Build a Luxury Brand

Welcome to Market It! the podcast that inspires and guides authentic entrepreneurs to build the soulful brand of their dreams and lead a purpose-driven business.

In this episode, I will introduce the concept of luxury branding to you as a business owner or as an individual who wants to better understand why brands are what they are and how luxury brands become 'luxury'. If you want to build your own luxury brand, you won't want to miss this episode.

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At AHBC Group, we are passionate about helping entrepreneurs launch and grow a brand that is authentic to them, their purpose, and their audience. We enjoy working with entrepreneurs who have a strong purpose, a clear vision and who are animated by ethical, eco-conscious, and inclusive values, who like to challenge the status quo, and are not afraid to build a truly unique brand. If that sounds like you and you would like to discuss your project with us, apply here!

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Transcript

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Luxury brands never say they are a luxury brand. You just see it and you feel it and you know it and that's it. They show you that they're a luxury brand and they convey a luxury feeling that they never say, 'Oh, we're a luxury brand'. Can you imagine like, I don't know Chanel and on the Billboard. It reads luxury brand like No, no, no, you don't say never never never say it. You're listening to Market It!. By AHBC Hello, and welcome to Market It!, the podcast that inspires and guides authentic entrepreneurs to build the soulful brand of their dreams, and lead a purpose driven business. I'm Anne-Héloïse Chavin, the host of this podcast and the founder and Brand Builder in chief at AHBC Group, a branding agency based in Miami, Florida. So today we are discussing how to build a luxury brand. So first of all, I want to start by kind of defining what exactly is a luxury brand, because there's no actual definition of a luxury brand. Yet, when we come across one, we immediately recognize it. So I went ahead and tried to find like really the similarities and what for me from a branding perspective, what makes a brand a luxury brand. So first of all, it is a brand that implies not a need. But a want. It is something that you desire and that you want, but you absolutely do not need. Second of all, it is usually an experience. And it also involves elegance, refinement and rarity. So it's not something that you would do every day or buy every day. But with rarity thing it can be kind of hard to define. Because for instance, if you're thinking of going to Disney World, let's say it's not something that you would do every day. And yet, I don't think you can define it as a luxury. And it's not something that you need. It's something that you want. And it's also an experience, but it is not luxury. And I think that's because it is also missing the elegance and refinement part. And it's also kind of missing that craftsmanship, or artisan part that luxury brands also have. So for instance, if you think of an experience like going to a really fancy restaurant and good restaurant, that can be more of a luxury, although the price can be even less than a family trip to Disney World, let's say. So yeah, it has to have all of those things. And it has to be a very subtle and balanced mix. And that's something that you will recognize, and that you should if you are aiming and wanting to build a luxury brand for yourself or your brands, look at the brands that you would define as luxury brands, and try to really observe what they're doing. I love to use the examples of luxury brands, especially as French girl, the haute couture and like French luxury brands like if Yves Saint Laurent, or your Chanel, etc., or even some champagne brands that are very luxurious. And you can see exactly what they are doing to position themselves as luxury brands. We are going to go through a few things that will help you position your brand as a luxury brand, if that's what you want to do with your brand. So first things first, as always, is strategy. So positioning your brand as a luxury brand, as we saw requires a lot of subtlety, there is a notion of status. So you're going to want to create rarity. It's not brands that everyone can have. And it's something like usually people who are attracted to luxury brands. They like the fact that not everyone can have it because you have brands that involve a lot of craftsmanship and quality. And you know, it's like very high end, but it is also very accessible. And with luxury brands. Not everyone can have it. And it's like when you have that brand, you're kind of part of like a secret club and members instantly recognize each other. So you want to kind of strive to build that Then you want to be really, really strategic about your marketing mix. So basically, when you are a luxury brand, everything from the brand has to be luxury. So you want to make sure you go through every little thing and every little detail because luxury brands are very, very detail oriented, of course. So first of all your product or service, it has to be quite unique, and really very high quality. And I think it has to be kind of understated, at least I think that's something that is more my definition of luxury brands. And that's more maybe the European side of me. But I think true luxury brands that really last in time, are quite understated. But there are a few exceptions to that. So that you can do what you wish. But I think that's one of the easiest ways to position yourself as a luxury brand, currently. It has to be understated, yet distinguishable. So basically, you want to make your brand recognizable. I like to think so not from luxury brand well is quite luxury, actually, if you think of it in terms of positioning on its market, but Apple the first. So before we had earbuds, which are the best thing ever, and I use mine all the time, and I love them. But before that when we had the regular earphones from Apple, they actually made them white, for them to be distinguishable and really recognizable versus other earphones. So that's something that