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realities of the current evolution of the Internet that we have to live with. The
control of information flow between and among online consumers now lies in
the hands of the consumers. With the abundant nature of information found
online, people no longer wait for luxury news to come to them in the form of
advertisements or unwanted pop-ups; they bring the news and information that
they desire to themselves when they want it and increasingly in the format in
which they want it. Through tools like RSS feed, newswire and simple perma-
links and instant messaging services like Twitter, people are able to filter news
and their sources while blocking those that they deem as interruption, including
the luxury adverts and websites. So what is a luxury brand to do in this scenario?
Well for a start, there should be an integrated online communications strat-
egy that complements and supports the offline communications plan, without
replicating it. I have heard too many luxury brands repeat the mantra “We do
not communicate with the public apart from through adverts”. What a pity
to rely on the often cold and distant “glossy” format of communications -
which, by the way, is not real communications because it remains one-way.
The new way to go is interactive communications and one of the most useful
platforms for doing so is the Internet. But first, luxury brands must understand
its potential, its scope, its mechanisms and its approaches. In order to arrive at
this point, a real e-culture needs to be created and inculcated across the com-
munications and press divisions of luxury companies.
Following this is the choice criteria for the destinations of the online com-
munications. How does a luxury brand identify and select the most suitable
website for its communications plan? Is every website that presents itself
as “luxury” relevant for luxury advertisements? Are there websites where
certain products are most suitable or should each brand advertise only the latest
collection? What about editorial features of the products and services? What
factors are the most important in choosing the suitable websites for communi-
cations? Is it the nature of the website? The fact that it is an independent maga-
zine, an online version of a mainstream magazine, a blog, a social network? Or
does it have to do with the design, aesthetics and visual appeal of the website?
The monthly page views and traffic flow? The number of clicks per day? The
number of unique visitors per week? Or the number of returning visitors per
month? How does a luxury brand justify the online advert expenditure? And
how can its effectiveness be measured? The questions linked to the choice cri-
teria and techniques of luxury e-communications are endless.
My viewpoint is that to communicate effectively online, a luxury brand must
first have an objective for communicating, then determine the message that it
is trying to pass, understand its target audience online, identify the websites
where they congregate or they visit, visualize the format of message that they
will most likely respond to, evaluate the quality (not only the quantitative) of
the website and its level of engagement and relevance for the target consumer
group, and design a communications program that could be effectively exe-
cuted to attain the objectives.
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