A Walk Through Luxury Land Johan Edberg
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Degree of Master in Fashion Management The Swedish School of Textiles 2010-05-26 Report no. 2010.13.13 A walk through Luxury land Johan Edberg - an analysis of the identity and image of high level brands Visiting adress: Bryggaregatan 17 Postal adress: 501 90 Borås Website: www.textilhogskolan.se Abstract A walk through Luxury land - an analysis of the identity and image of high level brands This thesis is about how high level brands communicate their brands to the audience. The thesis consists of analyses of the identity and images of two luxury brands, Gucci and Burberry and two premium brands, Lacoste and Morris. The purpose is to clarify the identity of the brands, by carrying out analysis as well as interviews with key personnel. Furthermore there is an analysis of the advertisement images for the respective brands in order to clarify the brands images. Finally there is an analysis of the alleged conformity between identity and image and also a section about the luxury and premium brand differs, or rather not differ from each other in the identity-image connection. The methods used are Aakers identity system, to establish the respective brands identity. An image analysis with inspiration from Panfosky and leading semoticians are also used to scrutinize the advertising images from the Spring/Summer 2010 campaigns. The results show that there is indeed a good conformation among the brands when it comes to the identity-image connection. The brands identities are thorough and well articulated and the advertisement images are well executed with the identity well in mind which makes for that the campaigns are contributing in building a good brand image among the target audience. There are several areas where the premium brand advertising images congregate with the ones of the luxury brand. Key words: Luxury brands, Premium brands, fashion marketing, brand building, identity, image, image analysis, Gucci, Burberry, Lacoste, Morris Contents 1. Background ...................................................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Characteristics of a high level brand ............................................................................................. 2 1.2 Fashion magazines......................................................................................................................... 3 1.3 The brands and companies ........................................................................................................... 4 1.3.1 Gucci ....................................................................................................................................... 4 1.3.2 Burberry .................................................................................................................................. 5 1.3.3 Lacoste .................................................................................................................................... 6 1.3.4 Morris ..................................................................................................................................... 6 2. Purpose and research questions ..................................................................................................... 7 Research questions.......................................................................................................................... 8 3. Literature review ............................................................................................................................. 8 3.1 Brand building and identity in the high level segments ................................................................ 8 3.1.1 The functions of a brand ........................................................................................................ 8 3.1.2 The luxury fashion brand ........................................................................................................ 9 3.1.3 The luxury brand identity ..................................................................................................... 10 3.1.4 Aakers identity system ......................................................................................................... 11 3.1.5 Positioning of a luxury brand................................................................................................ 12 3.1.6 Brand equity ......................................................................................................................... 13 3.2 Marketing mix in the fashion industry ........................................................................................ 14 3.2.1 Marketing communication ................................................................................................... 14 3.2.2 The fashion marketing mix .................................................................................................. 15 3.2.3 Print advertising in fashion magazines ................................................................................ 16 4. Methods ........................................................................................................................................ 17 4.1 Image analysis ............................................................................................................................. 17 4.1.1 Panofsky’s iconological model and its followers .................................................................. 17 4.1.2 Denotation ............................................................................................................................ 17 4.1.3 Utilization ............................................................................................................................. 18 4.1.3 Shortcomings ........................................................................................................................ 18 4.2 Fieldwork Gucci and Burberry ..................................................................................................... 19 4.2.1 Fieldwork Lacoste and Morris .............................................................................................. 20 5. Results ........................................................................................................................................... 21 5.1 Gucci’s identity ............................................................................................................................ 21 5.2 Burberry’s identity ....................................................................................................................... 23 5.3 Lacoste’s identity ......................................................................................................................... 24 5.4 Morris’ identity ............................................................................................................................ 26 5.5 Image analysis Gucci .................................................................................................................... 27 5.6 Image analysis Burberry .............................................................................................................. 30 5.7 Image analysis Lacoste ................................................................................................................ 32 5.8 Image analysis Morris .................................................................................................................. 34 6. Discussion ...................................................................................................................................... 36 6.1 Luxury identity ............................................................................................................................. 36 6.2 Luxury land and brand origin....................................................................................................... 37 6.3 Gucci ............................................................................................................................................ 38 6.4 Burberry ....................................................................................................................................... 39 6.5 Lacoste ......................................................................................................................................... 39 6.6 Morris .......................................................................................................................................... 40 6.7 Further research .......................................................................................................................... 40 References ............................................................................................................................................. 42 Appendix 1 ............................................................................................................................................. 44 Appendix 2 ............................................................................................................................................. 46 Appendix 3 ............................................................................................................................................. 47 1. Background The luxury brands of the world have in the recent decade risen to the brands of the hour. Luxury brand products are today found not only in the possession of the wealthy but also in the average homes from Los Angeles via Moscow to Tokyo, where 94 percent