After two years of turbulence, the luxury sector is experiencing a renaissance. The global spend on luxury goods is expected to hit A$421 billion by early next year.
In our role as brand creators and marketers, we’re reflecting on how ‘all we have seen’ in these last few years will shape consumer sensibility and relationship to luxury.
Luxury as a term can be overused and often loosely applied. It is also highly individualised and subjective. For me luxury is a kind of simplicity, perfectly described by Roman statesman Marcus Tullius Cicero “if you have a garden and a library you have everything you need.”
In the context of today’s contemporary world – what is the role of luxury? Our role is to explore and define it, and better understand the consumer’s relationship to luxury in the social and economic inter-covid landscape. Brands & organisations can navigate their way through this landscape, without reverting to the conventions and formulas of the past decades, we can find a fresh lens for luxury.
What we’re seeing right now is that luxury brands can best align with the needs and desires of their customers by focusing on emotion & experience – concern less with brand and value, luxury is measured according to the uniqueness of the experience and the emotional impact delivered; and responsibility and awareness – luxury is built around customers’ focus on a brand’s values as well as its financial or experiential value – with the ethical implications this infers.
There is a clear cross-over with major trends in wellness, inter-covid consumers are actively seeking self-nurturing, emotional and physical well-being and prepared to transform their lives to live better every day. There are also new expectations and benchmarks concerning sustainability, the environment, and ethical supply chain practices.
Luxury today is the ‘landscape of all we have seen’, and may be defined as a better night’s sleep, a healthier physical body, the emotional well-being of freedom to live and work as we choose, considered consumption and a values-based life. Our role as brand creators and marketers is to help our clients find those points of connection between the innovation, freedom, and quality their products deliver and the emotional awareness of the consumer.
