Luxury Brand Management: A World of Privilege, 2nd Edition

Introduction

The luxury notion has become so central in contemporary consumption and communication activities that it has naturally generated a whole literature related to it. However, the publications have the tendency to be largely conceptual, and not adequate for practical management purposes. Having identified that a pragmatic textbook on the management of luxury brands was missing, and confident in our own respective professional experiences in luxury brand management, we decided to write that first textbook on the topic, and the first edition of Luxury Brand Management was published in 2008.

The year 2008 will be remembered as the year of the financial crisis that followed the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers. Since then, many events have occurred that have slightly modified the operating system of the luxury industry. Many experts predicted it was the end of the luxury business, as it operated then, without understanding that we were faced with a phenomenon that went far beyond economic processes, and deals with human nature. Crises provide an opportunity to modify competitive positioning and luxury brands have come out of this last one with a different position, as we will show in this new edition.

What is the definition of luxury? As we set out to write a book on luxury, we must answer this question. However, there is no single answer to this question but a large number of alternatives.

One could first answer that a luxury brand is a very exclusive brand that is almost the ...