Correspondence: Jean-Noël Kapferer, Graduate School of Business, HEC Paris, 1 Rue de la Liberation, Jouy en Josas 78350, France. E-mail: kapferer@hec.fr

¹is an authority on brand management. His best-selling book Strategic Brand Management, now in its 4th edition, is a key reference work for marketers worldwide. Professor at HEC Paris, the Luxury research centre in Europe, he holds the Pernod-Ricard Chair on Luxury Management. He regularly gives seminars on luxury in the US, China, Japan, Korea and India. He has just published The Luxury Strategy (Kogan Page ed.)

²is one of the most experienced senior managers in the luxury business. For over 25 years, he has been CEO or MD of international companies including Louis Vuitton Malletier and the beauty division of Sanofi group (including Yves Saint Laurent, Nina Ricci, and Parfums Oscar de Ia Renta, Van Cleef & Arpels and Fendi). He is now Affiliate Professor at HEC Paris. He has just published The Luxury Strategy ( Kogan Page ed.)

Received 12 September 2008; Revised 12 September 2008.

Abstract

Today luxury is everywhere. Everybody wants his products to be luxury. The concept of luxury is attractive and fashionable. There are luxury columns in all magazines and journals. There are TV shows on the business of luxury, and on luxury products and services. Even mass-consumption brands name many of their models 'Deluxe' or qualify their experience as luxurious. New words have been recently invented and promoted that add to the complexity: masstige, opuluxe, premium, ultra-premium, trading up, hyperluxury, real or true luxury, and so on. There is a confusion today about what really makes a luxury product, a luxury brand or a luxury company. Managing implies clear concepts and, beyond these concepts, clear business approaches and pragmatic rules. The aim of this paper is to unveil the specificity of management of luxury brands. Going back to fundamentals, one needs to distinguish it strongly from both fashion and premium or 'trading up'. From this starting point, it sets out some of the counter-intuitive rules for successfully marketing luxury goods and services.