Luxury Is Slow: A Framework For Luxury

The One Thing You Must Get Right When Building a Brand

How Many Seconds does it take to open an iPhone box?

I checked this personally and it took me 4 seconds.

This was almost half the time I was promised by a friend, who was sure it takes 7 seconds.

There can be a personal bias in this anecdote, as I've opened the case way too many times and I know my way around the box and the packaging.

But in the age of fast-paced activities, Apple designs your unboxing experience to be slow.

While most experts will tell you that it's “Anticipation Marketing” , I feel there's something else at play too.

A simple Google search for “Luxury Ads” Will get you ads made for Rolls Royce, Gucci, Rolex, etc.

While a BMW ad may emphasize how it's car zooms, Rolls-Royce shows even a car chase in Slow motion.

If you analyze the ads for Gucci, Versace, or even Balenciaga, what do you see?

Luxury Is Never Fast-paced, It's Slow!

Wealth brings you the confidence to never be rushed, as it gives you control over time.

The key idea that they portray is this, you've made enough wealth to not rush through anything, not even airplanes because Private Jets wait for you.

So, you're designing a brand for a product which focuses on the Elite, or at least attempts to show itself as one that, keep it slow.

A Framework For Luxury

I've always been intrigued by how luxury brands works and as result, have been trying to build an exhaustive framework on what makes a brand “Luxurious”.

On studying brands like Rolls-Royce, Patek Phillipe, Rolex, Birkin, Cartier, etc. Here are few things I Found.

Firstly, you measure how successful you are as a luxury brand with the following ratio:

“Number of people who know about the brand/ Number of people who own the brand” is higher than the competitors by a margin of 100X. The higher the ratio the better it is.

Some will say the ultra-luxury brands are not known by the masses, but then they're probably not as successful in the revenue or profit terms as those such as Rolex or Rolls-Royce which are popular and aspirational for the masses.

There are 3 primary characteristics that make a luxury product.

Symbolic Depiction Of Heritage

All of them tell a story of a rich heritage of the brand, and the brand being over 100 years old.

How they have preserved the core carefully over generations.

The symbolism will also come in the form of pictures of the Founder in European attire, use of Serif Fonts, Roman Numerals, Etc., and if you look at most such brands, they originate in Countries such as Italy, France, Switzerland, India And Japan.

Rich Culture, and they leave no opportunity to utilize it to their advantage.

Artificial Scarcity

They make it super difficult for you to acquire the brand even if you have money.

Long waitlists, making woo the retailer for months before they can attempt to arrange an item for you as a special case.

They emphasize the idea for not being able to buy it even if one has the money.

You need to earn the item and yearn for it too.

Superior Craftsmanship And Personalization

They'll take pride in how many hours go into putting together a single piece, and raw materials are the best of the lot, just the finest leather, berries, saffron, are used.