Customer Centric

Bridging Online and Offline activities is always a sensitive exercise when it means driving visibility, traffic and finally conversion at retail. That’s the purpose of a 360° marketing strategy.

Luxury industry is traditionally brand and product focus. The current economy downturn leads many of  key players to be much more customer centric.

We will see that consumers of luxury brands are evolving. They want interactivity, value for money, consistency and excellence across the different points of interactions with their brands. Global luxury brands are moving forward. However, they are not yet on par with the level of engagement that their clients can experience with other brands or services.
An executive and trendy woman could purchase La prairie cosmetics, being fan of Gucci handbags and going regularly at Zara.

Is there an alignment between clients’ behaviors and brands’ focus?
A large majority of consumers, (68% according to Forrester Research) rely on their communities and comments posted online to build their opinion about a product or a brand. In the meantime, luxury industry focuses its communication investments still on traditional media which are less and less credible for clients. Press magazine could support effectively awareness and image building but must be helped with other online tools adapted to consumers’ needs and behaviors.
even if it implies to get less press coverage

Ferrari is one of this top international, luxury by essence and aspirational brands which must manage 2 very different communities having the same passion for the brand: The ones having a Ferrari car and the ones who would like to get one but cannot afford it.

They have established an engagement platform where the 2 worlds can live together:

–Branded website————Blog F1————–E-commerce

–Communities————–Facebook————-Twitter

YouTube Channel————Flickr—————–LinkedIn

Other Italian brands are walking with their audience and are available on mobile phones. Gucci with Podcasts on fashion and Dolce & Gabbana with an IPhone apps where you can browse products, fashion shows and latest news.

At the end of the day, a potential client passing by a famous street with a Gucci, Cartier and Louis Vuitton store will take a decision. It will be driven by what happened before!

Consumers of luxury brands purchase other things than high-end products
A brand may consider to have a direct and indirect online  presence depending on the sector and the specific behavior of its potential clients or audience. In the example below, Luxury goods’ consumers in France (source: Google, July 2009) have multiple interests which do represent a good starting base for being pro-active.

Top 25 websites with highest penetration amongst luxury goods’ consumers

Excellence and consistency in execution across channels are key
A number of luxury brands are not necessarily putting the same attention to their newsletter or the consumer experience online and the client ceremonial in their retail stores. For instance, the unique customer experience in a Dior or Patek Philippe boutique is not reflected across all the other channels which are certainly more visited by their audience.

Nespresso could be considered as a benchmark in term of keeping the brand’s integrity across channels: advertising, branded website, retail, print…
What else?

——–Branded website——————-Facebook———————-Twitter

——–Magazine——————————–Nespresso YouTube

Nespresso Citiz (Yahoo)


We have our fans’ page on Facebook…What should we do next?
The very first question should be about the effective usage of Facebook by the target audience (which is a better indicator than the presence of competitors).

The second question might be about the existence of geographical differences. Facebook is the number one social network platform in many countries but in Japan, Mixi is the most preferred and used by Japanese people.

Google Trends - 2009

However, I believe that setting-up a page on Facebook or a YouTube Channel with a very low level of engagement and not regular activity is an image killer. Major luxury brands could rely on large and active communities and less popular brands would need to feed more their community.

Main Pages - Sep. 2009
Louis Vuitton (616 987 fans)
Cartier (37 501 fans)
Omega (7 859 fans)

Thierry Mugler has established a very smart way to be involved online with its target. The Blogalaxy combines brand experience and connection to different brand’s communities.

It is a step by step approach which requires dedicated resources. The knowledge will be built over time with experience. A lifestyle brand such Starbucks has achieved a high level of engagement with their clients by testing first what was the most efficient and then expanding.
Chris Bruzzo, VP Brand Content and Online at Starbucks, declared “There needs for someone who not only gets social media but can also translate it for the organization”.

How could we link Online and Offline activities?
There are at least 3 ways of taking benefit of Online activities in order to drive traffic and conversion at retail (the other way round is valid as well):

Knowledge
Comments Online and analysis of web browsing/traffic could give precious information to be shared with the sales staff in boutiques. The way that visitors are browsing on the branded website could support physical merchandising in stores or the sequence of the sales pitch by the staff.

A call to action
A web visitor ordering a catalog is a good lead to invite him/her in a store for a product presentation. Frederique Constant (watchmaking) or Hennessy (spirits) allow to book online a tour of the “production center”.
Technical features from certain social media networks give the opportunity to select members by their area of residence…Geo-marketing becomes then actionable.

On-the-spot information
Augmented reality could benefit to real world. You can imagine a smart-phone user walking down the street, selecting a store and getting a specific information about the store or special incentive for stepping in.
Layar (reality browser for mobile) has developed a specific application which gives concrete examples of what is already feasible with the current technology.

We could summarize 8 tips to be integrated in the check-list before investing into Customer Centric approach On & Off line:

1- Identify precisely core drivers of the cycle of the consumer experience (from searching information to sharing experience after a purchase) relevant for your brand.
2- Use first information available internally about consumers and clients.
3- Develop a clear and appropriate content per channel with regular up-dates (e.g. news on new products via a newsletter, pictures of a special show via Flickr and local retail event via Facebook)
4- Define precisely an action plan over 3-6-12 months with clear priorities, objectives and performance indicators.
5- Assign accountabilities (who is responsible for what) and give ownership at different levels of the organization - Marketing is not the department having the most regular contacts with clients
6- Align quality of execution across different channels. A brand perception is built as well through a newsletter and not only by the Waou! effect at retail.
7- Try to play synergy with existing communities instead of wanting to control everything
8- Test and learn before deploying at a large scale