Brand strategy consultant says 50% of luxury firms may go under
The chief executive of luxury, lifestyle and consumer brand strategy firm Équité, Daniel Langer, has said he believes as many as half of luxury brands around the world will fail to survive the covid-19 crisis.
In recent comments, the chief executive of the Los Angeles-based consultancy said: “The brands that claim to be luxury companies yet don’t create extreme value will be the first to go. In other words, the ones that think charging high prices is equal to luxury.”
He said calling products or experiences “luxury” just because they are expensive is “a fatal error”. Instead, he said, true luxury brands focus on delivering “significant value” to customers so that customers are willing to pay “a significant price” for what they receive. These brands “create memories”, he said, by putting in place “a precise brand definition, a clear value creation model, and excellent execution”.
Mr Langer added: “Unfortunately, I’ve found dramatic shortcomings in this area for most of the brands I’ve studied.”
His comments are reminiscent of an opinion that Jonathan Anderson, the creative director of luxury leathergoods brand Loewe, expressed at the end of 2016. He said the word “luxury” had lost its meaning and that there was a need to “articulate luxury differently”.
If supermarkets can apply the term ‘luxury’ to sausages, high-end leathergoods brands need to find a new way to talk about themselves and their products, Mr Anderson said.
