How Luxury Brands Can Leverage Digital Transformation to Flourish

Luxury brands convey high quality, status, and rarity, and owning such an item translates to feelings of self-confidence, accomplishment, affluence, and pride for the consumer. However, the premium price consumers are willing to pay is directly correlated to this elevated brand perception and experience. In order to not only endure but flourish, brands need to continue to intrigue new generations while maintaining loyalty among their current customer base.

This is no simple feat. Some once-iconic brands have become extinct, like Henri Bendel, Gunne Sax, and Sasson. Other brands formerly regarded as luxury have become more commonly associated with outlet malls than haute couture. And still others are valiantly fighting to reinvent themselves with costly marketing campaigns to modernize their image in an attempt to regain relevance and pique the interest of a younger audience. 

In the article “Is the Luxury Industry Facing Extinction?,” author Nino Lancette posits that the “industry struggles to keep up with the increasing pace of change in lifestyle, values, and attitude. These are shaped by three powerful forces: real-time connectivity, instantaneous and free flow of information, and the emergence of advanced technologies.”

This blog outlines necessary steps for luxury brands that want to look forward to a promising future while preserving the brand equity of their legacy.

How to Grow a 100-Year-Old Brand

As luxury brands endeavor to not only survive but thrive, they must find innovative ways to merge their images of timeless tradition with the reality of the technology age. This goes far beyond e-commerce to include marketing strategies that can affect brand image, both positively and negatively. Multiple stakeholders, multiple digital channels, events that can introduce risk, and more sophisticated technology are four real challenges that can effect brand image. 

Why Digital Transformation Is Essential for Luxury Brand Strategy

Consumer behavior is changing, and online shoppers expect a seamless digital experience that is worthy of a luxury brand. While many still choose to shop brick-and-mortar for their luxury purchases due to the experience, they engage with brands and brand ambassadors on social media and expect to encounter a personalized experience across channels that reinforces their loyalty. 

Many brands are undertaking digital transformation initiatives to respond to these shifts in consumer behavior and provide a consistent and integrated experience across all touchpoints. Technology is also foundational to marketing luxury brands in a way that underscores the brand image and customer experience. This goes beyond the ubiquitous customer relationship management (CRM) system to martech components that support the management of the ever-growing library of assets that go into each initiative and campaign. These include:

• a digital asset management (DAM) system that enables users to organize, search, and share the content that goes into marketing campaigns as well as repurpose it across campaigns
• a product information management (PIM) system to support a multichannel marketing strategy
• a social media management platform to ensure a consistent message across sites
• a digital rights management (DRM) system to protect brand reputation and empower content compliance
• a content tracking tool to find assets across brand, social, and e-commerce sites and get notified of expirations and violations
• a brand monitor to find brand content across influencer and event photography
• reporting and analytics capabilities (often built into the above systems) that measure marketing efforts and provide data-driven insights on customer preferences, behaviors, and trends that inform marketing, product offerings, and customer experience strategy

The Importance of Collaboration with Internal and External Stakeholders

Regardless of how affluent, all businesses need to keep their eye on costs and efficiencies to remain competitive. Workflow management capabilities that support collaboration between internal resources, agencies, and influencers accomplish these goals in multiple ways. They speed time to market, increase content re-use, and reduce rework.

5 Ways FADEL Solutions Empower Luxury Brands to Stay Relevant

FADEL provides luxury brands with the marketing technology needed to ensure their digital content stays consistent, compliant, and on-brand. With FADEL Brand Vision, you can reduce costs by  more effectively reusing content, stay on top of content and contract expirations, and mitigate financial and reputational risk to the company. Extend the power of your DAM with digital rights management (DRM) and post-distribution content monitoring, ensuring brand compliance across your creative workflow, from design to production to distribution. This empowers brands to stay relevant by:

1. Protecting Brand Integrity Maintaining brand integrity and exclusivity are paramount to longevity in the luxury market. FADEL’s DRM solutions help protect and enforce proper use of brand assets. Rights clearance and collaboration features ensure only authorized materials are used in marketing, advertising, and product promotion.
2. Enabling Content Management FADEL’s DAM capabilities and seamless integration with existing DAMs enable brands to efficiently organize, store, and distribute digital content for easy access and productive collaboration, streamlining workflows and reducing inefficiencies.
3. Supporting Rights and Licensing Management Luxury brands often collaborate with photographers, models, and other creative professionals. FADEL’s platform simplifies the management of rights and licensing agreements, ensuring compliance and minimizing legal risks.
4. Leveraging Real-Time Analytics FADEL’s solutions provide real-time insights into the usage and distribution of digital assets. This helps brands keep tabs on which assets are being used, content that might be near expiration, and event & lifestyle photography with brands and brand ambassadors. Analytics also support informed decisions about marketing strategies and asset allocation. 
5. Promoting Brand Agility FADEL’s tools enable brands to make agile adjustments to their marketing strategies while staying true to their timeless essence. Immediate access to not only assets but usage information allows brands to adjust quickly should an event arise that presents either a threat or an opportunity.

For more information on how you can better track your assets across the distribution lifecycle, watch our webcast “Where’s Willow? How do you track and monitor published image and video assets?” on demand. To see Brand Vision in action, watch this short video or request a 1:1 demo.