Marketing exclusivity through the arts
Dr Claude Chailan
Professor of Marketing
EM Strasbourg Business School
61, avenue de la Forêt Noire
67085 Strasbourg
03 68 85 87 45
Préserver l’exclusivité grâce à l’art
Résumé: Dans la mesure où les produits et services de luxe deviennent plus facilement accessibles, les fabricants de ces produits doivent s'assurer que l’exclusivité reste associée aux marques de luxe, pour que le consommateur se sente spécial et unique. L’art se prête volontiers à cette mission, parce que son accès est difficile et sa compréhension complexe.
Sur la base d’une analyse en profondeur des pratiques des grandes marques mondiales de luxe, nous avons identifié quatre principaux types de collaboration entre marques de luxe et art, qui sont: la collaboration commerciale, le mécénat, les fondations, et le mentorat artistique. Cet article présente les mécanismes sous-jacents de ces collaborations entre les marques de luxe et de l'art.
Mots-clés: Arts, Luxe, Exclusivité, Marque, Marques de luxe
Marketing exclusivity through the arts
Abstract: To the extent that luxury products and services become more easily accessible, luxury brand marketers must make sure the brand make luxury even more exclusive by making the consumer feel special and unique. Art lends itself willingly to this mission, because its accessibility is complex and its comprehensibility difficult.
From an in-depth analysis of the practices of the major worldwide brands in the luxury industry we identified that four main types of collaboration between a luxury brand and art exist, which are: Business Collaboration, Mecenate, Foundations and, Artistic Mentoring.
This article presents the underlying mechanisms of these collaborations between luxury brands and art.
Key-words: Arts, Luxury, Exclusivity, Brand, Luxury Brands Marketing exclusivity through the arts
Introduction
Prophesising in “The Philosophy of Andy Warhol” that big-name stores would become museums and museums would turn into big-name stores, Andy Warhol foresaw the right idea, but perhaps he didn’t take it far enough. Today, top luxury brands no longer open up boutiques , but rather flagship stores designed by the best architects, even those who build today’s biggest museums, such as Renzo Piano creating the Centre Pompidou in Paris and
Maison Hermès in Tokyo. Other brands have the most en-vogue artists associated with themselves. As such, in summer 2012 the house Céline was inspired by Mondrian’s color blocks for its handbags while Buren was creating silk scarves for Hermès, Anselm Reyle was designing bags Dior and Stuart Vevers was re-interpreting some Escher drawings for Loewe.
Yves Carcelle, the CEO of Louis Vuitton, said recently " The world of luxury shares the values of emotion and passion for creation with the world of art. If the brand inspires artists, they stimulate our house back. This is a very productive process of mutual inspirations ”1.
And, over the last twenty years the market for luxury products and services has grown dramatically with an estimated sales of more than 200 billion Euros in 2012. During the same timeframe art has become a major component to this evolution because art allows being out of the ordinary (Fillis, 2010) at a time when the proliferation of signs, commoditization and massification of luxury (Nueno and Quelch, 1998; Thomas, 2007) require luxury brands to distinguish themselves from and beyond the mere product. As stated by Patrick Thomas
CEO of Hermès 2: "... I am wary of the paradox of luxury: The more one is desired, the more one grows, but the more one grows, the less desirable”. This is so as to inspire consumers
1 In Les Echos-Série Limitée, n° 195, February 2012, p. 151 2 Feb. 2011
1 with a different flavour and make them dream via something else. Art and luxury have been flirting between seduction and mutual benefit since the late twentieth century, enhancing art- based luxury goods’ differentiation because luxury marketers need to do something vastly different to get their luxury branding messages to consumers and drive consumers to action.
While the worlds of art, fashion and luxury are growing closer together every day, a key question which thus arises is the need to better understand the links between art and luxury brands.
Within this context of mutual enrichment between art and luxury brands, we examined the diversity of the relationships which can exist between luxury brands and art because a clarification of these relationships could expand knowledge in luxury brand management including its strategic dimension (Riezebos, 2003; Berthon et al., 2007). Our overall goal is to examine the nature of this relationship between art and luxury brands, particularly the similarities, differences, complementarities or conflicts between the different modes de liaison linking art and luxury brands. By mode de liaison we refer to the type and nature of the relationship between an artist or an artistic event and a luxury brand. Particularly we aim at establishing a typology of these links and connections between art and luxury brands, in order to classify these links, to better understand their nature and to assess the appropriateness of a chosen mode de liaison with brand link specificity.
