The Changing Meaning of Modern Prestige and Other Themes Driving Luxury Marketing Plans in 2022
Is it just me, or did it feel like 2021 started off busy, lagged in the middle, but has somehow now vanished before our eyes? I’m about to dive into planning for calendar year 2022 with my team. Here are the imperatives I’m placing priority towards. How do they compare with what you are seeing?
A Single-Minded Focus
A major theme in my plans for 2021 was to amplify and prioritise a single-minded strategic imperative for the brands I work with. This was to be the driving force behind all major decisions made for sales and marketing initiatives.
In my own role, and with my direct reports, I felt the need to simplify focus was essential in 2021, after 2020; a year that saw us all faced with uncertainty beyond our wildest dreams. It was a year where programming and goals adopted a ‘fight or flight’ or ‘survival of the fittest’ mentality. Therefore, restoring some order felt essential.
For the health of our people, which flows to the health of our brands and customers, it was paramount to enter 2021 with a single-minded goal that helped us focus and reduce unnecessary stressors or distractions (knowing there would likely be a few ‘uncontrollable things’ dealt at us from the Government). Single-mindedness was a strategy to ride the highs and lows of pandemic-life with some sort of order.
I’m genuinely blown away by the results of single-mindedness. In theory, I always knew it was important, however sometimes this theory hasn’t felt practical, especially when balancing the commercial realities of business and working with multiple products and priorities.
Single-minded goals take bravery, discipline and patience, but the pay-off comes in dividends when executed effectively. With boundaries, my team dug deep and pro-actively filled their programs with activities geared solely to fulfil a single-minded goal. The results, from both a brand health and bottom line / commercial point of view are so far beyond expectation.
We couldn’t deliver all projects planned for 2021 due to COVID-19, so we will extend the unfinished plans to 2022, thus, this single-minded focus will remain at the heart of the program.
Customer Experience
It’s become widely understood that the digital technology developments a business may have had on a five-year-trajectory were fast-tracked in the last 24 months. In saying that, while customers have become more tech-savvy and an investment online experience is imperative, human-centric customer service is as important than ever.
This is supported by a Deloitte study which suggests a majority of customers put their purchasing decisions behind, “efficiency, convenience and knowledgeable or friendly service.” While in research by PWC, a whopping “80% of American consumers say that speed, convenience, knowledgeable help and friendly service are the most important elements of a positive customer experience.”
The ultimate kicker? According to PWC, “43% of all consumers would pay more for greater convenience; 42% would pay more for a friendly, welcoming experience. And, among U.S. customers, 65% find a positive experience with a brand to be more influential than great advertising.”
This reinforces my longstanding belief that social media should be considered as a community engagement and positioning platform for luxury brands, rather than an acquisition and development platform. Also, that personalisation technologies should be considered as a complement to what old-fashioned customer service and interpersonal communication can deliver, when supported with the appropriate data to personalise the message. Especially for small to medium-sized businesses.
My 2022 plans involve auditing customer experience touchpoints, from first interaction to order fulfilment, to ensure the experience is commensurate with brand positioning and competitive with larger specialists in the e-commerce space. This will help uncover any investment required to maintain optimal standards in an omni-channel context.
Research confirms that customers are also prepared to pay a premium for a great experience, or something that feels exclusive — so bricks and mortar experiences remain as relevant as ever. Optimising omni-channel is key.
Rethinking Modern Prestige
Once upon a time, prestige was defined by rarity, exclusivity and craftsmanship alone. In 2022, luxury will need to incorporate sustainability virtues to remain aspirational. The top 100 luxury brands in the world are already investing in Carbon Neutral initiatives and making their factories more transparent. This transparency of materials and production will remain more important than ever, especially for primary producers that are also luxury brands, like in the wine industry.
I’m very fortunate to represent businesses that choose sustainable practices because it improves product quality, thus my job is to simply tell that story to the world. 2022 isn’t a year for half-truths or ‘smoke and mirrors’, if you want to sustain a luxury position.
In my modern luxury marketing programs, articulating and actively choosing sustainability, not just from a product point of view, but a packaging and marketing collateral point of view will be huge.
As a communicator, I have the responsibility not only to articulate the sustainable improvements to farming and production that are taking place with the brands I work with, but also to motivate and inspire my audiences to adopt new standards for understanding those products they consume, and if interested, empower them navigate the buzz words of the era, and make consumption decisions that align with their individual values.
