure its position in the luxury lifestyle space.

In addition to offering prospects the opportunity to customise their unique sports cars or speedboats, the boutique will also be used as a destination for exclusive events such as design master classes, art exhibitions, and dinner series.

In another interesting move by automakers, Porsche has partnered with Delta Private Jets in the U.S to help make private-to-commerce connection flights even more seamless.
Guests flying private with Delta will no longer have to sacrifice luxury while transferring, as they are now able to take complimentary trips in one of Porsche’s latest models to connecting commercial flights. Consumers will be picked up from their private flights, driven to the commercial airport and escorted through security for a speedier and luxurious experience.
As time is one of the biggest luxuries for high-net-worth individuals today, this will no doubt come as a welcome addition.

Stepping up on social

The see-now, buy-now runway trend has undoubtedly gained in popularity. For many luxury houses, the evolution of the fashion show is key if brands want to meet the shifting desires of consumers. Previously technophobic brands are now turning to social in hope of snapping up a fresh audience of millennials, whose spending power is noticeably increasing as they are getting older. And with 75% of luxury shoppers on social media, this is a movement that brands cannot afford to miss.

Michael Kors is one of the latest luxury brands to successfully go social. The fashion brand created a custom Snapchat filter for National Sunglasses Day, winning more than 100 million viewers over a 24-hour period.

The one-day filter allowed fans to use Snapchat as a virtual mirror to test out the brand’s new Kendall II sunglasses in three different colours. The efforts saw an impressive 18% increase in ad awareness, with each user interacting with the app for 26 seconds on average.

Around 150 million people use Snapchat every day, so while there was no purchasing capability associated with Michael Kors’ latest efforts, it still positioned the brand in front of a huge audience.

Burberry is another trailblazer when it comes to social media, becoming the first luxury brand to run a Snapchat Discover native ad back in April, and launching Pinterest’s first personalised make-up in August. With a track record of using tech to its advantage, it’s little surprise that the brand has now launched its own chatbot, coinciding with its voyage into “see-now-buy-now” fashion.

Hot on the heels of Tommy Hilfiger’s Chatbot launch during New York Fashion week, Burberry used the platform to share content around its latest collection, as well offering live customer service.

Fashion bots that make a direct connection to products like Burberry’s can help drive sales and awareness, and provides new and interesting ways to reach consumers. As fashion bots are still relatively unsaturated, now’s the time to get involved.

The marketing opportunities in the luxury space are particularly exciting because brands can make a huge impact, both with a mass campaign by leveraging social media, or through super personalised and niche experiences such as events and personalised products. As we’ve seen here, those who push the boundaries are already reaping the rewards.

Charlotte Wooding
Charlotte Wooding

Marketing Manager, Microsoft

Charlotte is Marketing Manager at Cocoon, which is a global marketing offering that facilitates connections between luxury brands and their consumers. Cocoon understands the unique relationships, networks and cultures in the luxury space – and how to navigate them. So as well as providing tailored, high-quality marketing activity, it is uniquely placed to forge potential partnerships between high-net-worth individuals and brands working within the sector.

CONSUMERS

Trends Revealed: Luxury Brands Creating Enticing Experiences

by

Charlotte Wooding

|

This is the featured image caption
Credit : This is the featured image credit
Over the past months we’ve seen unique partnerships unveiled in the luxury space from Ethihad & Jimmy Choo to Michael Kors & Snapchat, all with the goal of creating enticing…

Over the last decade, collaborations between luxury brands and contemporary artists have gone beyond mere artistic partnerships towards a new kind of luxury branding.

PARIS – Art and fashion have always developed side by side, for fashion, like art, often gives visual expression to the cultural zeitgeist. During the 1920s, Salvador Dalí created dresses for Coco Chanel and Elsa Schiapparelli. In the 1930s, Ferragamo’s shoes commissioned designs for advertisements from Futurist painter Lucio Venna, while Gianni Versace commissioned works from artists such as Alighiero Boetti and Roy Lichtenstein for the launch of his collections. Yves Saint Laurent’s vast art collection, recently auctioned at Christie’s in Paris, testified to his great love of art and revealed the influence of a variety of artists on his own designs.

In the 1980s, relationships between luxury brands and artists were advanced when Alain Dominique Perrin created the Fondation Cartier. In the Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain, a book marking the foundation’s 20th anniversary, Perrin says he makes “a connection between all the different sorts of arts, and luxury goods are a kind of art. Luxury goods are handicrafts of art, applied art.”

The Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemparain building in Paris

Over the past months we’ve seen unique partnerships unveiled in the luxury space from Ethihad & Jimmy Choo to Michael Kors & Snapchat, all with the goal of creating enticing experiences for luxury consumers.

Over the past months we’ve seen unique partnerships unveiled in the luxury space from Ethihad & Jimmy Choo to Michael Kors & Snapchat, all with the goal of creating enticing experiences for luxury consumers.

