Lessons From Those Rewriting Luxury's Marketing Playbook

Covid-19, as it has with everything, transformed the luxury market. The past two years have seen high-end brands evolve their digital strategies, stand up and take sustainability more seriously and forge relationships with resale platforms. Post-pandemic turmoil luxury sales and profits have rebounded. Last year, 117-year-old British car marque Rolls Royce announced global sales had reached record levels. Fashion houses Dior and Louis Vuitton experienced a gold rush too. Luxury’s trajectory is only going up. Roundtable attendees included Geoffrey Perez, global head of luxury at Snap, Kate Marlow, creative partner at Here Design, M&C Saatchi’s (M&C) chief creative officer Benjamin Golik, Impero’s creative director and founder Michael Scantlebury, Frances Docx, strategy partner at 20Something and head of strategy at Publicis Media Luxe Drew Erskine. The conversation illuminated how high-end brands are ripping up the rulebook when it comes to media planning, as well as how the “inherently unsustainable” fashion industry is becoming more eco-conscious and the new technologies exciting the sector. It’s not all about Gen Z Luxury brands have been refining their strategies to engage young, digital natives. By 2026, millennials and Gen Z will account for 60% of luxury consumers, as per Highsnobiety data. Gucci’s recent collaboration with TikTok trainspotter Francis Bourgeois to promote its tie-up with The North Face is just one example of how prestigious names are forging deeper relationships with this demographic. Gucci is forging deals with niche creators on TikTok. However, Erskine who leads strategy for Louis Vuitton owner LMVH at Publicis, advised high-end clients not to get too caught up in youth strategy. “I actively reject briefs where brands say they want to target Gen Z—it should be about targeting cultures and communities,” he explained, adding digital tribes have “fundamentally changed” marketing in the space. “Luxury is no longer simply about status, it’s about moving at the speed of culture. It’s a huge challenge for clients but also an opportunity.” In 2021, Louis Vuitton debuted the late Virgil Abloh’s fall-winter collection in Seoul with K-pop band BTS. The live-stream generated 36.8 million views on Twitter alone, showcasing the potential for luxury brands to tap into fandoms online. Louis Vuitton has found success tapping into the K-pop fandom through a collaboration with BTS Scantlebury, meanwhile, cited Gucci as one brand that always shows up for different demographics. “It's the master of turning up at the right cultural moments, for the right tribes and in the right way,” he said, noting how the brand had focused its retail spaces on older, more affluent consumers while using the likes of Instagram, TikTok and Snap to engage youngsters. “The Gucci [brand] a 22-year-old sees is different to the one a 65-year-old does. As a brand it knows how important both customers are,” he added. High-end clients are lowering the digital drawbridge Whether an exclusive hotel, a Scotch whisky or an expensive fashion house, luxury brands have always been protective gatekeepers (Prada didn’t even have a website until 2007). That's because, until now, the entire premise of luxury has been centered on exclusivity, artistry and hyper-personalized products and services. I actively reject briefs where brands say they want to target Gen Z.Drew Erskine, head of strategy, Publicis Luxe The pandemic has forced a wave of innovation and revolution where these clients are are building online worlds to serve as both marketing and retail channels. Marlow has recently worked on projects at Here Design with single malt The Balvenie and Michelin starred restaurant Hide, the "for her" luxury category has transformed from a “mono-dimensional” space into a multiverse. “These days luxury has more layers. Consumers want marketers to understand what they’re about and want us to elevate that message across the media ecosystem—from the tangible object to in-store and online,” she said. According to Gartner, luxury brands are now spending 33% of advertising costs on digital marketing. Bain, meanwhile, has forecast online will account for 30% of luxury sales by 2025. Luxury brands put a careful foot into the virtual ether As they look to make online more convenient and more entertaining, clients are taking ownership of virtual spaces, maintaining that element of exclusivity and craftsmanship so crucial to their positioning. The Real Reason Luxury Brands Want In On Metaverse Fashion Week Luxury brands have been toying with the metaverse over the past 12 months, including London department store Selfridges with hosted a retail space in Decentraland