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other issues. The impact? Well your guess is as good as mine - Vogue et al.
pocketed $millions in revenues from the advert, Madonna made a cool
couple of millions if we're to believe the press and Louis Vuitton was left to
be judged by opinionated bloggers and their comments and exchanges were
accessible to the whole world. The impact of the print media has been chal-
lenged by the Internet and will never be the same. The control of the one-
way media is finished, even in luxury. We are now in a new era and it's time
for luxury brands to respond to this change.
Today's luxury client no longer waits for luxury adverts to come to them
in the form of a glossy magazine spread or a bottom strip in a page-fold
newspaper. They don't seek to be “interrupted” by endless fragrance adver-
tisements while watching their favorite TV programs either. They are no
longer enticed by one-way information dissemination, no matter how beau-
tiful the model is and how delectable the products are. They don't want to
be talked “to” but they seek to be talked “with”. One side of the story sim-
ply doesn't work anymore. The new reality of luxury communications is that
the social web has given rise to an emphasis on dialogue among consumers.
A large chunk of this dialogue is centered on luxury brands and they are ini-
tiated and carried forward by those passionate about the brands and about
luxury. Some of them passionately love certain brands while others pas-
sionately detest other brands for reasons that they do not hesitate to divulge.
At the same time, they're pleased to display their affection and disaffection
for luxury brands and products and, in the process, influence thousands of
others - in some cases, millions. These conversations mostly have nothing
to do with the glossy advertisements that luxury brands spend millions on
but the participants have chosen dialogue on web platforms as their own
mode of communication about luxury brands. This means that the stronger
the dialogue, the stronger the brand - although it doesn't necessarily mean
the more positively the brand is portrayed.
The way people access luxury has also changed and this is reflected in the
way that consumers expect to view and interpret luxury messages through
communications. Because people are now shopping online as well as offline
and are increasingly being influenced by the social web in their brand and
product choices, they have transferred a new attitude to the way they inter-
pret communication messages from brands. This change of outlook is also
reflected in the way they expect to receive luxury communications. They're
no longer interested in receiving mass email newsletters that feature products
that don't interest them while glorifying the brands; neither does it inter-
est them to be inundated by pop-ups and banner advertisements all over the
Internet. They also no longer seek the validation of luxury brands from the
information on the brands' own websites but, instead, from their fellow con-
sumers. Their new approach has to do with delivering them rich and relevant
content in a format that reassures them that the brand is as much interested in
their feedback as in their action through adopting the brand.
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