Why do luxury brands struggle to look in the mirror?
“In recent years RADA has done an amazing job of both living in the present and taking inspiration from the values and history that sustain it. The rebranding reflects that balancing act brilliantly. It is current and timeless. You feel secure and challenged: like a RADA student or a member of the audience.”
Alan Rickman
Vice-Chairman
RADA
Question
Maurice Lacroix is one of the few remaining independent Swiss watch manufacturers. It also has the status of Manufacture Horlogère Suisse, a production benchmarking honour that makes it one of the finest manufacturers in the world.
In the luxury brand market, however, its brand was not achieving the status its manufacturing prowess deserved. Too many customers simply didn’t have a feeling for what Maurice Lacroix stood for. Albeit already successful, why should a wider customer group engage with the Maurice Lacroix brand?
Answer
Too many luxury brands avoid reflection. It’s a double-edged error: too many do what they think is best and have unfounded confidence there’ll be a market waiting for it. Meanwhile, too many can be ambivalent to customer insight: ‘Don’t tell us what to do…’
Maurice Lacroix didn’t let this happen. We worked with them as they assessed their product and price range, marketing activity and brand positioning. Rather than run to peer brand territories: we defined a unique, special space away from the crowd. This tied in with a review of what kind of customer group Maurice Lacroix watches appealed to.
With a brand positioned tuned into a particular type of audience, we helped give them the understanding they could take forward to lead future campaigns and marketing activities.
Impact
The brand definition work became part of the springboard to a refreshed internal understanding of their product ranges: they became more focused and price range bands narrowed to suit their customers.
An ambassador-led advertising campaign flowed from the definition, with Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, Sir Bob Geldof and golfer Justin Rose deemed perfect representatives of the Maurice Lacroix brand.
The international teams are now able to recognize when something ‘is Maurice Lacroix’; a powerful ability in terms of carving a niche in any sector. Crucially, after a difficult time for many luxury brands, the message coming from Baselworld 2010 in March read, ‘Sales… looking good’.
