Luxury and Fashion Marketing

The Global Perspective

Satyendra Singh

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781351269582
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: International Marketing
• Index: Business

The globalization of the world's markets has forced luxury brands to, in turn, become global and accessible in many developing countries and emerging markets. As a result, the demand for these luxury products has increased globally, creating a need for an education in luxury that acknowledges the global perspective yet, at the same time, incorporates subtle regional nuances into luxury and fashion marketing.

Keeping this global and regional perspective, Luxury and Fashion Marketing: The Global Perspective examines the elements of luxury marketing that contribute to superior luxury brand performance. Specifically, this volume focuses on mission statements, logos, airport retailing, franchising, challenges in luxury marketing, fashion relating to politics, environment, and beachwear, and case studies on luxury brands and emerging markets.

Luxury and Fashion Marketing: The Global Perspective is unique in that it is written in a simple and engaging style to explain the theories and concepts of luxury in relation to the ordinary in the global context. Each chapter has to-do activities, making the book essential reading for students, trainers, and practitioners interested in luxury and fashion marketing and management.

1
Introduction

Aim and Scope of the Book

The aim of the book is to provide thought-provoking contemporary concepts relating to luxury and fashion marketing in the global context. These concepts answer many intriguing questions relating to luxury and fashion. For example, should mission statements for luxury brands be different from non-luxury brands? Do luxury products need to be the same (or different) in different cultures? Why is it difficult to sell luxury products in some countries? Can luxury beachwear be positioned to target non-swimmers? Do luxury brands really need logos? Indeed, the book aims to generate debate and test the new concepts. In short, this book provides new concepts, balanced arguments, short cases on luxury brands and emerging luxury markets, and experiential learning exercises.

Who Is the Book For?

The book is suitable for upper-level undergraduate and graduate business students with interests in luxury and fashion marketing. The book introduces the topics and concepts and then moves on to the analytical level through the use of theory, examples, and applications. Application of the concepts is achieved through the experiential learning exercises. Practitioners will find the exercises equally beneficial. Graduate students can turn the theoretical concepts into testable hypotheses.

How Is the Book Different?

This is a comprehensive research-based book. It includes luxury marketing, fashion marketing, cases on emerging luxury markets, and luxury brands—all in one. The book is different from other books about luxury marketing in that the chapters are innovative, relevant, and analytical in nature. In some cases, the topics in the chapters can be iconoclastic in nature and highly debatable. The idea is to avoid repetition of what is obvious about luxury and advance the luxury field by proposing new topics and concepts—for example, role of mission statements in luxury, power of logos in conveying messages and how they are developed, fashion as a political statement, and counterfeit luxury product life cycle, among others. The book has interesting contents and new applications in the context of luxury in the global environment. Further, the chapters are written parsimoniously and thus are kept short. Focus is on concept implementation through the experiential learning exercises presented at the end of many chapters.

Organization of the Book

The book is organized into four parts (luxury marketing, fashion marketing, cases on emerging luxury markets, and cases on luxury brands). Part I has five chapters relating to luxury marketing, whereas Part II has two chapters covering fashion marketing. Part III consists of short cases on four emerging luxury markets—Colombia, Indonesia, Vietnam, and South Africa. Finally, Part IV contains four short case studies on luxury brands—Apple, BMW, Burberry, and Gucci.

Part I (Luxury Marketing)

Mission statements reflect a firm’s objectives and values and serve as a guiding principle. Chapter 2 explores characteristics of both mission statements—luxury and ordinary brands—with respect to the role of emotion, innovation, communications, and strategic management in creating a superior business performance.

Effective logos can also lead to superior business performance. Logos are a visual word and convey a distinct message to customers. But logo development remains a mystery, as a logo can be of any shape, size, and color, among other features. Chapter 3 demystifies logo development by examining the logic of having such shapes and sizes, and their impact on drawing the attention of customers. Arguments are also made for having no logo but yet be recognizable.

The increase in air travel and construction of new airports worldwide provide unique opportunity for luxury brands to market their products at airports. Nearly half of airports’ income comes from non-aeronautical activities. Chapter 4 discusses the unique airport retail environment for the marketing of luxury products and services, explains the impulsive and apathetic behavior of travelers, and highlights the franchising strategy and other luxury retail options and outlets.

One retail option is to make use of Internet technology. The technology has forced marketing managers to move away from traditional marketing tools and adopt the new evolving, more expressive electronic marketing tools. In this context, Chapter 5 focuses on the five aspects—virtual reality, online marketing, social media, mobile marketing, and celebrity endorsements—of contemporary marketing. Use of semiotic communications in marketing is also discussed.

