When managing a luxury brand, it is necessary to forget a fair number of laws of traditional marketing, which may very well apply to premium brands and even to trading up, but not to luxury. In this article, I develop 21 management principles, which I call anti-laws of marketing peculiar to luxury.

1. THINK DIFFERENT
BREAKING THE RULES OF TRADITIONAL MARKETING
Introduction
If you can´t solve a problem, it´s because you´re playing by the rules.
When managing a luxury brand, it is necessary to forget a fair number of laws of traditional
marketing, which may very well apply to premium brands and even to trading up, but not to
luxury.
In this article, I develop 21 management principles, which I call anti-laws of marketing peculiar
to luxury.
Let´s start!
Verónica Cochón Vazquez
12-06-2017
1. . luxury is not comparative
In Consumer Marketing, at the heart of every brand strategy you will find the concept of
positioning, of the unique selling proposition (USP) and unique and convincing competitive
advantage. When it comes to luxury, being unique is what counts, not any comparison with a
competitor. L

2. It´s identity that gives a brand that particularly powerful feeling of uniqueness, a timelessness,
and the necessary authenticity that helps give an impression of permanence.
2. Excellence as the primary prerequisite of luxury
The aim of an upper-premium Brand is to deliver a perfect product, to relentlessly pursue
perfection. That´s what I call obsesion for details.
In the world of luxury, the models and the products must have Character and Personality. Both
of them deliver to a luxury product.
3. Do not pander to your customers whises
This does not mean the luxury Brand should not care about its clients nor listen to them.
However, it should do nothing that threatens its identity and character.
A luxury brand has to mantain its authenticity, and therefore its attraction, its mystique and its
spark over time.
The luxury Brand, comes from the mind of its creator, driven by a long term visión. There are
two ways to go bankrupt: not listening to the client, but also listening to the client too much.
4. Keep out the idea of widen the penetration
When it comes to luxury, trying to make a brand more relevant is to dilute its value, because
not only does the brand lose some of its unique features but also its wider availability erodes
the dream potential among the elite, among leaders of opinion.
Brand growth is achieved by penetrating new countries, not new customer segments.
5. Do not try to widen the demand
When you are just a local luxury brand, going global is the way of growing in volumen without
brand through market saturation. Fort he luxury european
brands, the US market and then the Asian market, have created this opportunity of growth in
volumen without damaging the dream.
But when you are a global brand, you reach a limit. Either you stick to a luxury strategy you
stop growing in volumen and you increase your sales figures by raising the average price of
your products or you leave the luxury strategy to follow either a premium of a fashion strategy.
6. Dominate the Client
Luxury brands are at the same time a reward and a token of gradual elevation. To preserve
this status, the brand must always dominate its client. This is not the same as saying don´t
respect them: parents dominate their children, but that does not mean that they don´t respect
them. As a result, a certain distance is preserved that is not supercilious or aloof, but
nevertheless mantains an aura of mystery.

3. 7. Make it difficult for clients to buy
The luxury Brand is something that has to be earned. The greater the inaccessibility, the
greater the desire.
Luxury has to know how to set up the necessary obstacles to the straining of desire, and keep
them in place. People do eventually get to enjoy the luxury after passing through a series of
obstacles (e.g. the perido required for it manufacture)
8. Protect clients from non-clients, the big from the small
In practice that means that the brand must be segregationist and forget all society´s
democratic principles. In stores, for example, it is necessary subtly to introduce a measure of
social segregation: ground floor for some, first floor for others. Armani´s many sub-brands
have separate distribution. Advertising and promotion is for all, but public relations are ultra-
carefully targeted, like the CRM for the privileged (personal invitations to meet the designer,
the Brand perfume nose or the head wine buyer).
9. The role of advertising is not to sell
In traditional marketing, after each comercial one looks at sales figures to see whether the ad
really works. In luxury, the dream comes first.
Advertising feeds on a sustained myth, mystery, magic, highly people-centred but private
shows, product placement and art, as we saw above, an extremely important element for any
luxury brand.
The dream must always be recreated and sustained.
10. Gain prestigious on those people you are not targeting
In luxury marketing, it is essential to spread brand awareness beyond the target group, but in
a very positive way - Brand awareness is not enough in luxury: it has to be prestigious.
One of the best ways of getting this result is by having famous people using your product in
prestigious situations - as Aston Martin in James Bond movies: for sure almost none of those
attending the movie will ever buy such a car. But they will now recognize it and hold in respect
its owners.
Nowadays it is copied by traditional marketing with the strategy of product placement, but
there is a huge difference: the usual Brand pays for it, the luxury brand not.
11. The presumed price should always seem higher than the actual price
It is a telling fact that advertisements for luxury products often show only the product, without
any blurb, and certainly no prices. In the luxury world price is something not to be mentioned.
As a general rule, the imagined price should be higher than it really is. It´s the opposite in
traditional marketing.

