How did luxury brands become so popular globally?

What were these brands' marketing strategies they used?

This article will be sharing the top secret all luxury brands use as their marketing and brand strategies, so you can also implement it.

The ultimate goal in life when you have money is to look like the best version of your natural self. Quiet luxury, stealth wealth, and old money have been signified as being that girl.

Brands like The Row, Khaite, Toteme, Loro Piana, and Brunello Cucinelli have capitalized on this trend and what they all have in common is anti-marketing.

Luxury Brand’s Marketing Secret

Here’s the secret to anti-marketing for luxury brands. According to the former CEO of Louis Vuitton, luxury brands focus on being difficult to obtain. The goal is to have more people dreaming of the brand than people owning their products. 

How do luxury brands create desire? The first thing you must master as a luxury brand is making a longing and passionate imagination. Now this isn’t an easy task, so listen up ladies. Seducing your consumers about your brand story is crucial to nail.

That’s why Hermes implemented a quota system and Ferrari makes a certain number of cars yearly. Desire is created when something is out of reach. Creating sarcasm and reverse psychology to attain consumers. This tactic is called anti-marketing.

What is anti-marketing?

Anti-marketing is the new digital marketing trend. 

Anti-marketing combines brutal honesty and reverse psychology tactics. Here is why this works. It gets people to let their guard down because they don’t feel like they’re being sold to.

In simple terms, it is just seeing what your competitors are doing in your market and casually doing the opposite. It’s kinda like no one wants the guy that tries too hard but we want the one who activates all your daddy issues. If you want to be a rule follower this tactic isn’t for you. 

Buyers are changing how they consume content. The trend of consumers disliking advertising has grown rapidly. Consumers today can smell disinguity a mile away. 

Different ways to practice anti-marketing:

• Attract rather than promote
• Challenging tired, cliche marketing messages
• Using humor, sarcasm, or irony
• Being honest and transparent

Anti-marketing is a strategy that encourages consumers to choose their company. If you are consistently shifting with your consumers changing your marketing to keep up with current times your sales will grow. The better your marketing is the easier it’s going to be for you to sell.  

The Simple is Better Era

Prominent logos can be excessive.

When you look at a Sofia Richie outfit it automatically looks more expensive than a Dapper Dan, what they call his signature, Gucci “LOGOMANIA” looks. Consumers more than ever are distancing themselves from fast fashion and loud logos to timeless quality pieces.

Luxury items with less prominent logos are more expensive, according to Wharton professor Jonah Barger. When people think of logos they tend to think of Supreme but mainly Gucci. Recently Gucci gained so much attention, this time not in a positive way, on their logos and changed their monogram to a much smaller size. 

The scenario where the logo is acceptable would be a vintage monogram handbag! Period…

This is when brand marketing comes into play. Brand marketing is defining what their awareness should look like. Arguably having a strong brand is a company's most important asset for installing a message to your customer long-term. As a brand marketer, their strategy is all about design, psychology, and storytelling.

No more loud marketing 

Instead of overwhelming your community with marketing messages with driven awareness gains, meet them where their mind is. When it comes to great anti-marketing for luxury brands it’s best to meet them in a meaningful, kind, and conscious way.

As stated in author Danielle Dardner’s book ‘Quiet Marketing', the result will create a more loyal, strong, and connected community who are more easily to buy from you. 

So instead of loud marketing go quiet and meet your clients in their burden. Creating intentional content that can be found in search results and providing helpful resources and insights for your audience will help you become discoverable.

The logo-less label that’s killing it in this department is The Row. Making its debut in The Lyst Index Top 20 confirms they must be doing something right.

Masterclass on The Row

The Row built their business on an anti-marketing strategy that pushed the brand from bankruptcy to $300 million in sales.

Their strategy was to focus on anti-trends, high-end quality garments, and providing scarcity. Pushing their consumers to believe their products are the best timeless pieces in the industry that kept selling out.

Mary Kate and Ashley know how to create a buzz in a very ordinary way by asking attendees of their Winter 2024 collection presentation to refrain from capturing or sharing the collection. It was the ultimate way of quiet luxury marketing.

It was a way to validate the exclusivity of the brand and add to the message that if you are attending that’s validation of your stealth wealth.

The preconceived notion is to invite the biggest influencers on the front row to increase engagement. The goal for shows are viral moments, such as Coperni’s spray-on dress of 2022, and why others focus on celebrity-heavy guest lists. The Row’s unique approach of letting the clothes speak for themselves has built intrigue and excitement. 