1. Analysis
We have chosen to study the links between art and some of the main French and Italian luxury brands. A total of 152 luxury brands have been identified, either product- or service-oriented, of which 76 are members of the Comité Colbert while 76 are Altagamma Association members.
For historical reasons, France and Italy represent the largest portion of the world's luxury
2 goods. It is considered that both countries represent up to 55% of worldwide luxury goods sales, and it was therefore logical and reasonable to focus on luxury brands from these two countries. The data come from the study of publicly available data from companies who are members of the Comité Colbert in France and the Altagamma Association in Italy. These two associations unite most of the key players in the luxury field in each country, with very strict membership criteria. Morever, membership is by co-op nomination, providing a guarantee for brands who are already members that any new members will uphold the standards in place. Alone, the 75 luxury houses of the Comité Colbert hold a quarter of the global luxury goods market with a turnover of 39 billion dollars and 115,000 employees in
France.
As a first step, the brands were split into two categories of those who were linked to the world of luxury products and services and those who were not 3. In fact, the analysis showed that certain member brands are representative of the country in question (e.g. San Pellegrino or
Ducati for Altagamma and Italy, and Bonpoint or Flammarion for Colbert and France), yet are not luxury brands. Moreover, certain brands appear twice, as both a main brand and also a derivation of the brand line (for instance Dior, and Parfums Christian Dior) and in this case the brand was used only once. In total, 14 Italian brands and 13 French brands were eliminated for these reasons.
Then, for each of the remaining brands we researched if they were engaged in any initiatives connected to the arts. Table 1 summarizes the data resulting from this analysis.
3 In fact, the analysis showed that certain member brands are representative of the country in question (e.g. San Pellegrino or Ducati for Altagamma and Italy, and Bonpoint or Flammarion for Colbert and France), yet are not luxury brands. Moreover, certain brands appear twice, as both a main brand and also a derivation of the brand line (for instance Dior, and Parfums Christian Dior) and in this case the brand was used only once. In total, 14 Italian brands and 13 French brands were eliminated for these reasons.
3 Table 1: Analysis of the number of luxury brand members from Altagamma or Comité
Colbert and their involvement in artistic initiatives.
ALTAGAMMA In % COMITÉ COLBERT In % in number of in number of companies companies Total number of brands who are 76 100% 76 100% members of the association Of which are not luxury goods 14 18% 13 17% or services-oriented or are redundant Total number of luxury brands 62 82% 63 83%
Of which have no specific arts - 26 34% 32 42% oriented linkages Total number of luxury brands 36 47% 31 41% with arts-related actions
In comparison with the total number of brand members of the two organizations, an average of 44% - 67 luxury brands in all – is involved in an initiative related to the art world.
However, this percentage rises to an average of 53.6% (58% for the Altagamma brand members and 49% for those in Comité Colbert) in regard to luxury brands only.
More than one luxury brand out of two has thus developed in a systematic manner an institutionalized link with art.
In a second phase, we looked at which brands were connected to which arts-related initiatives.
A connection consists in any type of institutionalized link between a brand and art. In total,
106 connections between luxury brands and art were identified (52 initiatives for Altagamma 4 members and 54 for Comité Colbert brands). This figure of 106 representing the number of connections is higher than the number of luxury brands involved in the arts (67) because one brand may intervene in one or more artistic fields. For instance, Gucci is providing some patronage as well as artistic collaboration, and also created a foundation. In the same vein,
Cartier has a foundation and is also patronising some artists.
A careful study of the artistic initiatives of each member brand in the two associations allowed for the identification of four types of connection or modes de liaison between luxury brands and arts. These four modes de liaison are: artistic mentoring, business collaboration, foundations, and patronage . The key characteristics of each of these modes are explained hereafter.
Artistic mentoring and support for artistic creation
Mentorship is a relationship in which a more experienced or more knowledgeable person helps guide a less experienced or less knowledgeable person. The roots of the practice are lost in antiquity and the word itself was inspired by the character of Mentor who in Greek mythology is Telemachus’ tutor and a friend to Ulysses. The goddess Athena takes on
Mentor’s appearance in order to guide young Telemachus in his time of difficulty.
Artistic mentoring and support for artistic creation from luxury brands consist of aiding young artists to emerge or affirm themselves. This aid can come in many forms, such as temporary exhibitions of their work, purchasing pieces and/or rights to certain pieces, or organising expositions allowing artists to showcase their talent. Several luxury brands implement mentoring programmes, such as Rolex, Fendi or luxury brands of the Swatch Group.
