Outlooking Part 1 – Luxury Fashion

In an effort to stay ahead of the game, sometimes it pays to look beyond the borders of your own category for inspiration. This 'outlooking' forces us to look at things with a different perspective; so what if our premium home interior brand acted like a luxury fashion brand?

Lessons to take from Luxury Fashion strategies

1. Being cutting edge
2. Facebook for previews
3. Behind the scenes
4. Focussed pop-ups
5. Exclusive products tied to exclusive stores
6. Targetted Product partnerships

Being Cutting edge

Luxury brands need to be on the cutting edge, as the affluent consumer is demanding – and always up on the latest technology, from amazing apps to the latest Apple iPhone and iPad. Luxury brands need to create killer content for these devices – from inspiring videos, cool apps, to exclusive content that offers an insider’s look into the brands. Louis Vuitton has numerous travel apps for the iPhone, with city guides for cities like Paris and New York, featuring Sophia Coppola and Rachel Weisz sharing their favorite restaurants and shops.  Pull back the curtain and allow customers to have an emotional affinity with the brand, says Christopher Parr of Parr Interactive

Facebook for previews

Karl Lagerfeld unveils videos on the Chanel Facebook page — previewing first with teaser images and videos – and then full-length videos. Lanvin’s Fall/Winter Video filmed by Steven Meisel was a viral sensation at 800k YouTube views. See below.

Behind the scenes

Sophisticated consumers from emerging markets pay more and more attention to where things are made and how they are made because they want products which are really exclusive and with a level of quality and craftsmanship which justify their high pricing,” said Mario Ortelli, luxury goods analyst at Bernstein.

Luxury companies who can capitalize on this, are scrambling to. Our Home intersest and Premium Interiors industry has made strong inroad with video content (see previously curated video blogs), but there are more lessons to learn from the luxury fashion industry.

For example, LVMH group has revived its initiative to bring its artisans to its consumers. Louis Vuitton workshops and Hennessy cognac cellars opened for tours for their discerning consumers.

Image: Hand sewing at Louis Vuiton | Source: PixelFormula

Focussed Pop-ups

In the past, Louis Vuitton and Gucci have romanticized their craftsmen for ad campaigns, but those artisans have not been before the public eye since 2011, Reuters reports. The Gucci 'Artisan Corner' Pop-up store came to New York’s Bloomingdales department store for three days, where customers watched as bags were stitched and embossed and handles were assembled.

Image: Gucci | Source: Gucci

Exclusive products tied to exclusive stores

To garner more publicity for the Paris flagship, Fendi released a limited-edition version of the brands iconic Peekaboo handbag.

Image: Fendi Flagship store, Paris | Source: Fendi.com

The handbag was only available on Avenue Montaigne. This tactic was likely to increase traffic to the boutique as brand enthusiasts will likely want to own an exclusive piece of Fendi’s handbag collection.

Targetted Product Partnerships

Building on the Fendi tactic, Swiss watchmaker Hublot catered to a concentrated group of Ferrari owners with its new Big Bang Ferrari watch available exclusively at the Hublot Boutique Beverly Hills, CA. Their partnership , not to be confused with co-creation (see our article The Luxury Value of Collaboration)

Image: Big Bang Ferrari Magic watch | Source: Hublot.com

Isolating the watch to a single location and grafting many Ferrari references onto it added extra layers of exclusivity that would spur consumers to make the purchase. The watch’s exclusive location in Beverly Hills was intended to reach the highest concentration of Ferrari owners possible, according to a Hublot spokesperson. This partnership between Hublot and Ferrari has yielded other Big Bang watches since its inception.