Should luxury brands use twitter?

Recently, I came across an article which focused on “15 reasons [why] luxury brands must be on twitter”1. When I started reading those 15 reasons, it got me a bit worried. I was unsure as to if any of those reasons really had a merit for a luxury brand. Like most academics, when I read [...]

Segmenting luxury brand consumers

In some of my earlier posts, I have stated that there are two simultaneous paradoxical needs among us consumers with regard to consumption namely, (a) to conform and (b) to demonstrate uniqueness. In sociology and psychology this has led to creation of various terms such as fitting in or standing out, in-group vs. out-group behaviour, [...]

What is luxury?

When joining the ‘luxury society’ group, one of the interesting questions they asked was to provide your own definition of luxury. My response to that was “luxury is a state of mind. It is about how you carry yourself and fulfil yours as well as others desires”. My idea focused on the issue of luxury [...]

The local dimension of luxury

Recently, I was re-reading the book ‘luxury brand management’ wherein the authors – Chevalier and Mazzalovo – suggest three criteria to classify a luxury item: (a) strong artistic content; (b) unique craftsmanship and (c) international reputation. While I agree that the artistic content and craftsmanship is what differentiates most luxury product and brands from non-luxury, [...]

Massification of Luxury: the Chinese Invasion

Analysts world over have been writing about luxury consumption among the Chinese consumers. Few have also discussed the issues of Chinese luxury brands aimed at global consumers including ‘Shanghai Tang’ and ‘LaVie’. However, there is little discussion on how slowly but steadily Chinese entrepreneurs are acquiring or taking over Western luxury brands. This post is [...]

Status (luxury) consumption in cross-national context: Managerial implications

In my earlier post ‘Status (luxury) consumption among British and Indian customers’, I discussed the theoretical implications relating to one of my recently published study in the International Marketing Review. In this post, I am going to focus on the managerial implications. Image by minxlj via Flickr To briefly summarise the study, it focused on [...]

Status (luxury) consumption among British and Indian consumers

Recently one of my research papers got published in the ‘International Marketing Review’. It focused on comparing the status consumption tendencies of British and Indian consumers. In this post, I shall focus on the findings of this study. Firstly, let me define what status consumption is and how it affects our behaviour? Researchers define status [...]

Luxury brands in recession: Developing a better value proposition and luxury brand strategy

Commenting on my last post on ‘luxury value propositions‘, Mostafa Huga and Thangaraj asked a very pertinent question, ‘how should managers’ build a better value proposition and a marketing strategy for luxury brands in recession?’ Brand management is extremely crucial for luxury industry in customer retention and keeping consumers loyal. Focusing on value propositions can [...]

Luxury marketing: adapting value propositions

How do you convince a consumer to buy luxury products? This is one of the very important questions asked by managers involved in marketing luxury goods. Luxury consumption – especially one related to conspicuousness – seem to have changed dramatically in the last few months with consumers clearly avoiding any conscious attempt to signal wealth. [...]

Rise of affordable luxury consumption

In past few posts, I have discussed the impact of recession on luxury consumption. In two of these posts (Luxury consumption: will it really be affected by recession? and Luxury Consumption Tendencies in Recession: Early Evidence) looking through an exploratory study, I opined that the overall luxury consumption will not decline as much in this [...]