LONDON — Fashion and luxury companies aren’t linking only with the art world in the drive to raise their brand profiles — literature, theater and architecture also are benefiting from their largesse.
Smythson, Tiffany & Co., Montblanc and Krug are among the players aligning themselves with high-brow events or institutions both to appeal to existing customers and to tap into a potential new audience.
“We’re always looking for opportunities to get our brand in front of a discerning, sophisticated audience,” said Paddy Byng, chief executive officer of the stationery and leather goods brand Smythson.
Earlier this year, the company sponsored a lecture by author Candida Lycett Green — daughter of England’s late poet laureate Sir John Betjeman — during the Althorp Literary Festival in Northampton, England. Instead of just putting its name to the lecture, as in a routine sponsorship, the company produced a one-off, leather-bound copy of poems by Betjeman, about whom Lycett Green was speaking.
The book was then auctioned off during the festival in aid of the English branch of PEN, an international organization that promotes the understanding of literature. “When sponsorship is just about saying ‘In association with,’ it’s a missed opportunity,” said Byng. “We wanted to do something distinctive and intelligent that would demonstrate what the brand was capable of.”
The primary sponsor of the Althorp festival was Richemont-owned Montblanc, the writing instrument, jewelry and leather goods brand. Visitors to the festival were able to enter a prize drawing to win a Montblanc pen, by naming their favorite writer in the company’s Writers Edition series, which features pens named after authors such as Charles Dickens, Voltaire and Edgar Allan Poe. These pens were on display at the festival.
In September, Welsh opera singer Katherine Jenkins was named as Montblanc’s brand ambassador and she’s appearing in the company’s advertising campaigns through 2007.
French champagne house Krug has entered the worlds of theater and video art. This month it sponsored a series of video installations by young American artists. Called “Video America,” the show was held at The Hospital, a membership art club, during the week of London’s Frieze art festival. Krug also has sponsored the writing of a new play based on the novella “Le silence de la mer” (“The silence of the sea”) by the French author Jean Vercors. Actors — including Hugh Dancy and Saffron Burroughs — read from the new play at the 2006 Hay Literary Festival in Wales in May, but no date has been set for the final production.
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“Our customers are intelligent and inquisitive, and can make their own choices,” said Isabella Macpherson, Krug’s arts and communications director, during a walk-through of the “Video America” exhibition. “We want the brand activity [marketing] we do to be high quality — but to keep it refreshing for both our core and new audiences.”
While it may be a challenge for luxury brands to use such events as marketing platforms without alienating at least some of the audience, Suki Larson, chief executive of Provenance, the luxury goods unit of ad agency M&C Saatchi, said a balance between the brands’ and festivals’ needs could be achieved as long as brands judged the events and their audiences accurately.
One artist’s work displayed at the Krug-sponsored “Video America” show features clips of President Bush’s speeches spliced with footage of terrorist attacks while a medley of disco music plays. Macpherson said controversial pieces such as this reinforce Krug’s core values of “individuality and intelligence, and are targeted toward [people in] the art market. A brand like Krug should be targeting different experiences to different audiences.”
Absent from the Krug show was any obvious branding from the champagne house — aside from the glasses of Krug being passed around to guests. Macpherson and the show’s curator, Neville Wakefield, said it was a conscious decision to keep the branding minimal. “The difference with Krug is that they stayed in the background and were very hands-off,” said Wakefield. “I think in the end it’s in Krug’s interest. Provocative and experimental work like this attaches the brand to another segment.”
Linking with cultural events may not radically change the way people perceive a brand’s DNA, but observers said sponsoring cultural events could remind consumers of its qualities. For example, Larson said, Swarovski’s sponsorships of the Council of Fashion Designers of America awards and several fashion runway shows might remind consumers the brand is not only “about small crystal animals, but about craftsmanship and crystal-cutting techniques.”
A brand’s presence in cultural circles also can strike an emotional chord with consumers. “[Luxury goods companies] have to flatter users of their brand,” said Rita Clifton, ceo at branding consultancy Interbrand. “Being involved with cultural events reinforces a brand’s status and prestige.”
Up to a point. Over-branding an event could prove a turnoff, cautioned Fernanda Kellogg, senior vice president of public relations at Tiffany. “It’s about understanding the boundaries of what is appropriate,” said Kellogg. “It works best when people say, ‘Oh, but of course’ about the partnership. It should feel organic and natural, and never forced.”
Tiffany, a brand long associated with fine craftsmanship, chooses to support the World Monuments Fund, which helps restore historic buildings around the world, through both its Tiffany Foundation and its corporate giving activities. In London this month to celebrate WMF’s restoration of St. George’s Church in Bloomsbury, the Tiffany team hosted a dinner for WMF donors at the Royal Hospital in Chelsea. The only visible sign of branding all evening were blue Tiffany boxes on each guest’s plate, each containing a silver pen.
In helping to save endangered architecture around the world, though, the company also is thinking of its bottom line. “One of the many motivating factors to work with charitable foundations is [attracting] new customers,” Kellogg admitted.
Indeed, consultant Larson sees cultural events like literary festivals, the opera and arts events as ideal “hunting grounds” for future luxury customers. Still, Krug’s Macpherson and Byng of Smythson acknowledged they were not able to quantify consumers’ responses to events sponsorship. Both said the events were about “connecting” with customers on a more subtle level, rather than creating a targeted marketing drive.
“It’s about keeping the name out there, to have people hearing and talking about the brand,” said Macpherson. “It mustn’t be too brash. The luxury market is incredibly glutted.”
Byng would agree. “In a qualitative sense, people really did respond to the Althorp sponsorship,” he said. “People went away saying the book was fantastic. We didn’t want to be too intrusive — we had some marketing literature there, but we really let the book and the engraving on it speak for themselves. Our brand is seen as discreet and understated, so our brand behavior conforms to that.”