- Rolex has launched its artistic mentorship program in 2002. In six disciplines (dance,
theatre, literature, music, drama, and visual arts) six renowned artists are designated as 5 mentors to six young artists and support them in carrying out their projects. This
project, christened “ Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative ” facilitates continuity through
a sort of passing of the baton via the intellectual thread of history. Every two years a
handful of artists at the top of their craft take an up-and-coming talent under their wing. This is an individual they choose, with enough experience but still in need of
contacts and advice. These new kinds of dialogues arise through encounters such as
Amish Kapoor advising Nicholas Hlobo, Stephen Frears counselling Josué Mendez,
Gilberto Gil helping Dina El Wedidi, and Patrice Chéreau guiding the Polish director
Michal Borcsuch.
- At the end of 2011 in Shanghai on the Bund, The Swatch Group opened the Swatch
Art Peace Hotel in order to seduce a new Chinese market. The building is a hybrid
structure, comprising of a hotel, display windows for many of the brand group’s
prestige models such as Breguet and Omega, and two floors which house an artists’
residence with exposition spaces. The brand covers round-trip tickets for the artists,
and all expenses are paid. The only commitment from the artists in residence is to
leave behind one piece of their work upon departure. Nick Hayek, Swatch Group
CEO highlights that “the idea is to send out a message: Swatch rhymes with art. We
have proliferated our collaborations with the biggest artists, in all domains of artistic
expression, from Keith Haring to Jean-Charles de Castelbajac. This residence is
another way to affirm this connection. Art and artistic liberty – that’s real luxury.
This is the luxury that Swatch is all about” 4. For example, Alexandre Joly is there
pursuing his work to capture and register sound in mobile sculptures, while Tom de
Peyret explores and engages in his photography.
Business collaboration and development of commercial creations by artists
Business collaboration is established through a classic business relationship base between the artist and the brand. The artist commits to creating a product or a line for the brand for a generally determined timeperiod and receives remuneration in recompense. This method is
4 In Les Echos Série Limitée n°195, February 2012, page 34 relatively easy to implement and requires no long-term commitment, which makes it quite attractive for several brands including for instance Dior, Vuitton or Ruinart:
- Anselm Reyle is the first artist to collaborate in a global manner with a luxury brand –
Dior – by contributing via fashion accessories (bags, scarves) but also beauty
products. He states 5 “accepting this type of collaboration carries risks for the artist’s
reputation; between art, fashion and beauty, neither the constraints nor the demands
are the same. …… I have always been clear: This is not art, but a project for
designing fashion and beauty objects whose objective is to be sold”. For Anselm
Reyle “Every one of my creations remains unique and can be recognized as such.
This uniqueness, this exclusivity is what is essential in art…what’s more; a work of art
establishes its own permanence, contrary to fashion or cosmetics”.
- Vuitton with pop and manga artist Takashi Murakami: an effective partnership
allowing Vuitton to rejuvenate its label. The purpose of a bag takes a back seat as it
has also become a work of art. This association has allowed Vuitton to enlarge its
audience towards younger market segments and renew its color codes which has
become important in the brand’s strategy as it seeks to become less dependent on its
trademark monogram pattern. Vuitton almost immediately won over a worldwide
audience which it had previously been far from capturing.
Foundations
A foundation is a legal categorization of non-profit organizations that will typically either donate funds and support, or provide the source of funding for its own charitable purposes.
5 In Les Echos, Série Limitée, February 17, 2012, page 2 A foundation’s objective is a creation of general interest with a non-profit goal. In order for there to be general interest, the work needs to have character that is either philanthropic, educational, scientific, social, humanitarian, athletic, family-oriented, cultural, or one which works towards showcasing national artistic heritage, defending the natural environment or spreading culture. Luxury brands known all over the world have created foundations, such as
Cartier, Louis Vuitton or Prada.
- The Cartier Foundation is a Mecca of contemporary art. This foundation has enabled
important discoveries like the Japanese painter Takashi Murakami or Congolese
Cheri Samba. Its recent summer exhibition was focusing on naïve art, with authors
who have rarely been invited to present their work in institutions dedicated to
contemporary art. The penchant toward international flair is evident in the choice of
authors selected: Tadanori Yokoo from Japan, Brazilians Alcides Pereira dos Santos
and Isabel Mendes da Cunha, the Italian Alessandro Mendini, the Mexican Gregorio
Barrio or the Indian Jivya Soma Moshe.