What makes the brand more fascinating is that its founder, ‘The Olsen Twins’ is never in the spotlight. In this day in age, we are in an era where social media is dominating the social era. The Olsen’s are not to fawn over social media and remain out of the spotlight.

Right there lies the secret to the success of the brand. Olsen’s latest interview in Financial Times said, that their goal is to maintain control over their brand so that it grows sustainably.

Anti-Marketing = Luxury 

A Lot of brands are fighting for attention and social media is their preferred method. Some are taking a different approach by even limiting their digital presence. Companies such as Restoration Hardware. Creating a feeling of being exclusive or unattainable to consumers. 

Don’t we all want the one item that no one else can get? 

This radical change of anti-marketing for luxury brands is what is called the winning formula. 

In-depth how luxury brands follow anti-marketing is following the “24 Laws of Anti-Marketing”. The laws discuss creating long-selling products, as opposed to best-selling products. Some of these principles include:

• Focus on identity: Luxury brands should focus on their unique identity instead of comparing themselves to competitors.
• Imperfections: Imperfections in luxury products can make them more desirable and distinguish them from mass-produced alternatives.
• Make it difficult to buy: Luxury brands can make it difficult for clients to buy their products.
• Raise prices: Luxury brands can raise prices over time to increase demand.
• Collaborate with influential figures: Luxury brands can collaborate with celebrities' products.
• Create memorable experiences: Luxury brands can create memorable experiences and evoke emotions through experiential marketing.

Social media does have a bad reputation for its negative effects on its target audiences.

Lush’s Global Anti-Social Media Policy, being rolled out across 48 countries, sees the brand recognize that “people are looking for brands living their values and prioritizing the right kind of relationship with customers rather than any relationship for easy bucks” (Vogue Business, 2021).

Luxury brands are diluting their image by having a social media presence.

Bottega Veneta Redefining Luxury Marketing

Bottega Veneta redefining the luxury brand marketing space. “Sorry, this page is not available,” reads the @BottegaVeneta URL, where the brand had over 2.5 million followers in 2021.

So why pull the plug? The answers lie in cultural critique, strategic marketing, and an attempt to reinforce the brand's elite status.

The brand was going for an anti-marketing approach. We all knew what Lee was up to curating an informal method of anti-marketing strategy by having paparazzi photos as their formal campaign.

From a consumer behavior outlook, consumers prefer a more candid picture of the product than an edited glossy image.

Pinault revealed, “To lean much more on its ambassador and fans by giving them the material they need to talk about the brand through various social networks, by letting them speak for the brand rather than doing it.” As a result of leaving Instagram, they returned to a more genuine relationship with luxury. 

Last year, things took a turn of events. They recently returned to social media after two years of straying away. They approached back on social media first starting on a less conventional platform, Weibo, then back on Instagram.

Despite their comeback, their retaliation of social presence started the trend of a new form of marketing for the industry.

The Power of Celebrity and Influencer Endorsements

You wouldn’t see a luxury brand have discounts or sales instead they rely on endorsements to drive attention to their site.

Indeed, everyone would rather go to their favorite influencer/celebrity to see their must-have products than try them out ourselves. Studies have proven celebrity endorsement is a great way of brand awareness. 

Sofia Richie debuted herself as a minimal timeless queen. Her partnership with David Yurman was a match made in heaven.

The brand is known for its high quality classic timeless masterpieces. The celebrity endorsement was used to bring awareness to the brand's aesthetic and values while bringing insane attention in seconds.

Word-of-mouth

You need to be using word-of-mouth, so-called social selling to help improve viral awareness of the brand. Why it’s the most important to capitalize on because it’s the cheapest way to anti-marketing your luxury brand. 

If you want to build a brand that becomes a household name that stands the test of time this is what you need to do. We are going to use Chanel for a reference. Chanel is extremely good at having a loyal fan base that is faithful to them no matter the price increase.

The best companies sell feelings on their product. Believe in taking your time to increase your value in the long term. This is creating a topic for your consumers to talk about and truly believe that what they are buying is the best.

Don’t give people what they want; give them what they didn’t know they wanted.

Luxury brands are about influencing the tastes of customers. The anti-marketing for luxury brands rules to follow to have success is to make it difficult for clients to buy, the role of advertising is not to sell, communicate to those whom you aren’t marketing, and do not sell openly on the internet.

✍️ Written by Ashley Campbell