Luxury World: The Past, Present and Future of Luxury Brands

by Tungate, Mark

  Although these artworks are serious in their intent, the Tate knows that they are also publicity-grabbing blockbusters. Nobody makes any secret any more of the fact that museums are brands with marketing strategies. Indeed, there are many books about the subject. Here’s an extract from Museum Marketing: Competing in the global marketplace (2007): ‘It would be nice if museums did not have to worry about marketing. It would be nice if the money just rolled in by itself. Sadly, new economic realities mean cash-strapped museums cannot afford to be complacent about attracting visitors through the doors to exhibitions. To stay afloat, they need to attract new audiences as well as keep established ones. Marketing is no longer an option: it’s a survival tool rather than a dirty word.’

  Museums were ‘outed’ as brands in 1988, when Saatchi & Saatchi caused raised eyebrows with its campaign for London’s Victoria and Albert Museum. The copy read: ‘An ace caff with a rather nice museum attached’. More than 15 years later, nobody was shocked when the Museum of Modern Art in New York emphasized its upmarket dining facilities as part of its reopening campaign.

  You may be protesting at this point that museums are not luxury brands. But they are competing for a luxury in the lives of many people: leisure time. More specifically, they are competing for the tiny window of time that many adults set aside for self-improvement – for the acquisition of knowledge. One of the reasons that I compulsively visit the Tate Modern whenever I am in London is that I want to take away something more valuable than a high-end fashion item or the memory of an expensive meal.

  The book mentioned earlier refers to ‘constructive chilling’, an activity that ‘allows visitors to do something worthwhile and relax at the same time’. Surveys of visitors to museums have shown that looking at permanent collections or the latest exhibitions forms only part of a wide range of activities that they expect to enjoy – also high on their lists are ‘meeting friends’, ‘visiting the cafe/restaurant’ and ‘browsing or making a purchase in the museum shop’.

  The Tate has proved particularly adept at branding. Building on the values of accessibility and education established by the original Tate Gallery on London’s Millbank – founded by the sugar magnate Sir Henry Tate in 1897 – it has expanded into a ‘family’ of four galleries: Tate Britain (the renamed original gallery), Tate Modern, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives (in Cornwall).

  Tate Modern is by far the most spectacular. It was largely made possible by Sir Nicholas Serota, director of the Tate Gallery, who put forward a two-pronged argument for the establishment of the new site: the original gallery was too small to display the museum’s permanent collection, and London lacked a significant modern art gallery to compete with New York’s MoMA and the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris. The latter criticism highlights another important fact about museums: not only are they brands in their own right, but they also contribute to the brand reputations of cities. The arrival of the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, for instance, has transformed the identity of that formerly rather rusty port in northern Spain.

  The Guggenheim is another outrageously successful museum brand. Rather like Tate Modern, the original Frank Lloyd Wright building in Manhattan (1939) and the Bilbao site designed by Frank Gehry (1997) confirm the theory that people visit museums not only for the artworks within them, but also for their architectural grandeur and their prominence as monuments. They are on the list of ‘sights’. Other museums associated with the Guggenheim brand are the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, the Deutsche Guggenheim Museum in Berlin and the Guggenheim Las Vegas (designed by Rem Koolhaas).

  Thomas Krens, director of the Solomon R Guggenheim Foundation, has occasionally been criticized for his global branding initiatives. But he argues that museums have a right – even a mission – to engage with a globalized society. ‘It’s a discourse on an international scale. In a contemporary society, for contemporary art, with everything becoming ever more interconnected, I think it’s an essential aspect of how museums have to confront the world.’

  The foundation’s latest project is the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, on the Saadiyat Island complex. Further study of this extremely interesting island leads us right to the heart of the knowledge economy. The Guggenheim is only one of several cultural brands that have been lured to the ambitious development project. Led by its crown prince, Sheik Mohammed bin Zayad al-Nahyan, Abu Dhabi wants to position itself as the cultural capital of the Middle East. The US $27 billion Saayadit Island will include 29 luxury hotels, space for a biennial arts festival and a clutch of illustrious museums and educational institutions, designed by architects like Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid, Tadao Ando and Jean Nouvel. ‘We’re bringing together the top architects of the past 100 years,’ Mubarak al-Mahairi, director of the Abu Dhabi Tourism Authority, told Newsweek.com (‘Buying Culture’, August 2007).

