Understanding Consumer Behavior in Luxury Marketing
In the world of marketing, understanding consumer behavior is essential for any brand's success, and this holds even truer in the luxury market. Luxury consumers are a unique and discerning group, driven by emotions, exclusivity, and a desire for personalized experiences. To effectively connect with this elusive audience, marketers must delve deep into their behavior and motivations. In this article, we help you understand consumer behavior within the luxury market, providing marketers with a roadmap to capture consumers’ hearts and wallets.
8 Considerations for Understanding Consumer Behaviors
1. EMOTIONS
Luxury purchases are not just about acquiring a product; they are emotional experiences. Luxury consumers look for products that evoke positive emotions—joy, pride, and a sense of accomplishment— and marketers can tap into these emotions by crafting compelling narratives around their products, emphasizing the unique value they bring to consumers' lives.
One brand that leads the way in emotion-driven marketing is Nike. They’re known for collaborating with athletes to inspire their audience, motivating customers to believe that they can accomplish what the elite have accomplished. Nike’s slogan ‘just do it’ perfectly captures this inspired feeling. It’s all about encouraging their customers to try something new, without fear of failure.
This was brought to life in their 2021 Play New Campaign. It features a video of different people attempting various sports and—as they put it—“sucking”. But rather than depicting them as annoyed, frustrated, or downtrodden, they’re happy and smiling, just having fun. The voiceover takes a friendly, casual tone, which helps to carry home the message that there shouldn’t be so much pressure on being good at things, especially straight away. The campaign evokes a positive feeling, which is especially powerful considering that the topic of failure is so often burdened with negative emotions. This refreshing take encourages customers to put themselves out there, try new things, have fun, and ‘just do it’!
2. ASPIRATION AND IDENTITY
Luxury products often serve as status symbols and reflections of one's identity, with consumers using these luxury items to express their individuality, social status, and aspirations. Understanding your target audience’s deepest yearnings enables marketers to tailor their messaging to align with consumers' desired self-image.
When you think of Prada, for example, you immediately think of high-end opulence and luxury. Historically, they have positioned themselves as an elusive brand, serving only the most affluent members of society. The launch of their makeup line, however, makes the very expensive brand more affordable to another segment of aspirational consumers.
This creates a more accessible entry point to the luxury market, creating a sense of belonging for these aspirational consumers within a higher-end community. As these customers build their personal wealth, they’ll eventually be able to purchase more high-ticket items from these brands that have won their loyalty earlier on.
3. EXCLUSIVITY AND SCARCITY
Exclusivity is a cornerstone of luxury marketing. Luxury consumers are drawn to products and experiences that are rare, limited, and hard to obtain. Creating a sense of exclusivity through limited editions, personalized offers, or invitation-only events can significantly enhance a brand's allure.
Hermès are the masters of exclusive luxury, with their Birkin bag that’s notoriously difficult to buy. The Birkin is far from an ‘off the shelf’ purchase. In fact, it’s all about your network and who you know.
To buy one, you need to find a way to meet with an Hermès brand associate, who will assess how serious you are about making a purchase. If they deem that you are indeed committed, then you’ll be added to a waiting list that can last months, if not years. It may seem like a lot, but it’s how they maintain the scarcity of their revered Birkins.
4. BRAND STORYTELLING AND HERITAGE
Luxury consumers value the history and heritage of brands. Crafting a compelling brand story that emphasizes tradition, craftsmanship, and authenticity can forge a deeper emotional connection with consumers, while highlighting the brand's legacy can instill a sense of trust and reliability.
Louis Vuitton’s Time Capsule campaign leant into its rich brand heritage. Established in the 1800s, the luxury brand has a long history and a deep archive of products. By revealing a carefully curated archival collection to the public, it allows them to see the prevailing status and authority of the Louis Vuitton brand within Hollywood throughout history.
