Beyond rarity: the paths of luxury desire. How luxury brands grow yet remain desirable

Abstract

Purpose

Luxury is a growing sector worldwide. This creates a major managerial challenge: How can luxury brands prevent becoming a victim of their own success? Once objective rarity is lost, what other levers still sustain desire for these luxury brands, nurture their dream and, thus, prevent the dilution of desirability created by their growing penetration and sales?

Design/methodology/approach

Based on 1,286 actual luxury consumers interviewed about 12 highly known and successful luxury brands on 42 experiential and perceptual items, a PLS hierarchical fourth-order latent variables model unveils the paths of luxury dream building.

Findings

The authors have identified how, beyond mere physical rarity and very high quality, eight experiential and perceptual levers fuel luxury desirability through two structural paths: selection and seduction.

Research limitations/implications

The concept of luxury is associated to rarity. But to grow, luxury brands need to abandon mere scarcity and selectivity (value created by limitation of production, highly selective distribution and selection of customers) and switch instead to an “abundant rarity”, where feelings of privilege are attached to the brand itself, seducing through its experiential facets, pricing, prestige and the world it symbolizes.

Practical implications

Luxury executives can use this paper as a compass to manage, sustain and monitor their brand desirability, all along the brand’s growth, as it moves away from being niche and rare.

Social implications

Considering the growing social diffusion of the need for luxury in different strata of the population, this paper reveals the levers of the attractiveness of the mega-brands of luxury.

Originality/value

This paper addresses the main problem of the luxury industry: How to grow yet remain desirable. It is based on 1,286 actual luxury buyers and 12 actual brands. Thanks to PLS modelization, the structure of the levers of brand desirability is revealed.