makes it really kind of more luxury. And like you would see that people had the white ones, and that the black ones are like regular other colored ones that were made. And so you can recognize the brand through stuff like that, then there's of course price. So once again, with the price, you want to create rarity, and also kind of a barrier to entry with a high price points. It has to also of course, be justified by the product quality, which was the thing that we saw beforehand. So it's really thinking about all of those things in that order that I'm mentioning them, there is a specific order. So yeah, with price, you want the price to reflect that it's a luxury,. Then distribution, so once again, create rarity, it cannot be something that's like super easy to find or to access. Sometimes it cannot be available everywhere or not for long. And that's usually if you're building something that is high quality, that is very unique, that is crafted uniquely, it will automatically be the case. So I'm not in any way saying just build a brand like you're making these, like super industrial shirts that you're doing drop shipping, but positioning it as luxury, it doesn't work because that is not authentic. And as you know, and as our tagline is building soulful brands for authentic entrepreneurs, be authentic, and you're like a luxury brand has to be authentic to your brand. Or you will see that it's just otherwise an overpriced t-shirt basically. And then with distribution, you also want to create a very unique and memorable experience. It's like if you ever went and bought something that is from a luxury brand, or that feels luxurious to you, you usually like you want to go to the store and like try on stuff or like to the colors and like you want to have the experience you want to have the original packaging, and that's something that you will remember. Then the last part of our marketing mix is promotion, and here with promotion and with communications. You want to really, really focus on doing pull marketing versus push marketing. So pull marketing is basically when you're, for instance putting up content and it's like attracting people and your audience and your dream clients to come to your brand versus push marketing is a bit more salesy. So you would recognize a brand that does a lot of push marketing because they're doing constant discounts and sales and like there's like red 50% offs, and it's a lot of selling and we launch this new product and we launch this new thing, and it's a lot of like they're asking you for stuff, whereas brands that do a lot of pull marketing, they're more like putting out content, or it's a brand that would have like a magazine, or like free content that also helps to, like create an experience, even for people who are not purchasing the brands. But like for their audience, they're doing stuff that that really pulls people to them, and still makes them part of an experience. And so yeah, basically, people want you as the brand, and you're attracting them, and not selling to them. And usually, for all brands, you you have a mix of pull versus push marketing. And for instance, if we're thinking about content, specifically, we would usually say like, for instance, we are, usually the more high end you are, the more it's pull marketing versus push marketing. And we would define like, we have four newsletters a month, three of them are more pull marketing, and one of them is push marketing. And we can have defined that same for posts on social media. And so with a luxury brand, you want to be very heavy on the pull marketing part. And then, of course, you need to sell the brand. But basically, it should then sell itself. And even when you're for instance, you have to inform your audience if you have a new product or new service, or you're launching that something. But first of all, like if you're really and once you've achieved being a luxury brand, usually people will know even ahead of time or like the they hear something that is leaked. And like you can even play on that little, but you want to inform them. But for instance, if you're let's say you're selling, you're selling a product and you're launching, you're not going to write in your post or newsletter, like this is the best thing like this is a great deal. And you should just come and get it and purchase right now. Because the deal ends in five hours, like no, people will know instantly that there's not that much availability because you don't produce this many products because you're a luxury brand. And you do not need to like push them and oversell to them. So that's basically or marketing mix as a luxury brand. That's the things that I would keep in mind when you're trying to build a luxury brand. And then what I would also do is like really ask yourself, if maybe you want to be a luxury brand, and that's like your dream. But ask yourself if all of these things are really authentic to your brand. And always go back to the product or service. And think is it really authentic for me to have a luxury brand positioning based on my product or service. And until your product or service is in luxury and it's not perfectly right. You should position yourself as a luxury brand, always product first. Then I just want to give you some quick tips to kind of implement your strategy as a luxury brand. First of all, as I mentioned before, it has to be kind of understated. Keep it really simple, think elegance refinement. Once again, there are exceptions. I'm thinking especially about those Italian luxury brands, like the Gucci, the Dolce Gabbana they are not really understated, it's not simple. It's kind of like in your face, like very bold. But that is because it's really authentic to them. That is really the style of Italian luxury haute couture brands. So that works because it's really authentic. But if you're doing most of this stuff yourself and you're just like starting to build a luxury brand. The best bet for you is to keep it understated, especially in terms of design. You want to go the minimalistic route rather than too much. If you look at any luxury brands, and I think Yves Saint Laurent for me, it's a great example. Look at what they're