- For its part, The Louis Vuitton Foundation has planned for the spring of 2014 in Paris
the inauguration of its site, constructed by the architect Frank Gerhy. Its objective in
particular is to emphasize education. Through civil action touching as many
individuals as possible, LVMH intends to influence an attachment to active solidarity
promoting culture, youth as well as humanitarian and public health causes. As such,
in 2011 the company also launched the Louis Vuitton Young Arts Project, a website8
dedicated to young underprivileged Londoners. In partnership with five art
institutions, it provides access to artists and their world through conferences and
workshops. In January 2012 at the opening of its Etoile boutique in Rome – the name
of the cinema formerly housed in the building – the famous case-maker sealed an
8 alliance with Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia to finance scholarships for
students in its stage and costume design programs.
Patronage / Mecenate
Patronage is the support, encouragement or financial aid that an organization or individual bestows to another. Patrons operate as sponsors. Some languages still use the term mecenate , derived from the name of Gaius Maecenas, generous friend and adviser to the Roman
Emperor Augustus. Sponsorship of artists and the commissioning of artwork is the best- known aspect of the patronage system. In the history of art, arts patronage refers to the support that kings or popes have provided to musicians, painters, and sculptors.
Many luxury brands invest in artistic patronage in various fields such as contemporary art, national heritage, dance, film, or photography.
- In January 2013, Fendi announced that the brand was going to spend 1.8 million Euros
to restore Rome’s Trevi fountain. Karl Lagerfeld, Fendi’s artistic director commented
“When times are hard, as is currently the case in Italy, it’s important that the top
fashion houses work for the common good ”6. In exchange, the brand will affix a
simple television-sized plaque. Pietro Beccari, CEO and chairman of Fendi – a house
created in 1925 in Rome – indicated that this project perfectly symbolises the links
between the brand and the city, stating, “ We’re no longer just a Roman fashion house,
but a brand found in seventy-five countries ”7. 9 - Salvatore Ferragamo was the exclusive sponsor of the exhibition " Sainte Anne, The
Ultimate Masterpiece of Leonardo da Vinci ", at the Louvre Museum from March to
June 2012. As concerns Audemars Piguet, it contributed to the re-opening of the
grand stage at the Bolshoi Theatre after six years of renovations. For this event,
6 In Le Figaro, January 2013, page 36 7 ibidem Svetlana Zakarova, the brand’s ambassadress for several years now, starred in the title
role of Sleeping Beauty.
- The mecenate can also be focused on a particular domain. For example, since 2006
Breguet has been a partner for the Musée et Domaine National de Versailles, and has
contributed more than five million Euros to the restoration of the Petit Trianon. Since
2008, Longchamp has supported the Comédie-Française and has contributed its shows
at the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Beijing.
- Mecenate can be very practice-oriented as well: Since 2007 the master tailors of
Brioni are sharing their know-how with students in the third year master class at the
Royal College of Art in London.
2. Interpretation
From a traditional perspective, luxury is luxurious because it is unavailable to everybody else
(Wetlaufer, 2001; Silverstein and Fiske, 2003). However, “ At a time when - as stated by
Silvia Fendi 8 - everyone can buy a series of anything at all just by grazing their fingers over a tablet … asserting one’s taste has social significance” the delicate balance between luxury and limited availability is very difficult to successfully achieve. For this reason, luxury brands seek to transfer the distinctions they convey towards a set of inimitable values by migrating to a more sophisticated and more elitist ensemble of codes, more difficult to understand by external stakeholders. Art is ideally suited to this migration, because its access 10 is complex, its understanding difficult for outsiders. Art de facto moves the exclusivity associated with luxury to a higher, more inaccessible level and more difficult for competitors to copy. Apprenticeship in art is by nature a process; it uses codes and names known only to those connoisseurs inside the “club”. Moreover, this type of apprenticeship requires
8 In Le Figaro, April 29, 2011, page 31 10 knowledge and training, which separates the novice from the expert and the connoisseur from the profane through a Kantian vision of existence.
Indeed, the way a luxury brand is a higher symbolic value for the consumer is no longer only through the possession of the product, but shall be determined on an experience based on the knowledge of exclusive and complex – artistic – codes. Luxury for luxury’s sake neither can nor should be accessible for everyone. Through art, luxury becomes the experience of this unshared knowledge and codes in a difficult to access environment whose comprehensibility is complex and subtle. Moreover, especially when contemporary, art holds the virtue of being able to constantly renew itself, which supposes continuous updating on the part of its worshipers. These followers must constantly relearn the access keys to this new knowledge thus created, hence enabling luxury brands to relentlessly renew the distance created with mass consumption.
Luxury brands can thus build a new relational and experiential paradigm, art-related and detached from the mechanical execution of a mere product performance. The four binding modes identified in the analysis cover a large spectrum of relationships between luxury brands and art, thus allowing for each brand to position itself within this relationship vis-à-vis (a) its own esthetic, historic and economic criteria and (b) its on willingness to intervene in the area of the arts in general or in regards to artists in particular.
