Luxury Brand
What is a Luxury Brand?
Luxury brands are perceived as particularly exclusive, high-quality, and prestigious. They embody an aspirational lifestyle and are characterised by a strong, emotionally charged brand image. Compared to traditional premium brands, luxury brands are positioned in the high-end segment and specifically target a highly discerning and affluent clientele.
A central element of many luxury brands’ strategies is the use of artificial scarcity. By deliberately limiting availability, they create a sense of exclusivity and tap into psychological drivers such as status, belonging, and self-actualisation.
Characteristics of Luxury Brands:
- Brand heritage (most of the times)
- High-quality materials
- Exclusivity and scarctiy
- Picing beyond functional value
- Brand staging and storytelling
What Are The World's Most Valuable Luxury Brands?
Some of the top valuable luxury brands are Louis Vuitton, Chanel, Gucci, Dior, Cartier, Roles and Prada.
Luxury brands achieve their exceptionally high brand value by cultivating a distinctive brand identity rooted in design, heritage, origin, and carefully curated brand staging. However, maintaining that value depends on their continued desirability and the willingness of their target audience to pay premium prices.
To protect their pricing power, luxury brands rely on exclusive distribution channels. For instance, retailers authorised to operate a Patek Philippe service centre must meet the highest quality standards in order to be permitted to sell or service products from the prestigious Swiss watchmaker.
What Are The Most Popular Luxury Brands?
Some of the most popular luxury brands are Miu Miu, Prada, Loewe, Coach, Bottega Veneta, Moncler. Many of these high luxury fashion brands are gradually being acquired by large luxury conglomerates – most notably Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton (LVMH), which continues to expand its influence across the fashion industry.
Beyond fashion, some of the world’s most iconic luxury brands stem from the automotive sector, including Ferrari, Lamborghini, Porsche, Rolls-Royce, and Bugatti – all of which represent status, craftsmanship, and high-performance design at the highest level.
Quiet Luxury versus Loud Luxury
Quiet luxury describes an exclusive lifestyle and fashion aesthetic. In contrast to loud, conspicuous branding, quiet luxury deliberately avoids visible logos. Instead, it focuses on understated elegance, refined silhouettes, muted colours, and premium materials. The appeal of quiet luxury is often explained through the Snob Effect – a psychological phenomenon where individuals seek to distinguish themselves from the masses by displaying exclusivity, for example through selective consumption. Notable examples of quiet luxury brands include Bottega Veneta, Loewe, Loro Piana, and Brunello Cuccinelli.
Loud luxury, on the other hand, is frequently linked to the Bandwagon Effect – a behavioural tendency driven by the desire for social inclusion. Loud luxury brands typically feature bold and highly visible logos as central design elements. Brands such as Fendi, Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Prada, and Moschino are well-known examples of this expressive, statement-driven style.
Many major luxury fashion houses successfully cater to both ends of the luxury spectrum, offering products that appeal to both quiet and loud luxury consumers. With a holistic brand positioning, these brands manage to address multiple target groups simultaneously.
In an era where the very concept of luxury is increasingly individualised and constantly evolving, maintaining and justifying one’s status as a true luxury brand has become both an opportunity and an ongoing challenge.
Contact
We’d be glad to help you define the next steps for your luxury brand strategy. Our experts are available to assist you at +49 89 273 73 54 00 or via email at info@biesalski-company.com.
Here you can also find more information about Biesalski & Company’s range of services in the field of Brand Strategy.
Sources & reading tips
- Leibenstein, H. (1950): Bandwagon, Snob, and Veblen Effects in the Theory of Consumers’ Demand, in: The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 64(2), S. 183–207.
- Solomon, M. R. (2020): Consumer Behavior. Buying, Having, and Being, 13. Aufl., Harlow: Pearson.
