The anti-laws of marketing - how to market a luxury brand

Today I would like to talk about the “anti-laws of marketing”, which have been established by Kapferer and Bastien in 2009 and are listed below.

1. Forget about “positioning“, luxury is not comparative

2. Does your product have enough flaws?

3. Don’t pander to your customers’ wishes 
4. Keep non-enthusiasts out

5. Don’t respond the rising demand

6. Dominate the client

7. Make it difficult for clients to buy

8. Protect clients from non-clients, the big from the small

9. The role of advertising is not to sell

10. Communicate to those whom you are not targeting

11. The presumed price should always seem higher than the actual price

12. Luxury sets the price, price does not set luxury

13. Raise your prices as time goes on in order to increase demand

14. Keep raising the average price of the product range

15. Do not sell

16. Keep stars out of your advertising

17. Cultivate closeness to the arts for initiates

18. Don’t relocate your factories

In my opinion every brand manager working for a luxury brand should know about them and keep them in mind, but some of them cannot always be converted to a brand but rather develop themselves over time.

As we have already spoken about the anti-laws in class and some of them are pretty obvious today, I would like to concentrate on the ones I find are the most interesting.

First of all I would like to talk about law number 9 and 10 because I think these are crucial for marketing luxury goods. Although nearly every advertisement assumes the customer knows about the brand and it’s identity it is crucial to further educate consumers and tell your story. So existing customers can get engaged even more by further experiencing it and new customers get the opportunity to get to know the brand and through the creation of a dream they are more likely to aspire purchasing a product from the brand in the future. Cartier for example has recently created an amazing video, which can be watched below.
The video....

• Reflects their brand identity perfectly
• Creates a dream 
• Engages new customers by showing their star products as well as existing customers by showing new products 
• and creates a emotions.

Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RZPmKC2c2o&feature=youtu.be&hd=1

Although Cartier for example definitely is not very accessible in terms of their pricing the brand has a great reputation and is well-known even by people who cannot afford to buy their products. This is also very important because most people who buy branded products want others to recognize them. So there would be no point in buying expensive, branded jewellery when no one knows about the brand or recognizes the product.

Furthermore I would like to be responsive to the law “don’t relocate your factories” (Kapferer & Bastien, 2009). The location of a luxury brand’s factories and its head office is very important because people buy into the culture of your brand. So as a luxury watch brand for example you should stay in Switzerland, as a luxury car manufacturer do not plan to leave Germany and as a luxury fashion brand make sure you get the best textiles from Italy. A brand that has recently done a big mistake in terms of location for example is Yves Saint Laurent, which decided to move its head office from France to America and rename the brand to “Saint Laurent Paris” (Amed, 2012). This decision has created an huge public outcry in the world of fashion because by taking this decision, they seemed to have forgotten about their heritage and identity. To make it worst after realizing the consequences of this decision they rowed back and announced that the name “Saint Laurent Paris” will only be used in the logo (Amed, 2012). But the decision to move the head office to America is made – and according to press has already damaged the brand enormously.  

 Source: http://www.businessoffashion.com/2012/10/a-wake-up-call-for-ysls-pr-team.html

So as I said earlier on, in my opinion, knowing about Kapferer's anti-laws is very important but brand managers should not blindly try to apply them but think about the fir with their brand, the consequences and the feasibility.

References: 

Kapferer, J.N. and Bastien, V. (2009). The luxury strategy. Break the rules of marketing to build luxury brands.

London and Philadelphia: Kogan Page.

Amed, I. (2012). A wake-up call for YSL’s PR team.

Available from: http://www.businessoffashion.com/2012/10/a-wake-up-call-for-ysls-pr-team.html (Accessed: 19.10.2012)