BUSINESS
But it worked: Italy’s Ministry of Culture was created in 1974, and
over the next decade or so, Italians learned to love Italy, and
foreigners learned to love Italian culture, which lead them to buy
Italian wine, food, fashion, cars, motorbikes, shoes, coffee, etc.
Even today, you can see the result when you watch programmes
like Top Gear. Every car they talk about is assessed with numbers
– speed, consumption, acceleration, etc. – except Alfa Romeo
and Ferrari: Italian cars are valued by the amount of love you feel
for them. In that way, Italy has become a luxury brand, and you
can only really say that about a handful of countries with a strong
cultural presence, like Britain and France. It’s no coincidence
that so many luxury brands hail the country they come from with
such vigour. You can add emotional value to your brand when
you tap into deep cultural connections. And I don’t just mean
this in some abstract way: the products will sell for a much higher
price.
TAoL
I get it. So you’re saying that luxury brands should aim for the
kind of depth that a country has with its patriots? I mean, in the
relationship they have with their customers.
AG
That’s right. My approach, when I work with new luxury brands,
is that I generally divide the work in two parts. The first part is
to find the one core value, and give it some kind of emotional
resonance. Let’s call that the Brand-Xness. It’s great if you can
put it in a single word. For Corum, for example, it was “courage”.
Just like you buy a Patek Philippe to leave a “legacy” to your
grandchildren, you buy a Corum to reward yourself for the
courage you had to start your own business, to sail around the
world, etc. Now, you may say, how does a timepiece express
courage? The answer lies in how you imagine time itself. Legacy
“Starting a new luxury brand
is pretty similar to starting a
new country.”
is long time, courage is short time: seize the moment, free
yourself, unlock your heart... all pretty strong impulses to express
if you’re selling an expensive watch. We used “unlock your heart” a cultural phyle, which is a group of people who see themselves as
because it finally gave meaning to the Corum icon: the Corum “people like us”. They adopt a cultural value – your Brand-Xness –
key. The key is courage. Use the key and you’ll conquer the and they find ways of expressing it in their personal style, in their
world. social life, by doing things that other people don’t do.
The second part is in line with the quote from d’Azeglio we When you find your Brand-Xness, and when you find the ways
discussed earlier. Launching a new luxury brand means saying: Brand-Xians get to express it, that’s when you’ll know you’ve got the
“we have made Brand-X; now we must make Brand-Xians”. branding right. If you really hit the spot, it’s them that’ll tell you how
to do it, because they’ll openly talk about what you mean to them.
Everything you do – your logo, your campaign imagery, your
All you have to do is pay attention.
language, your product, your behaviour – creates a cultural
fabric that emotionally connects Brand-Xians with you, and with For more information on the Gallé design studio, visit
each other. If you get it right, your brand becomes a catalyst for www.galle.com
Issue 37 2019
The Art of Luxury
91