  One of the cornerstones of the project is an outpost of a revered museum brand: the Louvre. There was an outcry in France when the news emerged in 2007 that the Louvre had leased its name to Abu Dhabi for 30 years in return for €400 million, along with further payments for loans of art and consultancy. ‘This, according to critics, amounts to using France’s artistic heritage for basely commercial ends. “Our museums are not for sale”, proclaims an online petition signed by 4,700 people – including many curators, art historians, and archaeologists’ (‘Gulf Louvre deal riles French art world’, news.bbc.co.uk, 6 March 2007).

  Nevertheless, work went ahead on the dome-shaped building, designed by French architect Jean Nouvel and scheduled to open in 2012. But the Louvre is not the only slice of French patrimony that will be available on the island – there will be a branch of the Sorbonne, too. According to the Newsweek piece cited earlier, the university’s president Jean-Robert Pitte initially had misgivings about the arrangement. He suspected that ‘they wanted the Louvre, the Guggenheim and the Sorbonne like their ladies want handbags from Christian Dior.’ Finally, however, he became convinced of the cultural significance of the project. At the inauguration in 2006, he told students that they were writing ‘an historic page’ in the relationship between occident and orient. The new university would become a beacon of ‘liberty of thought’ (‘Les cheikhs du Golfe s’offre la Sorbonne’, Lefigaro.fr, October 2006).

  It can’t hurt that students at the Abu Dhabi faculty pay over €6,000 per term to attend, many times more than their French equivalents.

  EDUCATION BRANDS

  Other universities have opened branches in the Middle East, too. New York University is set to join the Sorbonne on Saadiyat Island. In Qatar’s Education City complex there are outposts of Cornell’s medical school, the Virginia Commonwealth University’s art and design programme, Georgetown’s foreign service school and Northwestern University’s journalism programme (‘In oil-rich Middle East, shades of the Ivy League’, The New York Times, 11 February 2008). Elsewhere, Harvard offers a summer programme in Beijing, also known as the Harvard-Beijing Academy.

  Although they are somewhat less vocal about it than museums, universities and other educational establishments accept that they, too, are brands. And some of them are premium brands. Names like Harrow, Eton, Oxford, Cambridge, Yale and of course Harvard spring to mind.

  ‘Harvard’, began an article in USA Today in 2005. ‘Just the name exudes superiority, if not smugness. From its “Veritas” coat of arms to the Georgian-era brick edifices that dot its campus, everything about this storied institution, founded in 1686, smacks of that most un-American trait, elitism.’ The piece goes on to quote Stanley Katz, director of the rival Princeton University’s Center for Arts and Cultural Policy studies. ‘There isn’t any doubt that brand matters and Harvard is the prestige brand,’ he says. ‘It’s the Gucci of higher education, the most selective place’ (‘Does Harvard “brand” matter any more?’ 6 June 2005).

  Harvard’s history, its alarming fees – more than US $48,000 a year for tuition, room and board – and its influential ‘old boy network’ make it the school of choice for America�
��s elite. In addition, its notoriously exclusive admissions policy, which includes a strong focus on the ‘personality and character’ of each candidate, ensures that its lofty image is maintained. The writer Malcolm Gladwell takes a wry look at the Ivy League admissions system in his classic New Yorker article ‘Getting in’ (10 October 2005). He suggests that these universities, with their insistence on admitting potential ‘winners’ and ‘leaders’, rather than the merely academically gifted, are behaving like modelling agencies. ‘You don’t become beautiful by signing up with an agency. You get signed up by an agency because you’re beautiful.’ He concludes that the schools’ admissions directors are in ‘the luxury brand management business’. Certainly, Harvard is acutely aware of its brand identity. In an article for brandchannel.com, Barry Silverstein describes the university as ‘a branding empire’. He explains: ‘The school’s name appears on such separate entities as Harvard Business Review, an internationally known magazine, Harvard Health Letter, one of six eponymous health newsletters, Harvard Business School Press, a major publisher of business books, Harvard Planners, Harvard Business Organizers, and Harvard University Global System and Software. And then there is the Harvard-emblazoned merchandise that is licensed for sale in every corner of the globe.’ He adds that the Harvard Trademark Program is ‘a model of sophistication’, with six staff members managing licensing agreements and monitoring the use of the Harvard name (‘Brands in a league of their own’, 27 October 2008).