doing. It is extremely simple. Second is consistency. And I'm talking especially consistency in terms of design. You want to have very clear rules and you cannot afford to like try out new stuff and and go kind of crazy with your graphic design rules, especially when you're a luxury brand. In terms of design for luxury brand. Make sure there's lots of whitespace, and you'll see a lot of them that are very black and white. Like the colors are always the same color palette, and rather less than more. So for some brands like we'll have, I don't know, like six colors in our color palette. For luxury brands, it's like two or three. And that's it. So that's both the understated part and the consistency part. And it's always the same, because basically, you really want to, it's not like about being lazy, because that's actually something that's quite hard to do to make things really simple. And you're thinking that you want to highlight your product or your service, you want to highlight what it is that the brand is doing, actually, and there's no there's no clutter, there's no room for clutter, in graphic design for a luxury brand. And think of it as like a luxury house or apartment, you would imagine and envision something that's like, super like white and like modern and airy and spacious. And you want to do the same for your brand in terms of graphic design. And then the third thing, and that is one of the most important things. And that's something that I see all of the time from brands that want to position themselves as luxury brands,they are mentioning that they are a luxury brand. And it's kind of a pet peeve of mine, in terms of branding, and the tea is like don't tell, show, you don't mention your luxury brand. Never do that. Luxury brands never say they are a luxury brand. You just see it and you feel it. And you know it and that's it. They show you that they're a luxury brand, and they convey a luxury feeling. But they never say oh, we're a luxury brand. Can you imagine? Like, I don't know Chanel? And on the Billboard. It's reason luxury brands like No, no, no, no, you don't say never, never, never say. And you can think of like the vocabulary and the words that you are going to mention can pertain to luxury. And you can use the same vocabulary as they do. But if you are paying a lot of attention, they will never say luxury in their communications. So don't do that. Really be smart and like if you want to really convey that study what they're saying exactly what are their words, they're saying, but yeah, they wouldn't say luxury. And I see that all the time in Miami, in buildings on like new construction that they are doing. And it's like luxury apartments. And it's usually the ones that are it's high end, and it's good and you have good amenities and stuff. But those are not the luxury apartments, like the true luxury ones. First of all, sometimes they have a brand behind them. So they have like a license like the Armani towers, but they never right luxury apartments, like you know that it's a luxury brand. You can see you can see like the mockups that they have any you can feel it, you can smell it, it's like you know it, but the ones that say luxury apartments, they never are luxury apartments, they will say luxury apartments. And next to it, like a one bedroom is 600 square feet. That's not luxury, like luxury apartments should be like 1000 or more, and they don't say they are luxury apartments. People just know it. So yeah, don't tell show. And the second thing, within that same thing is that everything encompassed in your brand has to be luxury. So the design, the copy, the photography, social media, customer service. So luxury is like an experience. And I think it really wraps things up. And basically if you feel the need to mention, we're a luxury brand, you know that something about it is not a luxury, or that it's not clear enough for the audience to understand that it is and so I would invite you to pay more attention about everything about your brand and pay less attention about like yeah, pay attention to everything and pay attention to not saying you're luxury brand is so I yeah, I think I've mentioned that enough and that it's clear for you. But yeah, really pay attention to detail like luxury is in the detail. Like if you if you think about I don't know a luxury handbag, it's about like the the product, the fabric, the stitching, that everything is like perfect. And then you don't have to mention that it's perfect or premium or VIP or luxury. All of those words. No, no, you can And you can go ahead and look at what luxury brands are writing and saying, and use that vocabulary. But if you're, if you're paying attention, and if they're doing things correctly, they will never mention that. And usually that's the sign that a brand is young and trying to be positioned as luxury brands. But it does more harm than good. In my opinion. I think that wraps it up about how to position your brand as a luxury brand. And also keep in mind, we were talking about consistency in terms of design. But keep in mind that to build any brand, and not just a luxury brand, it takes years, it takes years to build your brand. So you want to be really consistent and be consistent with it. And don't expect to necessarily be seen as a luxury brand right away. Your Branding takes time. First of all, gaining awareness as a brand takes a lot of time. So just keep it consistent. Sit down and think about all of those strategic aspects sit down and really put in the work in the attention to detail part. And then just keep at it and be super, super consistent. I think it takes on average about eight years to build a brand and to say you have built a brand to really it's a long long term game so be really consistent with it. Well thank you for listening to Market It!. I am your host and and I hope that this episode brought you value. If you enjoyed this episode, as always, it would mean a lot if you could take a few minutes to read and review the podcast and also follow along on Instagram at AHBC Group so we can stay in touch and you can also let us know if there's a specific topic that you'd like us to cover in future episodes. Talk soon!