The LV Time Capsule event was free and non-ticketed, granting everybody access to view these rare and vintage luxury items. This strategy helped the brand to share their story to a much wider audience, beyond those who may already be familiar with the history of Louis Vuitton.
5. PERSONALIZATION AND CUSTOMIZATION
Luxury consumers seek personalized experiences that cater to their unique tastes and preferences. Leveraging data-driven insights, marketers can create personalized marketing campaigns, bespoke products, and tailor-made experiences, elevating the sense of exclusivity for each customer.
Luxury and personalization go hand in hand. The luxury consumer doesn’t necessarily want a one-size-fits-all product when it can be customized to their own preferences. Guerlain understands this well, offering their customers the option to customize their perfume bottles to their preferred designs.
The personalization of the perfume bottles includes the bottle itself, the plate, and the cord and seal, plus customers can choose to add an engraving. These modifications can make the perfume bottle feel truly one-of-a-kind and more special to the customer who picked out their personal preferences.
6. INFLUENCERS AND SOCIAL PROOF
Influencer marketing plays a significant role in the luxury industry. Partnering with influential figures who align with the brand's image can amplify its reach and credibility. Luxury consumers often seek social proof, and endorsements from respected influencers can validate their purchasing decisions.
The use of major influencers within luxury marketing campaigns can be seen most prominently in fragrance campaigns, with celebrities often becoming the face of particular fragrance products. Some more recent examples would include Miley Cyrus for Gucci, Dua Lipa for Yves Saint Laurent, and Zendaya for Lancôme.
But with the rise of social media, the role of influencing is no longer exclusive to famous celebrities. Luxury brands are increasingly working with social media influencers, micro-influencers, and even everyday customers to promote their products.
Take Fenty, for example, who encourages its customers to share photos in Savage X Fenty lingerie. The brand then takes this user-generated content and reshares it. This not only encourages even more people to purchase their lingerie and share pictures wearing it for a chance to be featured on official Fenty pages, but it also builds a sense of trust and connection with its audience, for showing their products on real and diverse customers.
7. SUSTAINABILITY AND ETHICAL VALUES
Sustainability and ethical values are increasingly vital to luxury consumers. Brands that demonstrate a commitment to environmental and social responsibility resonate more with this conscious consumer segment. Emphasizing eco-friendly practices and ethical sourcing can bolster a brand's reputation and appeal.
A brand that champions sustainability at the core of its values is Pangaia. They emphasize their use of science in their strategy and designs, to create an ‘earth positive business model’. Their three focuses are Climate Action, Water Health, and Biodiversity.
But where many brands simply mention these causes, Pangaia takes it a step further to share their specific science-based goals and targets, as well as the approach they’ll take to get there. They have also embraced a more circular business model, which enables customers to buy and sell second-hand Pangaia. Not only does this further their efforts in sustainability, but it also opens up the brand to be more accessible for those who may not be able to afford their products brand new.
As the conscious consumer becomes a much bigger voice within the luxury fashion market, purpose-driven brands like Pangaia will resonate the most with like-minded customers.
8. EXPERIENTIAL MARKETING
Experiential marketing is a powerful tool to engage luxury consumers. Creating immersive events, luxury pop-ups, and VIP experiences can create lasting memories and foster a deeper connection with the brand. These experiences become part of the consumer's lifestyle, forging long-term brand loyalty.
An experiential event doesn’t necessarily need to reinvent the wheel. Take Lululemon, who upon the launch of their Manchester store, hosted free yoga classes every Sunday. The yoga classes were free and held in a modern fitness studio at the back of the store. This attracted the ideal customer to the store, who had to walk through Lululemon’s range of activewear—that just so happens to be perfect to wear for yoga. The yoga classes in themselves create positive emotions of relaxation and happiness, which their attendees would then associate with the brand hosting them.
Block & Tam are the experts in luxury consumer behavior. Get in touch with our team today to get the most out of your marketing efforts.
