luxury brands

We're in the midst of the busiest shopping season of the year, and lots of us will be shopping for stylish gifts. One of the choices we'll be confronted with is whether to buy an item from a well-known brand or opt for a less expensive…

Old fashioned wood and graphite pencils were once how we all wrote, but hit their popularity peak decades ago. They are high maintenance - as soon as you start using a sharpened pencil, its point begins to dull and the thickness of the…

The poll I ran earlier this week in Is Your Brand Evil produced results that, in retrospect, were predictable. Fully half the respondents thought that branding could be used in either good or bad ways. Of the other half, my…

You can find fake designer and luxury products just about anywhere these days, and most people consider owning one a harmless transgression. After all, if you were never going to pay $12,000 for a real Rolex, who is really hurt if you…

Marketers know that a key element in many purchases is to signal something about the buyer. A Toyota Prius, for example, says that its owner is concerned about the environment. Expensive luxury brands let the world know the buyer has…

Most companies think about extending their brand to maximize their exposure and value. That's why we have HUMMER cologne (at least while the vehicles were in production), and Purple Oreos. In many cases, these brand extensions makes…

Luxury brands face a difficult challenge: they must be exclusive, and usually expensive, to maintain their elite status. At the same time, a brand that has extremely limited distribution may not be able to acquire or maintain the…

What makes a luxury brand? In The Luxury Strategy, Jean-Noel Kapferer and Vincent Bastien tell us in great detail what distinguishes "luxury" from "premium" and the merely expensive. And, as one might expect, our emotions play a huge role…