Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
to positive experiences. Ensuring that a website has a unique webmosphere
is currently essential as the expectations of web users continue to increase
with their acquaintance with the web advances.
Luxemosphere® on the other hand is an extended Internet marketing con-
cept coined by Luxe Corp's analysts, which describes the prestigious atmos-
phere that every luxury brand's website aims to attain both online and offline.
It is the combination of the words “luxe” (luxury, in French) and “atmosphere”
and has been extensively assessed in several articles on luxury e-business pub-
lished on the online luxury business magazine Luxe-Mag.Com. The concept
of luxemosphere was first unveiled at the Club e-Luxe Annual Summit held in
Paris in June 2007 and has since formed an aspect of integrated online luxury
assessment by several luxury brands piloted by Luxe Corp.
The aim of the luxemosphere is to recreate a truly splendid universe within
the virtual environment of a brand mainly through replicating the unique identity,
style, signature and codes that the brand uses in its offline existence. For exam-
ple, when we click on the website of the Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts, we
should expect to be ushered into a virtual world where the ambience is enhanced
by the strong contemporary visual identity of the brand often expressed in its
hotels through art, interior design, music and cuisine. Also, the brand's renowned
focus on excellence through anticipation ought to be sensed from the luxemos-
phere of the website. At the time of writing, this was not yet the case since the
website's focus is more on functionality than on user experience.
Luxemosphere uses elements that influence the senses, stimulate the
mood and enhance the emotions through sensory technologies ranging from
visual animation, movement, olfactory emissions devices and audio ele-
ments, including music and speech synthesis and several others.
The luxemosphere of a luxury brand's website plays multiple roles in lux-
ury Internet marketing. First, it enables brand image reinforcement through a
high-impact web experience. Brand perceptions are in the mind of the con-
sumer and therefore a brand's strength emanates from the sum of what peo-
ple “feel” about the brand rather than only what they “see”, although what
they see should validate what they feel and vice versa. The website of a
luxury brand should reinforce the brand perceptions through generating the
“feelings” that are unique to the brand and one of the most effective means
of ensuring this is through the luxemosphere. A look at Van Cleef & Arpels'
website (see Figure 4.5) will confirm that its luxemosphere corresponds to
the brand's identity and its offline store ambience.
Second, luxemosphere is a strategy for sensory communications that speaks to
the consumer's subconscious through a seamless online experience. As mentioned
earlier in this chapter, if a website targets the “mind” rather than the “eyes”, it is
halfway down the journey of creating an enhanced web experience. Overall, our
senses, including the sight, aural and tactile senses, play a holistic role in shaping
the web experience and making shopping online enjoyable. Sensory communi-
cation is a powerful tool for influencing consumers as it leads to affiliation with