4. 12. Luxury sets the price, price does not set luxury
Money is not a good way of categorizing objects or of stratifying them unless it has been
culturally coded. In luxury, you first come up with a product, then you see at what price you
can sell it.
There is one key consequence for selling: sales staff in a store help people understand, share
the mystery, the spirit of places and objects, and the time invested in each item - which
explains the price. Customers will be free to buy later.
13. Raise your prices as time goes on in order to increase demand
In the standard market model, when the price falls, demand rises. With luxury, the relationship
es reverse.
To live in luxury you have to be above others, not be reasonable, in both senses of the word.
A reasonable price is a price that appeals to reason, and therefore to comparison. Now,
recalling anti-law 1, luxury is superlative, not comparative. By increasing prices you lose the
bad customers, but now you suddenly become dazzlingly attractive to people who would
previously not have given you a second glance.
14. Keep raising the average price of the product range
In traditional marketing, you launch a product at a skimming price, then when competition
comes onto the scene, you drop the price. In luxury it is precisely the opposite. A luxury brand
must always be seen to be restoring the gap, restratifying, and as such it is acting as a visible
agent of meritocracy.
Its growth does not rely on running after a less well-heeled clientele but on taking advantage
of the global economic growth that is creating thousands of new rich and very rich people
throughout the world. That is why the average Pprice needs to keep going up while of
course at the same time increasing the value element of the product or service.
15. Do not sell
In luxury, not trying too hard to sell is a fundamental principle in relationships with customers.
You tell customers the story of the product, the facts, but you don´t pressure them into making
a purchase there and then.
When it comes to luxury, the best way of reaching the very well-off is to let them come to
you. Fast moving consumer goods brands hunt for consumers. For luxury brands, it is just the
reverse: consumers are attracted.
16. Keep stars out of your advertising
Using stars to promote luxury products is extremely dangerous. A luxury brand is courted by
the stars, in the same way as those stars are courted by journalists and paparazzi. The luxury
brand must respect them, but it also has to dominate them. Even the most famous ones.
Calling on the services of a star is to admit that the brand needs some of this star´s status just
to survive, and admitting that it has none of its own.

5. 17. Cultivate closeness to the arts for initiates
The luxury brand is a promoter of taste, like art. But luxury is not a follower: it is creative, it is
bold. That is why it is best for luxury to remain close to the unpopular arts or rather the non-
popular arts those that are emerging. In this way you will be developing new trends, being
innovative.
18. Do not relocate your factories
Reducing cost prices is vital in the mass consumer markets and in fashion and this often means
relocating factories. Luxury management does not apply this strategy. When people buy a
luxury item, they are buying a product steeped in a culture or in a country. Having local roots
increases the perceived value of the luxury ítem.
Delocalization may be necessary in only one situation: when it is to access to a rare
craftsmanship. But the Brand must be transparent.
Two other reasons are sometimes evocated for companies wanting to enter a new market,
which is protected: the first is alleviating taxes. The second reason is the desire to access the
elites of the country.
So those two reasons, so often mentioned, are not good one. The Brand is still prestige, but
no longer luxury.
19. Do no test
Luxury companies do not test among consumers. If you test you are a mass prestige company.
Louis Vuitton, Chanel or Hermès never test.
Luxury is a taste educator. It builds the classics of tomorrow not the hits of today, soon
forgotten. To do so, one cannot rely on today´s preferences. Luxury´s avant garde status is
reinforced by the fact that its messages are mysterious, not easily grasped.
However, it is legitimate for a luxury Brand to evaluate new products with a selection of
existing good customers of the brand, and specially on the shop floor, where a real face to
face discussion is posible. Not only is the opinion of these brand-lovers good to collect, as
they share the dream of the b
enhancing their brand loyalty.
20. Do not look for consensus
This law is a consequence of the previous one. Testing a product may be not aproved by the
majority of the target and just a minority thinks in a different way. But in luxury, this rule
doesn´t works. This minority may represent the audience of your product.
21. Just sell marginally on the internet
There, the distinction between luxury, fashion and premium strategy of prestige brands
operating on the luxury market is crucial. Internet sales are extremely well adapted to fashion
and premium, but not to luxury. Luxury purchase needs time and effort to be deserved, true
price and no discounts on excessive prices, one to one relationships with the salespeople and
an Anonymous crowd. The internet can be used as a complementary service for existing

6. customer, or as initiation to the brand story or to the product for potential and selected new
customers. It cannot be used as a selling tool, except for products that are not part of the
luxury strategy of the Brand, such as fashion line or entry products.