We argue that this interpretation responds to significant evolution in the luxury universe over the course of the past fifteen years, characterized by two complementary factors. 11 The first factor is the growing potential of an upper-middle class who is achieving a certain level of financial comfort, particularly in developing countries. This upper-middle class now possesses resources and can tap into a financial surplus which may easily be reutilised in purchasing products with strong symbolic value – luxury products – thus permitting them to move from financial comfort to true social recognition.
The second factor is the recent emergence of true multi-national and diversified luxury companies such as LVMH, Kering, Richemont which due to their financial constraints – for example the share value or the financing of their expansion or the remuneration of shareholders – self-generate their own need for steady sales and profitability growth; even if they are not willing to recognize it as such.
The conjunction of these two factors in some ways makes the traditional luxury model (based on rather drastic management of rarity with price as a major adjustment variable) obsolete.
The economic model often truly in force at the heart of these multi-national groups is one of actual luxury popularisation, while preserving a certain selective character specifically due to the total control of the brand’s image and its corollary, distribution. In other words, the democratic and financial ideal of luxury challenges its more traditional concept of exclusivity derived from ancient ideals of luxury.
Luxury brands have thus to solve the “Luxury is for everyone and different for everyone” equation in order to keep their legitimacy because this popularisation – even being high- priced based – brings much less luxury value to today’s high-income luxury consumers who seek social status. Insofar as products or services become more easily accessible, as it
“suffices” to have the money to own them and because their distribution is, in reality, massive
– shopping centres, duty-free boutiques, big boulevards, shops in the biggest cities are frequented by hundreds of millions of people each year – it is strategic for luxury brands to preserve their exclusive and, in some ways, aristocratic dimension. 12
Thus, luxury no longer resides only in having and owning as in the classic materialistic luxury world, and moreover the performance of the product or service is no longer the unique keyword that characterizes today's luxury brands, since these products or services must intrinsically in any case be of impeccable quality in all their dimensions. And because luxury consumers still yearn for more uniqueness in their experience, luxury rather resides in the ability of brands to reinvent the luxury paradigm.
3. Managerial implications and conclusion: About the consubstantiality between art
and luxury
A large number of companies in the luxury sector use art to increase their brand’s notoriety at the international level because “ Today’s business realities have impacted heavily on the arts ”
(FiIlis, 2011). This means a series of implications for luxury brand strategists:
The relationship between art and luxury is thus proportional to the increasing ease of access to luxury products and services, as the essence of the luxury brand exists much more by the distancing environment and experience it creates, promotes, and maintain. The more luxury brands democratise themselves, the more they need art so as to preserve a certain distance with the non-luxury world, and thus maintain a distinct image and thereby source of creating value and margin. Art introduces a contribution of symbolic and aesthetic values destined to neutralise risks from the industrialisation of luxury.
Art is less an object for advertising communication than luxury brand’s vehicle for luxury itself. Its introduction brings about interference within borders and hierarchies resulting in luxury consumers seeing themselves elevated to the ranks of art amateurs.
Using art to create a dramatic setting at the heart of a luxury brand contributes to the metamorphosis of the merchandise’s profane character into sacred value. This is to reinforce 13 the luxury brands legitimacy and their credibility on the cultural scene, but also to acquire a symbolic dimension allowing them to accentuate their distinguishing characteristics and affirm their identity. Amongst the four main types of collaboration between a luxury brand and art – which are Business Collaboration, Mecenate, Foundations and, Artistic Mentoring – each brand can position itself appropriately by choosing the type which better fits its history, goals and financial resources.
In this manner, the juxtaposition of a luxury brand with arts allows a company to generate a long-lasting sustainable competitive advantage and make the luxury brand model difficult to copy due to its idiosyncratic nature, and because it is a powerful generator of causal ambiguity (Weick, 1976; Orton and Weick, 1990). When the bonds between arts and a luxury brand are so intense, it becomes impossible to determine if art is in and of itself a source of competitive advantage, or if the results it generates are not themselves the origin of the luxury brand’s perceived values.
It should be noted however that these close relationships between luxury brands and art are not without dangers, the most obvious being distortion of the art and the artist himself. The osmosis between the two universes can at any given moment shift towards exclusively commercial purposes with mass production of contemporary art, relatively standardized to even quite conventional provocations, and thus ultimately reverts back to the root of the problem. A second limitation is that this institutionalization of relationships between art and luxury may rest in the artistic world’s excessive dependence on its financers.
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