during Metaverse Fashion Week in March. Last year, French designer Balenciaga opened a boutique selling NFT garments in gaming universe Fortnite while Glenfiddich released a series of liquor non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Golik predicted an increase in the sale of virtual garments and goods will be a key consideration for luxury giants. “From a consumer perspective, if the place you’re most seen is in the virtual world then your need for desire and self-acceptance and the ability to express an identity is no different from the real world. People will satisfy these needs with money if they need to,” he said. 20Something’s Docx has built online experiences for luxury automakers among other brands and highlights that for her Gucci is leading luxury’s charge into the virtual ether while balancing it with its own physical creations. A few months ago, the Italian fashion giant bought a plot of digital land on Web3 platform The Sandbox, built the "Gucci Garden" inside Roblox and created entire events around its own worlds including a fairground-inspired experience dubbed “Gucci Wonderland” in Switzerland. Luxury brands are walking a fine line between wanting to let consumers in without giving away too much of their mystique.Fran Docx, head of strategy, 20Something Docx observed the bigger trend at play: “It’s constantly building new worlds for customers to explore and enter different facets of the brand. However, it’s still creating their own spaces, rather than handing ownership of others to build them for them." She continued: “Luxury brands don't want to reveal too much. They are still walking this fine line between wanting to let consumers in without giving away too much of their mystique." VR and AR must be useful as well as fun Paris-based Perez has worked on campaigns for the likes of Dior and Chanel. For him the luxury in the metavese isn’t just about building entirely new virtual worlds; it’s about constructing experiences in existing ones. Snap has debuted a virtual bag with Louis Vuitton at VivaTech in 2019 and has also created AR lenses for designers such as Burberry, Farfetch and Gucci that can do things like transport users into virtual worlds or let them "try on" clothes. Snap is letting luxury brands build virtual "try-on" experiences within its flagship app “We’re seeing that brands want to add a layer of computing on to the world around people. Nothing could ever supplement the experience of a real store but if [clients] can add layers on top of products, allowing them to ‘try them on’ or see the color then that makes [virtual reality] something tangible that really resonates,” he explained. On this basis, Here Design founder Marlow predicted the “human experience” of luxury—i.e. walking into a polished Chanel or Prada store—would come to represent brands in their most “elevated” form. The circular economy could be the future of fashion Luxury fashion brands in particular, as M&C’s Golik pointed out, are based on seasonal trends and therefore “inherently unsustainable.” However, with green conscious millennial and Gen Z consumers on track to represent the biggest slice of the market in a few years big fashion houses are accelerating how they work towards sustainability. Brands want to add a layer of computing on to the world around people.Geoffrey Perez, global head of luxury, Snap Some—including Gucci once again—are doing this by releasing vintage reruns from older collections and using sustainable materials. Others are forging relationships with resale and rental marketplaces including D-Pop and By Rotation. “There’s been a complete rebirth of what would have been dubbed “secondhand” before to become “vintage” and clothes are being given a second, third and fourth life on these platforms," said Golik. Rental marketplaces including D-Pop and By Rotation are forging relationships with luxury brands McKinsey research has found consumers want fashion players to uphold their social and environmental responsibilities post-Covid. In 2020, 67% of people said the use of sustainable materials to was an important purchasing factor in buying clothes. A further 63% considered a brand’s promotion of sustainability in the same way. As luxury looks to its new normal then rewriting its sustainability playbook might be an even bigger challenge than rethinking the digital one. What Marketers Need to Know About the Changing Luxury Landscape

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Lessons in Luxury From The Marketers Rewriting Its Glossy Digital Playbook

From boutiques in the metaverse to resale platforms, experts unpack seismic shifts in the segment

Rebecca Stewart

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Rebecca Stewart