Shanghai Tang: The first Global Chinese Luxury Brand?
1) What is a luxury brand?
A luxury brand is a brand that consumer associates it with luxury. Most of its products are luxury goods. It includes brands whose names are associated with luxury, high price, or high quality goods.
A luxury brand is associated with sophistication (1 out of 5 brand related dimensions). Brands that are considered upper class and charming, high in sophistication dimension scale: E.g Cartier, Rolex are well- known luxury brands. Mercedes- Benz would be one of the few that consumers will think of a luxury automobile brand.
How is it different from a regular, mass market brand?
Regular mass market brand do not have or has very little form of identification and has low or no brand equity. It could also be that it is a brand used regularly but consumers do not have strong brand recognition and brand recall. A luxury brand possesses a high equity because consumers believe these brands have the ability and willingness to deliver on their brand promises. A mass market brand focuses on high sales and low prices. A regular or mass market brand is usually low in price and usually is essential but not affluent unlike luxury brand. E.g. Casio as compared to Rolex watches.
How does one build a luxury brand?
Brand equity is built upon Brand Knowledge that consists of 2 forms: Brand Awareness and Brand Image. Brand awareness is the basic dimension of brand equity. A brand has no equity unless the consumer is at least aware of the brand. One has to first achieve brand awareness and then strive to maintain high levels of brand awareness.There are 2 levels of awareness: Brand recognition and recall. Brand recognition reflects a relatively superficial level of awareness whereas brand recall is a deeper form. In order to achieve brand recall, effective and consistent marcom efforts are needed, this is to move brands from a state of