Luxury is a "feeling", says brand experience expert

Date: 27/04/2010

Sometimes, luxury firms do extremely well through the brand experience that the price tag naturally affords the organisation, according to an expert in marketing.

Speaking to the Financial Express, Dilap Kapur spoke of how he and his daughter Ayesha were recently outside of the Teen Paradise Mall in Shibuya, Tokyo, when she asked: "Papa, how would you tell a fake LV [Louis Vuitton bag] from a real one?"

Noting that 60 per cent of Japanese households own a genuine Louis Vuitton product, and will pay 50 times more for it even if they cannot tell the difference from a fake, he argued that the brand experience that it brings lies in the "special satisfaction" from holding a genuine offering.

Noting the average Japanese female investor, Mr Kapur argued: "When she buys the fake she may be fooling the world, but she is also missing out of what the $1,000 cost of LV provides: a 'feeling' of being special."

Louis Vuitton is part of LVMH, a luxury brand that manages brands including Moet & Chandon, Fendi and Tag Heuer.

Posted by Michael Ewing
ADNFCR-2060-ID-19745544-ADNFCR