communication philosophy at the top of the pyramid

8/14/2019 Communication Philosophy at the Top of the Pyramid

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Communication Philosophy

at “the Top of the Pyramid”

The author is an experienced brand consultant, who has manyyears’ experience in brand planning, marketing strategies andintegration of communication planning and implementation.

Once worked as senior manager in multi-national and local

companies in marketing consulting and integrating

communications fields, experienced in strategic planning. He

formerly worked for CNC and was responsible for brand

management.

Providing brand strategies, communication strategies and

implementation and training service for many international and

local clients. The brands include: FAW-Volkswagen, Jetta Cars,

263 Internet Communications, Dangdang.com, Aucma Air-

conditioner, FAW Toyota, Tour in Sichuan, CNC, LG, Beijing Yanli

Food, and more.

He constantly ponders and develops professional settlement

methods in marketing, branding and communication fields, etc.

Lots of articles have been published in professional media such

as International Advertising, AD PANORAMA, Advertising

Pointer, China Marketing Communication Website (EMKT) and

so on.

You are welcome to discuss your ideas and express your

opinions with the author.

Tel: 13901385424 E-mail: [email protected]

Luxury brands are aimed at providing products and services to consumers who are

standing on the top of the social pyramid. This requires systematic cooperation of all the

aspects of the company. During the process of creating and maintaining a luxury brand, how

can communications serve the brand position? Are there any specific communication laws or

guidelines within the mass brands? In this paper you will find the answer.

The well-known Academy Awards are held in March every year at the Kodak Theatre in

Los Angeles. This show has profound meanings besides its movie connotations. For the

general audience, it is the most authoritative film awards ceremony in the U.S. However, for

the operators of luxury brands, it is a commercial show.

Chanel, Armani and other luxury brands sponsor stars like Halle Berry, and Nicole



Kidman to be their brands’ top models. The stars’ evening dresses, hand bags, shoes,

jewelry, make-ups, and even the cars that they drive to the shows will become a part of the

campaign for the luxury brands. Their charm will find the expression in the audiences’ crave

for the celebrities in this mysterious and glorious moment - the Academy Awards.

Owing to people’s attention to the Oscars and their admiration and love for the stars,

even after the show, the Media agencies are still willing to publish things that are related to it.

You can still feel the charm and elegance of the stars whenever you turn on the TV or read

fashion magazines. Luxury brands continuously double and enlarge the investment in the

Oscars and use active communications so as to gain the best returns on their investment.

The marketing process of luxury brands is in full swing in the throws of fierce brand

competition during the Academy Awards ceremony. Compared with some popular brands like

Coca Cola, Lux, GAP and McDonalds, luxury brands, which aim at providing products and

services to the consumers standing on the top of the social pyramid, have certain unique

advantages. This paper will sum up their unique communication guidelines for reference and

enlightenment from three different aspects.

To be the symbol of the best life style

Why do luxury brands take the Academy Awards ceremony to be a battlefield? To be

sure, it is due to the appeal and influence of the stars, which can create extraordinary trends.

When we see Sharon Stone walking down the red carpet with her GAP trousers in perfect

match with a CD bag, this will immediately cause a global upsurge of imitation. Moreover,

when consumers find that the stars that they are familiar with, love, and admire are using the

same brand of cosmetics or clothes as theirs, the brand value will be reaffirmed in their

minds.

Why do Spyker sports cars always emphasize that they are vehicles of the Dutch royal

family? The noble status of the royal family give the brand its’ honor and superb quality

guarantee. Anyone who is driving a Spyker sports car will have the opportunity to experience

a "Royal" lifestyle.

The consumers’ image that the luxury brands are dedicated to creating are: high-end

consumers who are living on the top of society, such as members of the royal family,

celebrities, stars, tycoons and so on. Luxury brands managed to get the recognition of the

people who are standing on the top of the society through shaping and strengthening the

brand’s image to their consumers. This accordingly helps to form the positive effect of

imitation to other sectors of society.

When establishing the consumers’ brand image, luxury brands further strengthen their

own brand images by closely connecting the life styles of high-end consumers. Therefore,

luxury brands will not consider taking part in activities of the general populace, as this would

reduce their “value". When luxury brands involve themselves in sports activities, all of them



are closely related to F1 racing, golf, tennis or other high-end sports activities. From 1992 to

2003, TAGHEUER was dominated as the official timer for F1 races. In each race, TAGHEUER

is required to deliver 20 tons of equipment, employ more than 30 employees and rent

Siemens data-processing devices to complete this task. There are as many as four world-

famous golf tournaments that are famous due to the Dunhill name; Dunhill Cup, Dunhill Open,

the Dunhill British Masters and Dunhill Challenge.

Connection with the arts is also an important means of luxury brands to strengthen their

own high-end images. Montblanc, which always stresses the principle of "art”, sponsored the

founding of the German International Philharmonic Orchestra in 1995. Since 1992, with the

establishment of "Montblanc International Arts sponsor Award ", the brand has already

honored as many as 85 outstanding arts patrons around the world.

Luxury brands can firmly seize the attention of the participants through sponsoring and

supporting fine arts and high-end consumers’ favorite sports activities. That’s because they

are the potential consumers of Luxury brands. At the same time, different art forms and sports

activities can introduce the rich imagination of luxury brands. Most importantly, they are all in

accordance with the life styles of high-end people and can strengthen the status of the

brands.

Knowledge and brand stories will create brand value

How can luxury brands introduce their own products while building a high-end image and

high-end life style? Bentley gives a good interpretation about the means of communication of

luxury brands: "Bentley will rarely talk about technology and technology standards, but rather

chooses to tell their consumers lots of brand stories. By doing this, we hope that our

customers can boast by telling these stories to their friends.”