  The Ivy League itself is an evocative umbrella brand embodying the values of tradition and excellence. The members of the league are Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartford, Penn, Princeton and Yale. Although there is some debate about the origin of the name, most accounts suggest that a sports writer coined the term in the 1930s, when the schools competed against one another during the football season. The league later became an official athletic conference, but the phrase took on a broader meaning. The members accept that the collective title gives them even greater clout and they often refer to it in their marketing initiatives.

  Silverstein writes: ‘[T]he term connotes an exceptional education, prestige, and business connections that virtually guarantee career success. While other colleges and universities may be of equal or even better quality, they can never achieve the perceived status of the Ivy League. To demonstrate the point, Stanford University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), two outstanding universities in their own right, are sometimes referred to as the “Ivy Plus” schools.’

  Oxford and Cambridge are the clear equivalents of the Ivy League schools in the United Kingdom. The University of Oxford even has a widely recognized ‘brand colour’ – Oxford Blue (Pantone® 282). On a section of its website aimed at staff, the university offers an extensive ‘branding toolkit’ (www.ox.ac.uk). An introduction reads: ‘There is nothing new about the cultural potency of visual images, but their public significance in communicating something of the purpose and meaning of institutions and of organizations has probably never been greater... The University of Oxford has long been responsive to these realities and has devoted time and attention... to trying to ensure that its own visual branding reflects the institution appropriately and has resonance in the increasingly sophisticated and competitive global arena in which it is viewed.’

  This preamble goes on to suggest that the university’s brand identity – which is legally protected – ‘should seek to combine a powerful sense of both past and future: we are a forward-looking university of world repute with a rich history.’ Advice follows on how the university’s identity should be reflected in the use of the brand colour and official typeface (Foundry Sterling) on brochures and other printed items, as well as on wallets, folders and business cards and even PowerPoint presentations.

  Oxford and Cambridge have a sticky branding problem in that they are agglomerations of independently run colleges: 38 at Oxford and 31 at Cambridge. This is an accident of the history, as the venerable universities slowly swallowed up independent academic institutions within their respective cities. The result is that students are more likely to identify with their college (be it Exeter, Jesus, Magdalene or Trinity) than with the university as a whole. This situation makes it even more understandable that Oxford and Cambridge should want to devote time and energy to promoting the ‘parent’ brand on a global scale.

  Another contributor to brandchannel.com, Patricia Tan, highlighted the above situation a few years ago. She also drew a useful parallel between educational and more conventional brands:

  As in most industries, universities offer very similar ‘products’ at first glance. But the best universities define a world of difference behind the BA, MBA, MEng, or PhD... The students from the top universities will tell you that the degree is merely an excuse for the overall experience, in the same way ‘I need new shoes’ really means ‘I want those Nikes.’ No one remembers the mathematics class, or even that groundbreaking seminar on the Middle East. They will remember the annual football game, the ‘Full Moon on the Quad’ tradition, the fountain-hopping, and the breakfasts with the President’ (‘Branding lessons at the world’s top universities’, 3 September 2001).

