A NEW LUXURY PARADIGM
It is generally acknowledged that western consumption of luxury in the 1980s and 1990s was motivated primarily by status-seeking and appearance. This means that social status associated with a brand is an important factor in conspicuous consumption. The baby boom generation luxury consumer has a passion for self-indulgence while maintaining an iconoclastic world view, which is transforming the luxury market from its ‘ old ’ conspicuous consumption model to a totally new, individualistic type of luxury consumer one driven by new needs and desires for experiences ’ .
The expression of ‘today’s luxury’ is about a celebration of personal creativity, expressiveness, intelligence, fluidity, and above all, meaning.
LUXURY AND POSTMODERNISM
Recent arguments have been sounded that aspects of contemporary luxury consumption have reflected the phenomenon of postmodernism. Postmodernity means very different things to many different people’. Postmodernism is essentially a western philosophy that ‘refers to a break in thinking away from the modern, functional and rational’.
In terms of experiential marketing, two aspects of the postmodern discourse are most relevant: hyper-reality and image.
Hyper-reality refers to ‘the blurring of distinction between the real and the unreal, in which the prefix ‘hyper’ signifies more real than real. When the real that is the environment, is no longer a given, but is reproduced by a simulated environment, it does not become unreal, but realer than real’. The example of Bollywood to illustrate the so-called ‘Disneyfication’ of reality within the context of contemporary Indian society: ‘Bollywood captures not only the imagination in the form of song, music and dance but fairy tale settings, romantic melodrama and heroic storylines immerse the viewer in ‘simulated reality’.
Traditional marketing was