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if they have somehow failed to fulfill client expectations. Since social web
forums easily draw millions of participants from around the world who
participate in real time, the content of discussions about luxury brands
have far-reaching effects.
In addition, the social web provides an opportunity for targeted online
communications and advertisements. Unlike the common practice by lux-
ury brands sometimes to blindly place advertisements on any media website
that claims “
100,000 unique visitors per week”, etc., the social web offers
an opportunity for luxury brands actually to communicate on web pages
that will generate not only a glance, but also a click and perhaps an online
purchase. For example, advertising Louis Vuitton's travel trunks on A Small
World's “Travel Forum” would likely yield better follow-up results than
placing the same advert on the homepage of a major newspaper's website.
Also for young and emerging luxury brands, the possibilities are end-
less. Imagine the level of awareness a new luxury brand would generate if
they manage to strike the right chord and spark an ongoing positive discussion
among thousands of people in an online social forum. I've lost count of the
number of remarkable new luxury brands that I've discovered through online
social forums that I may not have come across otherwise. Also, let's not forget
that today's online consumer trusts the social web more than the mass media
and therefore the brands that other “real” people recommend are more likely to
be accepted than the brands that the mainstream press impose on consumers.
2. The social web reveals the weaknesses of competitors. As previously
mentioned, it is the responsibility of every luxury brand to monitor the
contents of social websites and to follow not only what is being said about
the brands, but also what conversations are taking place about their com-
petitors, related product categories and service standards. The content
of these discussions is a real source of information capital for brands as
they not only provide insight into the way consumers perceive the brand's
competitors, but they could also be a source of ideas generation for the
improvement of brand image, products, services and other multi-polar
aspects of the brand's universe. It is therefore not enough for a luxury
brand to heave a sigh of relief if their competitors have become the sub-
jects of negative commentary on blogs and social networks. There are no
exceptions or immunity to the brands that are discussed, meaning that
luxury brands ought to be prepared for what some believe is inevitable.
3. The social web helps to identify thought-leaders and influencers in the con-
sumer market. It is no longer news that there are millions of blogs in every
possible language existing today in the cyberspace. Recent research from the
New York Times
as reported by the topic
Naked Conversations
(Scoble and
Israel, 2008) indicates that these days a blog is created almost every second
and that most of these blogs are updated upwards of three times per week.
This may seem mind-boggling but the reality is that not all blogs and social
networks have a dedicated cult following. In fact, only a handful of social
