Successful Luxury Branding In The Chinese Context

Luxury brand communication was easier in the past. Indeed, commerce was national, there was very little competition and because of that consumers were loyal and easier to segment. However this has changed. Nowadays luxury brands face a highly competitive and globalized market, critical consumers, consumers that have high demands for pleasure, creativity etc. This is even more the case in China. Indeed the Chinese market is an extremely complex one for luxury brands. Most of the luxury brands present on the market are Western ones and thus have to find a way to play with the codes of luxury and their brand identity on one hand and the expectations of the Chinese consumers on the other. This represents a real challenge for luxury brands as the Chinese consumers and the business landscape have changed a lot since the end of the 30 years long economic reforms in 1991. In addition to this luxury brands also have to cope with the current critical economic situation, complicated media environment where politics play an important role, as well as the Party’s new regulations.The above has obviously created challenges for brands that often struggle between a consumer need for localization vs. globalization. Moreover brands also struggle between constant recreation of originality on one hand and their fundamental traits of tradition and heritage that must be respected and treasured on the other hand, or else they cannot qualify as luxury brands anymore.The presented issues obviously makes it quite complicated to construct an appropriate brand identity and this thesis thus aims to answer what possibilities luxury fashion brands have in order to sustain a successful brand identity and image in the future on the Chinese market. This is examined by conducting a set of interviews that will assess the current state of branding in China, what do luxury brands communicate on and how before discussing the possibilities that offer themselves to these same brands to be successful on the Chinese market still in terms of values and communication channels, in a world what is or what should the future of branding be in China In order to answer to the previously stated questions the collected data has been analyzed based on the method of qualitative analysis.Based on theory, the data and its analysis, it thus can be concluded that luxury brands most emphasize and communicate particular facets of their brand identity like heritage but more importantly they have to communicate on values to the Chinese consumers can relate them, values that are cherished by them and that are appealing to them.In addition to communicating on the right things, brands also have to adapt their means of branding that so far have proven to be efficient but that causes them to lag because of the arrival of the digital. Simultaneously they most also make sure to communicate on these values in a different way to appear unique and matchless to the consumers, in order to get their attention and beat the competition. Although their branding has to be constructed differently, it is evident that certain general guidelines have to be respected like making the consumers dream.The apparent overall dilemma of luxury branding thus appears to be between the need for tradition on one hand and creativity/modernity on the other, the ultimate success of a luxury brand depending on the public’s perception and image of the brand, which as such cannot be controlled by the brand. However by communication the central characteristics of both the brand identity and the consumers and more importantly communicating them in the right way, the gap between brand identity and brand image can be decreased.