  In other words, as with other luxury brands, the ‘brand experience’ is often the real attraction. On a smaller scale, I’ve personally witnessed the impact of prestige and brand experience on an educational establishment. For the last couple of years I’ve taught an advertising history class at Parsons Paris School of Art and Design, which is an offshoot of the far larger Parsons The New School for Design in New York. While the Paris school is located in a rambling building in the placid 15th arrondissement, it attracts bright students from all around the world. When I quiz them on their (or their parents’) motives for choosing the school, two factors come to the fore: the power of the Parsons brand (the school in New York, after all, counts Donna Karan, Marc Jacobs, Tom Ford and Steven Meisel among its alumni) and the appeal of Paris.

  These elements combine to attract a very particular type of student. When one of my friends – a strategic planner at an advertising agency – accepted an invitation to give a guest lecture, her first comment after the class had emptied out was: ‘Did you see those heels and handbags? You have the most glamorous bunch of students I’ve ever seen.’

  19

  The gift of time

  * * *

  ‘Successful people have somebody to organize their lives.’

  ‘Service is the future of luxury,’ says Emmanuel Isaia, personal shopper and author of the blog Luxemode. When your luggage is stranded back at JFK and you need an ensemble for tonight’s cocktail party in Paris, Emmanuel will fix you up. But there’s a lot more to him that that. He can also tell you about the hottest new restaurants, the trendiest art galleries and the singer you should be talking knowledgeably about. A blend of concierge and style counsellor, Emmanuel says that his real selling point – the thing that clinches the deal – is that he helps his devoted clients save one of the most precious commodities of all: time.

  The length of days is shrinking, don’t you think? There are theories about this: one of them suggests that, as we grow older, a year represents a much smaller fraction of our overall lifespan. And so it appears to pass more quickly. Thus, when we were kids, a day seemed long and full of possibilities. As an adult, it passes in the blink of an eye. If we want to get anything done, the only option seems to be to load up on caffeine and postpone sleep for as long as possible.

  Stressful urban lifestyles have led to sleep disorders. And not just for the overworked: financial worries, unemployment – or fear of it – and vague 21st-century anxieties about terrorist attacks, pandemic viruses and extreme climate change are turning us into sleep-deprived zombies. The National Institute of Health in the United States recommends seven to eight hours of sleep a night for adults, but the average achieved by most of us is a measly 6.1.

  A couple of years ago, an entrepreneur named Arshad Chowdhury realized that there might be a business opportunity
in this phenomenon. He created MetroNaps, a company that makes ‘snooze pods’. These white, ovoid, futuristic-looking capsules were installed in the Empire State building and at a number of airports, where passers-by paid around US $14 to score 20 minutes of refreshing sleep. The ‘energy napping’ concept took off and the business rapidly expanded to the United Kingdom and Australia. As well as leasing the pods to businesses, MetroNaps provides ‘fatigue management’ advice.

  It has been suggested that there is a ‘sleep economy’: ‘a burgeoning US $20 billion business of aromatherapy pillows, high-tech beds, face masks, biorhythmic alarm clocks, and, yes, naps’ (‘US $20 billion for a good night’s rest’, Business 2.0, 15 March 2007). The same article goes on to inform us that the MetroNaps service is an affordable luxury. ‘Toward the high end, there’s the Gravity Zero, a five-figure bed made by Israeli firm Hollandia International. The company hired Philadelphia consultant Kanter International this year to market the Honda Civic-priced beds in the United States. With fully adjustable positioning, a microprocessor, aloe vera fibre, body massage, and even stereo speakers, the beds retail for US $10,000 to US $20,000.’

  All very nice if you can afford to take time out and lie down. But aren’t there ways of ensuring that we squeeze more out of our day, so we can get some shuteye at the end of it?

  YOUR WISH IS THEIR COMMAND

  A butler must be the ultimate luxury: somebody to lay out your clothes, fetch your newspaper, comment wryly on current matters and generally organize your life while you revel in Woosterish incompetence. On the other hand, the concept of butlers has stood the test of time rather less well than the novels of PG Wodehouse, in which Bertie Wooster and his unflappable manservant Jeeves appear. Far more modish are personal concierge services. These ensure that polite, efficient, well-informed men and women are at your beck and call at the end of a telephone line, 24/7.