Consumers’ interest in a brand name will naturally be increased after the brand achieves

the status of "luxury". The reasons are as follows. First, the high prices shock average

consumers and people naturally become curious as to why something gets so expensive.

Second, the high-end life styles that luxury brands represent are actually the things favored

by all walks of life in society.

Due to all of these reasons, the luxury brands can communicate and educate the

consumers through a variety of media and various channels. Bernard Enuoerte, CEO of

LVMH said: “Take LV for example, it has a 150 year history, thus can introduce its traditional

production design to the customers very easily. Meanwhile, the brand can also promote their

latest design concepts.”

In fact, only through the dissemination of brand knowledge can the value of luxury

brands be created! A bottle of Guerlain facial cream of RMB 2,900 is made from precious

orchids; One Hermes scarf will have 90 test versions before they decide on one; Every pair of

Bally shoes can be sold on the market only after an average of 200 strict production tests;



Tiffany emphasizes repeatedly on its brand communications that the craftsmanship of their

designers are wonderful, and also stress originality as the essence of their jewelry; Mercedes-

Benz equipped its S series with more than 12 leading-edge technologies, each kind can be

put into a very long article for auto enthusiasts to read.

If we do not have a better understanding of the product and brand knowledge, and just

judge a brand purely from its functionality and directly from its appearance, then the

differences from other brands seem only very minor. What makes brands of shoes different is

the quality and craftsmanship, not functionality. Equally, we can hardly distinguish the huge

differences in the technical aspects between Mercedes-Benz cars and other cars of the same

class on appearance alone.

The concept of brand design, brand culture, history, time of production, unique

craftsmanship, the cutting-edge technology and relatively high-quality services are actually

the content of the "stories". Compared to popular brands, showing the values of luxury brands

to the minds of their consumers by telling them brand stories determines the success or

failure of these brands. The excitement of a sales staff from a famous watch shows us the

strength of the brands construction: "The higher status the customers enjoy with more

knowledge, the more complex watch they tend to choose. They like to show off their rich

knowledge about watches to the sales staff while they are making their purchase. Sometimes,

they even know more about the watch than a staff does. Only after obtaining a better

understanding of such knowledge, can you truly understand the value of the watch.”

Why do some consumers love to pay so much money for a luxury brand while the only

difference from other similar products is merely a logo? First of all, it is because they know

that the meaning of the logo symbolizes the value of the brand, in other words, the value of

the luxury brand is indeed created by communications.

The unified sound of the global media

Nowadays, no matter where we are, Bangkok, Tokyo, New York or Shanghai, as long as

we are in one of the most prosperous business centers, we will see the logo and specialty

shops of Chanel, Kenzo and LV. These shops have refined decoration and unified style where

they display global synchronized products by season. Similarly, in Bangkok, Tokyo, New York

or Shanghai, the successful men around the world have the same interests for luxury brands.

One of the most important reasons for this is the unified high-end image the luxury brands

have built around the globe.

With the progress of globalization, for those who are standing on the top of the social

pyramid, it is becoming just as convenient and easy as to go from their kitchen to their

bedroom, as it is to go back and forth to different cities and different countries. Whichever

corner of the world they venture to they wish to be able to find their favorite brands. If a

woman is wearing a Chanel jacket, she will be very confident, no matter where she goes,

people will give her similar acknowledgements for her taste and social status. Therefore,



luxury brands in the world must be able to maintain a unified brand status. There will be no

“China's Kenzo” nor a “United States Prada”, because what the consumers of the luxury

brands want to buy actually are the expression of their own status and the embodiment of

their own personality. If the brand status has changed, then they will leave, and never take the

trouble to use the brand again.

Because of the rapid development of media, the unified images of the luxury brands

become even more important and necessary.

In the TV series "Sex & the City”, the heroine Carrie Bradshaw showed her love and

hatred for the high price of Prada. China’s “gold-collar” workers also share these kinds of

feelings. This is an example of the same brand evaluation and consistent brand message

unified together in the process of global communication. For a luxury brand, it is enough to

win the public awareness just through a product placement in a popular Hollywood movie

such as 007.

The consumers can get an intimate contact with Marc Jacob's fashion show in Paris and

Armani’s fashion party in Milan through TV, Internet, magazines, newspapers and another

hundred means, in more than 10 languages at the same time.

Therefore, Burberry could publish the same print ad, using the same model, the same

style in all the fashion magazines over the world. This is because the British, lattice style and

classic style are what consumers want to buy. We could only imagine what the feeling of

consumers would be if Burberry abandoned its British style, and instead chose New York for

their background material. They would immediately feel that the brand has deviated from its

usual style, and is "not like Burberry anymore," so they would instantly lose the reason to buy

it.

Conclusion

Luxury brands have surpassed national boundaries, becoming a symbol of top social life

style through continuously telling of brand stories, communicating brand knowledge and

unifying brand images throughout all kinds of mediums in the world.

As for Chinese luxury brand managers and entrepreneurs, who are willing to manage the

business of luxury brands, besides the product quality, excellent design and cost control,

things that still need to be considered are: how can we make people at the top recognize,

see, and be familiar with luxury brands and the top services they offer? How to successfully

build a high-end brand image? How to create content for brand stories? How to vividly tell the

brand stories to consumers? How to build world wide influence of the brand through global

mediums?

It will require time, wisdom, effort, devotion and most importantly, patience to fulfill the



above requirements, because to establish a successful brand is not a one-day job, it needs

continuous, thorough and eminent efforts to build recognition of luxury brands to the

consumers.

communication philosophy at the top of the pyramid

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