Kogan Pages
The Luxury Strategy
Break the Rules of Marketing to Build Luxury Brands
J-N Kapferer , V. Bastien
The Luxury Strategy is the definitive new work from two industry insiders at the highest level which analyzes the true nature of luxury brands. It identifies the unique rules for managing luxury companies and brands, and describes how to implement a luxury strategy in your company. It indicates how to face the current crisis : back to the essence of a true luxury strategy.
Comprehensive and authoritative, it investigates every aspect of luxury brand management, including:
- what history tells us about todays luxury
- why luxury premium, and fashion strategies are not the same
- customer attitudes to luxury: the four segments of luxury demand
- how to succeed by turning the rules of marketing upside down
- developing luxury brand equity: integrating the dream equation
- how a product qualifies as luxury
- luxury pricing strategies
- distribution and the dilemma of the internet
- Communicating luxury: being a cultural activist
- financial and HR management of a luxury company
- the models for profitable luxury businesses;
- the conditions for entering the luxury market and staying there
- preventing the loss of luxury brand status
- learning from luxury a model for all companies?
- luxury, ethics and sustainable development.
Synopsis
What really is a luxury brand ? What is a luxury strategy ? The rapid growth of so-called luxury brands means they can now be found within almost every retail, manufacturing and service sector, whilst new terms qualifying luxury, such as new luxury ,mass-luxury, luxury fashion regularly appear . But if luxury is everywhere and if everything is luxury, then has the term itself lost its meaning ?
The Luxury Strategy is the definitive work that sets the record straight on the essence of a luxury strategy. It puts an end to the prevailing conceptual and managerial confusion, and explains the fundamental differences between premium, fashion, and luxury strategies . Based on an analysis of the social functions of luxury, of worldwide best practices (beyond the traditional sectors of luxury) and on first hand direct experience ,it sets out the constraining and often paradoxical rules for success , such as turning marketing rules upside down .
The Luxury Strategy provides the first rigorous blueprint for the effective management of luxury brands and companies at the highest level, including human resources and financial management. The first book on strategy, it rationalizes those business models which have achieved profitability, whilst sustaining the luxury status of their brands. It unveils the original methods that were used to transform small family businesses such as Ferrari, Louis Vuitton, Cartier, Chanel, Armani, Gucci, and Ralph Lauren into profitable global brands.
The Luxury Strategy will help you to gain a thorough understanding of the unique rules for successful luxury brand management. But more than this, it describes how any organization, from any sector, can learn from luxury and differentiate itself in the long term , even in the business-to-business environment.
Jean-Noël Kapferer is a worldwide thought leader and expert on brand management. His latest best-selling book The New Strategic Brand Management (also published by Kogan Page) is the key reference work for top level international MBAs. Professor at HEC Paris, the luxury research centre in Europe, he holds the Pernod-Ricard Chair on Prestige and Luxury Management. Also a consultant, he is a member of the board of major brands, and regularly gives executive seminars on luxury in the US, China , Japan, Korea and India. He holds a Ph.D from Northwestern University (USA)
Vincent Bastien is one of the most experienced senior managers in the luxury business. For over 25 years, he has been CEO or MD of international companies, both in Luxury including six years as MD of Louis Vuitton Malletier and three years as MD of the beauty division of Sanofi group (including Yves Saint Laurent, Nina Ricci, Yves Rocher, and Parfums Oscar de la Renta ,Van Cleef & Arpels and Fendi) -- and in business-to-business industries (glass, printing). During 20 years, in parallel, he managed his own company in ready-to-wear. He is now Affiliate Professor at HEC Paris, where he teaches Strategy in Luxury.