Audrey Kabla, founder of the Epykomène agency and co-chair of Adetem's Luxury Club, has just published Brand and Luxury published by Kawa
The first of all the quotes in your book has nothing to do with the commercial world: "My luxury would be to spend 10 minutes with a loved one who left too soon". Isn't true luxury based on a personal, irreplaceable experience, of which the whole luxury market is a pale copy?
I really like that first question!
One of my ambitions and missions is to raise awareness of the true concept of luxury. In France, the mother country of luxury, but also around the world, there are truths and meaning to be re-established. This book offers an amusing and free way of looking at luxury. It presents a vision of the 'millennials', full of love, in search of pleasure, authenticity and a 'zen'attitude'.
Here are a few extracts (in italics) to illustrate this point:
"Luxury is at the heart of human life. It is a way of thinking and a way of living (better). Rooted in the philosophical, psychological and sociological values of the individual, it remains difficult to define.
Before being a commercial sector, luxury is first and foremost a philosophy of life, a savoir-vivre and part of the extra soul of every living being. We all too often forget that there is a luxury for each and every one of us, that it is perfectly subjective and evolving, and that it has no direct relationship with a product or service.
The luxury sector is not a pale copy. In my opinion, it is the market and commercial materialisation of all the values provided by this extra soul. In reality, perfection does not exist. The closest thing to it is evoked by excellence and quintessence. What a responsibility this places on the shoulders of these luxury brands, who are at the top of the class and 'setting an example'!
Let's return to the world of the market: for Baudrillard, our society entered post-modernism when we stopped buying objects for what they are, and bought them for what they say about us: should we see this as the explosion of the luxury market in the second half of the 20th century?
My answer is a resounding yes.
The first industrial revolution led to the need to identify a product and differentiate it. We used brands and developed their presence through brand elements: logo, colour codes, labels, etc. We thought it was just an accessory, but we were wrong. We thought it was just an accessory, but we were wrong. The brand woke up. It came to life before our very eyes.
"Have you ever wondered whether a brand is purely human invention? Is it an unconscious creation of no consequence in a commercial exchange? What intrinsically links people to brands? What are the reasons that have made its existence necessary in our lives? Why do brands mark us?
In luxury, the brand is the soul of the house. There is that emotional and affective bond that is so envied beyond the borders of the wonderful world. We love the brand, enjoy its company, cherish it. It inspires us with its prestige, a symbol of dreams and imagination.
In the book, we explain how the revelation of the brand increased the strength, growth & reputation of the luxury sector worldwide tenfold. There are chronological facts that have changed the face of luxury goods.
The best example to support this argument is the trend towards dispossession. Brand equity is growing as the phenomenon of exchange value increases.
"The object is endowed with an exchange and use value that opens the door to the world of the brand. From the moment I own a product, I enter its world. Even if I detach myself from the product, I remain with it: a customer for a day, a customer forever. It's the brand that gives the product that second life.
You present the luxury market in the form of a pyramid, with a broad "entry-level luxury" base and an "iconic" summit: if luxury is the unattainable, is an "entry-level luxury" really luxury, or is it more of an ersatz? Georges Lewi discusses the concept of masstige (the concatenation of mass and prestige): is affordable luxury still really luxury?
"What is masstige? Half prestige, half mass market, masstige is the alliance between the world of luxury and other sectors, particularly fashion and design. It's a term that generally refers to products. We forget that these products are often associated with "masstige" brands, which are "semi-luxury" brands. They have a touch of nobility in their name, they have the appearance of the precious in all their mass, one of their parents is luxury.
And today, we can also distinguish small luxuries. We treat ourselves to them in moderation, little pleasures that take us out of our everyday lives without representing a unique, out-of-the-ordinary experience. We take them for what they are: simple little bits of happiness.
Some luxury brands are myths, others have the potential to become so; but myths necessarily take us back to a bygone era... Isn't storytelling a way into luxury?
There are several questions in one.
I'll start with the last one. Yes, storytelling is the way to enter the luxury sector. It's more than obvious, because storytelling is an adaptation of what is done in the luxury sector.
"The history, heritage and prestige of the Luxury Brand create myth. The pleasure we take in savouring its little stories and sharing its legends gives it a trans-generational, free and international reputation".
We live and breathe creation, expertise and the realisation of dreams that we proudly share with our customers, who in turn pass them on to their peers: friends, family, children and so on. A luxury brand is a living, breathing fairytale. It has a history, a heritage, a heritage that we market. I call this "brand romance" in the book.
Storytelling is the adaptation of this luxury marketing strategy beyond the world of luxury and first applied to digital. We use storytelling for our digital communication campaigns.
As far as myth is concerned now, it can't take us back to a bygone era. Dreaming, creating and passing on are the hallmarks of humanity.
"Why do we create stories? They symbolise our perpetual quest for the meaning of life. They also mystify the experience of life by teaching us about ourselves and what attracts us. Myths are frozen in words, films and memories, and yet they travel through time with no expiry date, making us dream. It is an ideal model in which surpassing oneself and hope are constants".
