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LUXURY MARKETING IN JAPAN AS WINNING A SOCIAL GAME
Luxury and Japan appears to be a love affair that reached a stage of crisis.
Japanese consumers are famous internationally for their immense consumption of
luxury goods, specifically handbags. Star brands such as Louis Vuitton, Gucci,
Hermès and Chanel managed to attain a status as social entities, as part of Japanese
society. The reasons for this phenomenon and the recent crisis in the luxury
market in Japan that went hand in hand with the rise of fast fashion, are
complex. We explain those dynamics in our research section.
What we want to focus on here is a neglected aspect concerning the marketing
strategies of luxury brands. Even though many phenomena in Japan can be
attributed to bandwagoning, a need to show social status, conformity to group
pressure and the fear of standing out, their is another level of attention for these luxury brands, that the consumers
themselves are often not aware of consciously.
Brands often respond to shifting market circumstances by trying to micromanage
every aspect of the brand. But it is exactly the brands that embrace the market
by being as fluid as possible while maintaining a constant barnd identity, that
are able to flexibly translate into the Japanese market dynamics.
Luxury marketing in Japan is not solely about attracting customers, it is about
winning a complex social game, about creating opportunities and access to
gatekeepers, to opinion leaders. As a long-term strategy, luxury brands should
direct themselves in achieving a sustained relationship, a conversation, with
the consumers within the market place.
The Japanese market is indeed uniquely differently from the West. What we
provide is a vehicle for delivering messages between brands and the consumers.
Simply many brands lost touch with their Japanese consumers, their strategies no longer resonate with what is happening in Japan. Without a
narrative that can sustain a conversation in the market place the tendency was
that Japanese consumers took hold of the brands and consumed them in ways that
are out of the hands of the brands. Luxury brands in Japan used to be present
as a dream, something to aspire to, that was closely integrated into the
scoiety and its modes of social stratification. But society changed
dramatically and brands start to become painfully aware of the fact that
somewhere along the way their own narrative was lost.
It was the construction of the dream that went wrong. The dream was part of
Japanese society with its status markers, not part of the narrative of the
brand. European super brands with history and prestige must understand how much of
their tradition has been stripped from their brand stories, be it because of
the language barrier or the missing need to display sophistication and
knowledge about brands in Japan.
Luxury brands exported only the product. Due to this brands lost control over
the fate of their brand image in Japan. Brands must start to develop lasting
strategies, both online and offline, that can also export the narrative. They
must create topics to be discussed within networks, which are then turned into
categories by which brands are evaluated (heritage, quality, craftsmanship,
country of origin, and production sites). Talking about the story of a brand has to have social relevance within networks.
Luxury brands in Japan should not mellow with age but present their meanings
anew, reinterpreting them within a new cultural paradigm. Luxury brands should not have to constantly reinvent themselves, but they
certainly should constantly reinterpret themselves.