Luxury brands are inherently in conflict with marketing or publicity initiatives. Initiatives need to balance brands’ exclusivity by having limited public exposure against the visibility required by any publicity. Striking the balance is challenging. Chapter 6 highlights four such areas of challenges relating to luxury marketing, publicity, and public relations: charitable activities, counterfeit products, corporate social responsibility, and government advertisement regulations.

Part II (Fashion Marketing)

The fashion industry is one of the most prominent industries in both advanced countries and emerging markets. It is characterized by its fast-growing trends and various kinds of styles. Fashion attracts everybody, but it takes confidence to articulate personal style and preference and make a statement. Keeping this viewpoint, Chapter 7 explores three topics relating to fashion: political fashion, eco fashion, and ethnic fashion. Luxury beachwear and underwear marketing is also discussed in light of changing consumer preferences.

With the rise in disposable income and changing preferences in emerging markets, Chapter 8 identifies the influence of five factors—the Indian consumer, Indian apparel and fashion, economy, culture, and media and films—on the decision-making process for fashion products in India. This chapter also discusses marketing strategy.

Part III (Cases on Emerging Luxury Markets)

Chapters 9, 10, 11, and 12 relate to Colombia, Indonesia, Vietnam, and South Africa, respectively. These are short yet insightful cases in discussing issues relating to marketing of luxury and fashion products in these countries.

Part IV (Cases on Luxury Brands)

Chapters 13, 14, 15, and 16 relate to Apple, BMW, Burberry, and Gucci, respectively. The mini cases are selected carefully so that the concepts discussed in the book can be applied to them, in hopes of identifying possible remedies for the situations presented in the cases.

Chapter 17 concludes the book.

Part I
Luxury Marketing

2
Mission Statements

Introduction

Mission statements are written to portray organizational objectives and values consistent with those of the key shareholders (Peyrefitte & David 2006). Comparison of mission statements exists in multiple studies. Zandstra (2012) explores the differences and similarities in mission statements of Christian elementary schools in the United States and the Netherlands. Comparisons across industries are also common. Mission statements have been used to define a zoo’s role and understand the relationship between conservation and education (Patrick, Matthews, Ayers, & Tunnicliffe 2007). Different types of businesses in the same industry can also be a basis for mission statement analysis such as the comparison of for-profit and notfor-profit hospitals in the United States (Bolon 2005). A comparison of religious colleges and universities also reveals stylistic differences among different institutions with regard to vision, complexity, optimism, and even the establishment’s use of language in an effort to unify the campus (Abel-man & Dalessandro 2009). Mo-Ching Yeung (2013) analyzed the content of mission statements of business schools to explore the application of system thinking and quality management concept, whereas Firmin and Gilson (2009) analyzed the contents of the Council of Christian Colleges and Universities to discover the degree to which they included religion in their mission statements.

In this chapter, we focus on the topic of mission statements of luxury and ordinary products and services. The categorization of a certain topic does not necessarily mean that their mission or vision is much different than another category (Bolon 2005). Because marketing of luxury brands is different from ordinary brands, conveying an image of quality, authenticity, and lifestyle, while amplifying the essence of a product into a physical and interactive experience, has become important in positively influencing the purchasing process (Atwal & Williams 2009). In this regard, a mission statement is the image of a company’s character that embodies a company’s soul (Ireland & Hitt 1992). Thus, a mission statement can be considered a form of marketing tool for a brand that forms its image. It is the uniqueness in marketing approaches through mission statements that leads to designing different mission statements for different products such as luxury versus ordinary. In fact, several topics relating to luxury brands have been studied—for example, the concept of luxury brand loyalty and sustainability (Younghee, Won-Moo, & Minsung 2012) and brand exclusivity (Cailleux, Mignot, & Kapferer 2009), among others. In this chapter, we explain components of mission statements, characteristics of luxury brand mission statements, emotion and innovation in luxury brand mission statements, arguments for no mission statements, ordinary brand mission statements, communications, strategic management, and business performance.

Components of Mission Statements

Pearce and David (1987) identify the nine essential components in an effective mission statement: philosophy, customers, products and services, target markets, technology, growth, employees, self-concept, and public image. Other scholars have also detected the presence of these components in mission statements. The study by Bartkus, Glassman, and McAfee (2004) compared the content of mission statements of European, Japanese, and US firms in varying institutional structures and found that firms used at least half the recommended components in their mission statements. Another comparative study of comparison between mission statements of Chinese and US firms indicated differences in cultural structure but similarities in content (Angriawan, Barczyk, Firlej, Rarick, & Nickerson 2010). Yet another study based on academic institutions found differences in mission statements only with regard to organizational longevity and social responsibility (Smith, Heady, Carson, & ...