02 April, 2025
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There are countless quotes from the world of design, fashion and branding that any professional in the global brand activation business can draw upon to give them a steer on how to approach the realm of DeLuxe branding.
But perhaps the one that absolutely resonates with our design and engineering teams is the following one from the iconic French perfume house Givenchy.
Luxury is in each detail.
For us, meticulous detail is fundamental to how we work - along with quality and consistency, as we’ve already explored in our previous blog Engineered by design.
Whether you’re a luxury brand, or a brand design agency tasked with activating a brand, the biggest challenge when you’re working in the sphere of luxury is communicating to your high-end audience in a sequence of design codes and signifiers.
As this Vogue Business blog explains, the luxury brands seek to create a universally recognised design language that sets them apart from the predictability of mass market branding. Apart from the signature logo, significant attention goes into the selection of typeface, colour palette, hues and patterns - all of which work together to create a distinct brand personality and differentiator.
Often these, such as Hermes marigold orange, or Fortnum & Mason's unmistakable Eau de Nil signal to their audience important messages about their values as much as their products.
For many brands, the key challenge is often the need to balance respect for their heritage, while remaining fresh and engaging.
A case in point are premium car brands (marques), such as Bentley Motors, Aston Martin and Maserati, each of which has achieved the challenging feat of making their luxury heritage brands relevant to the modern consumer through an alchemy of exciting product development, innovation and storytelling.
All of which is encapsulated in a brand identity which is imbued with an intoxicating mix of values and emotions which come together to create the excitement around a brand.
When it comes to translating a brand’s past history into a sign, a key part of our work is to act as interpreter - adhering to strict guidelines but also recommending ways in which the use of certain materials, finishes and illumination techniques can enhance the customer experience.
This comes down to our expert knowledge of:
The placement and hierarchy of signs across each property
Sophisticated colour palettes and hues and how they perform on different surfaces
Customer journeys - from car park, entrance and way-finding through to reception and interior spaces - branding, flooring, furnishings and wallcoverings
Discretion and understatement - how less is always more in the luxury sphere.
Brand activation in the luxury sector inherently brings more risks, not least because one false move could alienate an audience that has been with you all the way so far.
Dare we mention the tsunami of negative backlash to Jaguar's Copy Nothing rebrand, of which The Drum’s A complete comms car crash response was typical of many who felt the urge to vent their misgivings last November.
With an alienated audience, comes the loss of a customer base with high net worth spending power, and all the accumulated loyalty that came with it.
As Marketing Week’s tireless guru Mark Ritson explains in his 2024 blog on heritage brands - if you want to sustain a brand for the future, you need to know its past.
Understanding your brand’s history and heritage is essential to successful brand management. Take your cure from your Latin marketing peers, and respect the past in order to build for the future.
While this article focuses very much on the wider value systems that go into making (and sustaining) a brand, it’s relevant to brand activation businesses such as ours because it reminds us that very much of what we do, particularly in the luxury sector, is about storytelling.
The carefully engineered (and discreetly illuminated) sign on the garage forecourt, or at the entrance to a luxury store or hotel, is the front cover to an unfolding series of chapters that maintain the mystique, glamour and seduction of the brand. All of which reinforce the values, and monetary premium that are an integral part of buying into the experience.
Luxury shouldn’t come at a high price to the planet. That’s the ideal and, increasingly, many luxury brands have come to realise that being environmentally responsible is not just critical to retaining their customers, but to staying legally compliant.
As the latest 2024 report from Baker & McKenzie and Positive Luxury explains, luxury brands now have to consider a raft of regulations and frameworks designed to reduce carbon emissions, and undertake value chain due diligence that looks at the full life cycle of products, materials and processes.
Climate Transition Plans and Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directives will play a significant role in shaping new behaviours around procurement.
This is where we can bring significant added value to any luxury brand rollout, thanks to our Accountable. Measurable. Achievable ESG programme which shows how we’re helping our clients achieve their sustainability objectives with full transparency through Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions and the Carbon Disclosure Project.
In summary, our top 5 tips for a successful luxury brand signage activation are:
Materials. Work with a company that can help you convey your luxury brand values through innovative use of materials and finishes.
Don’t forget the past. This is critical to knowing how to make your brand relevant to your 21st audience. It’s all about storytelling.
Detail is critical. It’s the attention to the minor details that helps ensure the whole brand experience is consistent in every location.
Understatement and subtlety. Luxury brands always sell more by saying less through judicious use of sophisticated colour hues and typefaces.
Sustainability. We can’t stress this enough. It’s no longer a “nice to have”, it’s a “must have”.
Planning a luxury brand rollout? Let’s talk about how we can make it happen.
Contact Paul or Martin on 0115 940 9620
Or email hello@pearcesigns.com