Consumers are more demanding than ever and the luxury landscape is noticeably changing. As a result, a number of brands are exploring new ways to meet these evolving needs. From experimenting with new partnerships to amplify experiences, or leveraging social initiatives for success, marketers are covering new ground to connect with consumers.
And in a world where luxury is more accessible than ever, which brands are meeting these needs while remaining exclusive?

Here we’ve highlighted brands from the last month that are impacting the way the wealthy spend.

Enticing experiences

Luxury and experiences go hand-in-hand, and there’s now increasing pressure for brands to seamlessly integrate into the lifestyles of consumers. People want to experience a brand on their own terms, which means it’s time to reconsider traditional attempts to reach customers.

An example of a brand doing just that is Etihad Airways’ collaboration with the iconic footwear brand, Jimmy Choo. As the official airline of New York Fashion Week, Etihad co-hosted a Jimmy Choo themed VIP lounge at runway venue Skylight to enhance its presence and profile among NYC’s fashion elite. The lounge displayed 20 of Jimmy Choo’s shoes from the past two decades, as selected by creative director Sandra Choi.

Along with the airline’s cabin crew, the lounge served as a platform to represent Etihad’s on-board experience, showcasing furniture from Poltrona Frau, the creator of the exclusive leather upholstery for Etihad’s first and business classes.

Guests were also invited to have their initials monogrammed onto a luggage tag by an Etihad atelier, providing a true luxury experience for those who appreciate a personal touch.
This smart move positions Etihad as a fashion forward airline and nods towards the growing popularity of luxury shopping tourism, especially as airports are now one of the largest spending hubs.

Meanwhile, Aston Martin is inviting consumers to explore its brand through its first experience store, located in the heart of Mayfair, London. The new boutique highlights the exclusivity and elegance of the British Automaker, as well as helping to secure its position in the luxury lifestyle space.

In addition to offering prospects the opportunity to customise their unique sports cars or speedboats, the boutique will also be used as a destination for exclusive events such as design master classes, art exhibitions, and dinner series.

In another interesting move by automakers, Porsche has partnered with Delta Private Jets in the U.S to help make private-to-commerce connection flights even more seamless.
Guests flying private with Delta will no longer have to sacrifice luxury while transferring, as they are now able to take complimentary trips in one of Porsche’s latest models to connecting commercial flights. Consumers will be picked up from their private flights, driven to the commercial airport and escorted through security for a speedier and luxurious experience.
As time is one of the biggest luxuries for high-net-worth individuals today, this will no doubt come as a welcome addition.

Stepping up on social

The see-now, buy-now runway trend has undoubtedly gained in popularity. For many luxury houses, the evolution of the fashion show is key if brands want to meet the shifting desires of consumers. Previously technophobic brands are now turning to social in hope of snapping up a fresh audience of millennials, whose spending power is noticeably increasing as they are getting older. And with 75% of luxury shoppers on social media, this is a movement that brands cannot afford to miss.

Michael Kors is one of the latest luxury brands to successfully go social. The fashion brand created a custom Snapchat filter for National Sunglasses Day, winning more than 100 million viewers over a 24-hour period.

The one-day filter allowed fans to use Snapchat as a virtual mirror to test out the brand’s new Kendall II sunglasses in three different colours. The efforts saw an impressive 18% increase in ad awareness, with each user interacting with the app for 26 seconds on average.

Around 150 million people use Snapchat every day, so while there was no purchasing capability associated with Michael Kors’ latest efforts, it still positioned the brand in front of a huge audience.

Burberry is another trailblazer when it comes to social media, becoming the first luxury brand to run a Snapchat Discover native ad back in April, and launching Pinterest’s first personalised make-up in August. With a track record of using tech to its advantage, it’s little surprise that the brand has now launched its own chatbot, coinciding with its voyage into “see-now-buy-now” fashion.

Hot on the heels of Tommy Hilfiger’s Chatbot launch during New York Fashion week, Burberry used the platform to share content around its latest collection, as well offering live customer service.

Fashion bots that make a direct connection to products like Burberry’s can help drive sales and awareness, and provides new and interesting ways to reach consumers. As fashion bots are still relatively unsaturated, now’s the time to get involved.

The marketing opportunities in the luxury space are particularly exciting because brands can make a huge impact, both with a mass campaign by leveraging social media, or through super personalised and niche experiences such as events and personalised products. As we’ve seen here, those who push the boundaries are already reaping the rewards.

Charlotte Wooding
Charlotte Wooding

Marketing Manager, Microsoft

Charlotte is Marketing Manager at Cocoon, which is a global marketing offering that facilitates connections between luxury brands and their consumers. Cocoon understands the unique relationships, networks and cultures in the luxury space – and how to navigate them. So as well as providing tailored, high-quality marketing activity, it is uniquely placed to forge potential partnerships between high-net-worth individuals and brands working within the sector.

Related articles

CONSUMERS

5 Must Know Facts About China’s Millennials

CONSUMERS

Report: Decoding Luxury Marketing Milestones in China: Lunar New Year

CONSUMERS

In 2024, expect more of the same. Now is the time to optimise.