Escaping Reality – Building Brands on a Fantasy
by Graeme Newell
HIGHLIGHTS
- Luxury brands build allure by showing us the person we hope to be, not who we really are.
- These brands build a story that constantly evolves. They keep themselves new by keeping customers off guard.
- Build brands that have room for a bit of dreaming by your customers.
This is part two of a three part series on luxury branding using emotional marketing. Read part one and part three
The Elite…
American Express has a secret club that you and I will never experience. Sure, you may have an American Express gold, or even platinum card, but there are an anointed few who carry the coveted and secret Black card. American Express purposefully keeps the details hidden, and only reveals the qualification criteria to those who have earned the right to carry it. There is a $5000 initiation fee, and an annual fee of $2500. To qualify you must charge at least a quarter of a million dollars per year. Why would anyone pay an extra $7500 for a card that has the same basic functionality as other credit cards? These big spenders aren’t buying a card, they’re buying an experience.
This feeling of exclusivity is the very essence of the heady rules of emotional marketing for luxury products. Crack open any issue of Vanity Fair and you will notice that most of the advertisers come from the luxury category. This is an amazing world of delusion, worthy of the greatest filmmakers and novelists, but the luxury industry has a very carefully prescribed storyline that pushes all the right buttons. Today I’ll discuss, what consumer brands can learn from these masters of branding fantasy and extravagance.
Selling an experience, not a product
Tiffany & Co. began its life as a stationary emporium early in the 19th century. It later went on to specialize in diamonds and became such a powerful luxury brand that it spawned the iconic movie “Breakfast at Tiffany’s.” Tiffany’s jewelry is amazing, but some would argue that the most prized token of a gift from Tiffanys is not the sparkly diamond, but the trademark blue box it comes in. An icon of love and extravagance, the blue Tiffany box has won many a heart over the years. The lucky gift recipient is not just getting a big diamond, but a big Tiffany diamond. Not much different than any other diamond, but it came in that legendary blue box. The box color is even trademarked as Pantone blue 1837, named for Tiffany’s founding year.
Coach’s most important deliverable is the heady sensation of exclusivity and success, not a handbag. The actual product can be thought of as a delivery vehicle that evokes an on-going rush of opulence with each use. Each whiff of Chanel No. 5 is a continual reassurance that you – have arrived. As Partick Heiniger, the CEO of the Rolex company once said, “Why do I need to know how the watch market is doing? I’m in the business of luxury.” He understands he is in the emotional marketing business, not the product business.
Solution-based marketing vs emotional marketing
A luxury story must appeal to the heart, the head, and virtues, all while carefully building the ego of the customer. Compare this to the relatively easy job of selling toothpaste, where the job of the marketing is simply to convey healthy, refreshening, safe, and smart. The goal of a typical toothpaste ad is to lead you to the simple conclusion such as “buying that UltraBrite will make my smile look fantastic.” A lot of consumer advertising has this same simple structure. It has a singular goal of delivering a feeling about a product feature.
The luxury ad will usually have the exact opposite structure. It will leave you feeling a little disconcerted, a little strange. These ads come in very non-traditional forms and seem as though they are designed to disconcert. Take a look at this little mini-movie from Christian Dior. “Lady Grey in London” runs almost eight minutes and you could argue that it really isn’t an ad at all. The credits at the end make you feel as if you’ve just been to the cinema.
As you watch it, you will probably find yourself searching for a purpose and structure characteristic of a traditional ad. This is a familiar habit for people in “ad mode.” We know this is an ad and our natural reaction is to try to find the familiar structure of the feature-focused commercial. We’re waiting for the sales pitch to start. We understand the rules of ads, which is to tell us all about why a product is faster, shinier, more durable, etc. This ad has none of this. The main character is powerful, ultimately mysterious, and most importantly, she is living a fantasy.
The essence of luxury brands is the desire to escape the herd, to feel special and exclusive. This emotional marketing experience is very different from the typical consumer experience. Most of us buy products with a cause and effect mindset. I will purchase this food processor because it will save time in the kitchen. I will buy these shoes and my friends will think I look stylish and dress like them. Luxury brands are designed to make you stand out from the crowd, not fit in with it.
Buying a story, not a product
Any luxury good must have outstanding quality, but the most important feature is the emotion that it elicits in the customer. Top-shelf luxury items offer us an experience that regular products cannot approach. Luxury brands have an amazing feeling of aspiration and make customers want to climb to the next rung of the social ladder. In this ad, Louis Vuitton builds a fantasy of an amazing journey, not the mundane task of hauling processions on that journey.
The price of a luxury product has almost nothing to do with the cost of the components used in the manufacturing. While a high price is expected, even demanded, pricing is truly based on how completely the product can build a fantasy. Luxury brands must be a true escape from the repetition and boredom of human existence. Regular products make the customer feel good, but the job of luxury products is to make the customer feel exclusive.
The motivations behind the purchase of luxury products are a fascinating window into human motivations. So much of it is based in our own sense of self-worth and our desire to transcend our current existance. Luxury marketing is very different than traditional advertising but this essence of striving is at the foundation of most everyday product brands. We all have a bipolar personality. We enjoy the person we are, but strive to be the person we hope to be. Luxury brands could care less about our needs, they only want to deal with our fantasies.
So what can the rest of us back in the predictable world of consumer advertising learn from the emotional marketing mastery practiced by luxury branders?
1) Surprise your customers.
The ever-changing, unpredictable nature of these ads is what keeps these brands fresh decade after decade. The bags Louis Vuitton creates haven’t changed all that much since the 60s, but their brand image is constantly evolving with the mood of the times. This ad speaks to the resilient journey of the rebel,
and this one to the vision of trailblazers.
Luxury brands have a firm commitment to the imaginative in everything they do. They continually ride the wave of customer ego, not product manufacturing.
2) Acknowledge the smartness and sophistication of your fans.
So many ads talk down to us. Most customers are accustomed to being treated like simpletons, and the ad industry reaps what it sows. Consumers treat ads with the same contempt they hear in the ad message. Luxury brands begin every message with a tip of the hat that acknowledges the customer’s sophistication and intelligence. Luxury ads are complex, even a little strange, and not for the common or weak-minded. These ads demand attention.
3) Inject some mystery into your message.
Most advertising is so busy telling the viewer exactly how to feel that it leaves no room for the customer to invent their own reaction to the brand. Spend less time on engineering a response and more time on building a thought provoking experience that invites the participant to invent their own story.
4) Think of your marketing as a conversation starter.
Luxury brands set a goal to captivate and beguile, not inform. They use fantasy to spark a new way of seeing the world, always keeping the customer a little off balance. Look for ways your brand can bewitch and mystify, not just convince.
5) Break the Rhythm.
Luxury brands realize that the familiar cadence of traditional advertising is a poison that dulls the message, and the best branders have jettisoned all that is conventional. They create striking campaigns that challenge and thus create buzz. What internally-focused product braggadocio is keeping your customers from embracing your brand as a friend? By getting rid of your own ego-driven agenda, you open up the brand to the customer’s desires and invite them to be a co-creator, not a passive observer.
