Making sense of the shifts in luxury
What are luxury brands seeing that are of use to us all.?
The 'consumer landscape' (if we can use that term?) is constantly shifting, which means that marketers need to always be scanning the horizon for tweaks and shifts so that they are best positioned to offer value into this change. Obviously.
Most trend reports, produced by brands, are completely shit - don't bother wasting your time even admiring the pictures, because they are just there to sell consulting services not actually produce any kind of insights (next thing you know you'll be spending millions on developing pointless brand engagements in Roblox or making an NFT, or something equally as irrelevant), but one recent document that we did find of some interest was one created by The Independents.
The Independents are a collection of creative agencies that focus on luxury brands (they mainly produce high-end fashion shows etc etc), but the insights from this report are in many ways quite applicable to industries that wouldn't necessarily label themselves as 'high-end'.
Takeout #1
The big takeaway from reading between the lines of the report is that brands are increasingly being required to become more proficient as media companies.
Relying too heavily on 'posting content on social media platforms' in a hair-brained attempt to 'connect with customers', over which you have no control is becoming increasingly stupid.
Takeout #2
Creative output - besides the obvious physical, luxury products that are sold - is also increasingly being seen as a new product-type. Fashion houses are now classifying themselves as film studios too, Porsche is producing cinematic long-form films,,,as is Chanel..as is etc etc...
Handing the reins of your brand's communication efforts to a bunch of amateurs and expecting great results - well...obviously, right?
As always, this report is not a prediction, it's a perspective.