BERLIN — It might come as a surprise that Berlin’s Technical University, or TU, houses a department of research on “luxury brand identity” — the only one of its kind in Germany. But more surprising is the fact that TU students had no trouble finding and convincing 31 millionaires in Berlin and Cologne to participate in a study on the “aura” of luxury brands.
And not just any millionaire, explained Klaus Heine, who leads the luxury research team under marketing professor Volker Trommsdorff. Being wealthy doesn’t necessarily add up to luxury spending, he noted, and so, in addition to a six-figure net worth, preliminary interviews had to establish that participants were enthusiastic luxury brand consumers.
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The purpose of the study is to help define the dimensions of brand personality, or the associations companies want people to have about their brands. German companies often miss the emotional appeal of their brands, Heine said, and, to create that kind of appeal, “you have to decide what you want to symbolize. Describing a brand is like describing a person — an imaginary person you have in your mind.”
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The survey’s results suggest luxury brands have five distinct personality dimensions: modernity, eccentricity, opulence, elitism and strength. Each dimension has opposite poles — such as traditional to modern (in modernity) or discreet to opulent (in opulence), and the dimensions are not mutually exclusive. Thus, combinations such as modern-conventional arose to describe Hugo Boss or traditional-eccentric to characterize Chanel.
The study has entered its second stage with a more broad-based online poll that will ask 1,000 luxury followers, regardless of income, to use a long catalogue of descriptive word trios like “down-to-earth, solid, conservative,” “playful, ornate, decorated” or “young, youthful, fresh” to describe luxury brands they like or don’t like. The brands included in the survey often stretch the bounds of luxury: some are fairly midmarket like Strellson, or in the “affordable luxury” camp like Hugo Boss, and others, such as Kiton, Brioni or Berlin’s resident luxe label Wunderkind, inexplicably absent.
“We have a big definition of luxury, and it’s a mix of premium and luxury on purpose, because we wanted a big variety of images,” Heine responded. “There are premium brands in Germany that can upgrade to luxury, or companies that need to institutionalize. The results of this study can help them do that.”
To add a little fun, the team is using viral marketing to attract survey takers. Teasers featuring faces screaming “Aaaaahhh… Ultraexciting Luxury Study” or a Day-Glo pink nude of uncertain gender promising “I would do anything for you to answer my questionnaire” were used in e-mailings, online forums, Facebook and blogs. Participants will be sent an evaluation of their luxury type at the end of the study.
“We want the academic data but we also want it to be fun, and in their interest,” Heine said. About 500 people have already taken part since the questionnaire went online in February. Once completed, a profile will be created for each of the 51 listed brands.