Kitty Knowles is a Staff Reporter at The Memo. Kitty previously worked as an online journalist for GQ. She can be found tweeting @KittyGKnowles.

Counterfeit crackdown: Microchips hidden in luxury heels & bags

From skirts that live-tweet and electric shock dresses to platforms that let you design your own shoes and bags, we’re used to the worlds of fashion and technology colliding.

Now luxury brand Salvatore Ferragamo has got in on the act, but this time it’s not in the name of aesthetic innovation: The Italian brand is microchipping its products to clamp down on counterfeiters costing the European luxury industry an estimated £5bn a year.

Hidden microchips
In the future your new shoes or bags won’t just come with smart buckles, bows or tassels, but with hidden microchips hidden inside. Footwear will conceal this smart device in the heel, while leather bags will hide chips discreetly within their lining.

Rather importantly, the chips are discreetly invisible, cannot be imitated, and cannot be tracked (they can only be read at a distance of 4cm or less).

Better for the brand and buyers
It’s not only hoped that the move will help the company to identify fakers selling subpar goods, but that it will help customers to make the most of their luxury purchases.

Many shoppers regularly update their wardrobe and attempt to sell the last season’s models online, but fear of fraud means that although Ferragamo shoes sell for up to £1,500 (and handbags at around £2,000), the resale value online is usually only about £1 for every £100 of the original price.

Being able to guarantee that items are genuine means you can bring the price back up to £30 or £40 for every £100 it originally cost.

“People who can afford to spend thousands on a purse often get tired of them after six months and tend to sell them on eBay,” Greg Furman, of the Luxury Marketing Council in New York told The Times.

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Some say that when China sneezes the rest of the world catches cold, but the high end luxury brands are catching on in China, becoming the most exclusive and desirable ones in fashion according to the wealthiest Chinese women.

Still, our ranking also reveals a stronger competition that is accentuated by the wealthy customers’ increasingly stronger maturity.

Take 3 minutes to watch the Video Release by Pr Philippe Jourdan

Have a quick look at the Press release & the main insights

Download the infographics

The International luxury press echoes results: take a look

This barometer Promise Consulting / BNP Exane classifies the 15 most exclusive and desirable brands in China in the universe of feminine Fashion. This Barometer is conducted amongst the wealthiest Chinese women, and is about the 30 luxury brands in ready-to-wear/handbags/shoes/accessories that have invested the most in communication (source: Industry Interviews, Exane Paribas).

Promise and BNP Exane already conducted the same survey amongst French wealthiest women in May 2015 (see: http://bit.ly/1ESTZGu).

This barometer in association with BNP Exane reflects our determination to move closer to the marketing and cross-section financial analysis. Our Monitoring Brand Assets® approach itself features very complementary analyzes with those conducted by BNP Exane’s experts. Hence, the obtained results from our joined barometer are based on two different angles of expertise, marketing and financial, which brings a unique added value to the managers and decision-makers in the Luxury sector. More concretely, our measure of the exclusivity of a brand takes into account the upper and more constant quality of products, the strong and unique valuation of the customer, the brand’s prestige, but also a matchless “savoir-faire” that justifies a very high price premium associated with top luxury.

"Finally, our measure of desirability synthesizes the dimensions of attractiveness of an intimate, social and symbolic nature, which are the strengths of exclusive brands, and characterize the particular relation that they maintain with their customers. In this respect, our Barometer synthesizes, in two proven scales, the numerous criteria to establish a ranking between the high-end brands from their customer’s point of view", states Pr. Philippe Jourdan, Promise’s CEO.

Business Tech, 06 March 2016

People who have a lot of money like to spend that money – and they like to invest in everything from classic cars to stamps and coins.

According to property group Knight Frank’s latest Wealth Report for 2016, the world’s ultra-high net worth individuals (worth more than $30 million) have increased spending on luxury goods by over 200% in the past decade.

Not all asset classes have grown equally, however, with super wealthy people finding favour with big buys such as classic cars, wines, coins and art over things like furniture, Chinese ceramics and diamonds.

[READ THE FULL ARTICLE AND DISCOVER THE TOP 11 PURCHASED LUXURY GOODS BY UHNWI]

Manisha Rao, 05 MArch 2016, Yourstory.com

Luxury as a concept is defined within the scope of socio-psychology as a result of its connection to a culture, state of being, and lifestyle, whether personal or collective. In the context of brands, it relates to a signature style, identity, and strong emotional and symbolic associations that are interpreted in terms of products of high aesthetic quality, controlled distribution, and premium pricing. And this is what we refer to as exclusivity.

Even as luxury brands are taking to the digital space a little later than the other industries, they are bringing in their own energies to it. So, the product perception in case of premium goods is not incidental, but a cultivated outcome of a carefully crafted positioning strategy that largely hinges on ‘exclusivity’ in its appeal and aura.

Exclusivity in tech
We take up the case of very prominent Apple smartwatch and its marketing as not just a piece of tech innovation but also a luxe accessory. The launch campaign was a mix with exclusive editorial spreads in various editions of Vogue (which is fashion-specific and not a tech magazine) and also tactics like limited retail distribution, tie-ups with upscale retailers (Colette in Paris and Opening Ceremony in London), individual sales appointments in stores, and celebrity endorsements. The result of all these strategies was the phenomenal buzz around the smartwatch that came to figure on the coveted lists of many jetsetters.

Exclusivity in E-commerce
Now there are luxury brands innovating to reinforce their unique brand USPs even as they creatively attempt to carve a distinct online echo for them to cut through the competition. By coming up with visually tempting and experiential digital platforms via short films, apps, microsites, and online events, luxury brands are revamping their digital personas and also influencing the Millennial consumer to look out for that special, singular brand experience like Flipkart’s exclusive Xiaomi phone launch in India.

Exclusivity in luxury clothing
Brands like Jimmy Choo, Tod’s, Louboutin, Gucci, Zegna and Burberry offer product customisation in terms of size, fit, personalisation such as monogramming and matching. These brands make up that section of luxury brands that have their fingers on the consumer’s pulse and study the fast-evolving consumer profile in terms of desires, buying behaviours. Such reflections then lead to creation of unique apps that enhance consumer’s interaction with the brand and also impart an exclusive experience, such as Hermès Tie Break and Burberry’s Art of the Trench15. Some luxury brands are also offering certain services availed only through their online portals and some are launching exclusive collections online first, for example, Ralph Lauren has launched its luxury pet essentials with Darveys.com, luxury brand Swiss military with Firefox bikes and designers like Manish Arora, Sabyasachi are tying up exclusively with portals like Jabong, Myntra, and Amazon.

Exclusivity in online departmental stores
In addition to the brand owned online offshoots, there are online departmental stores that are the other major outposts for the luxury shoppers. NET-A-PORTER is one of the most preferred leading online shopping sites in the UK and USA. Along with its high service ethic and unique content and exhaustive range of luxury brands, the site also marks out a preferred treatment strategy for its most valuable customers, the EIPS (extremely important people). Hence, they enjoy exclusive services like having their orders picked, packed, and dispatched, while also availing services like personalised look-books, personal shoppers, etc.

Consumer perspective
Customers need to feel special as they indulge their time and energy into a brand. According to a McKinsey report from February 2015, 60 per cent of US luxury consumers say they would be more likely to buy at an online shop if it offered luxury brands that no one else sold online, a sentiment echoed by their German counterparts. Forty-one per cent say they would be more likely to buy online if there were better prices offered.

Branching out further in the luxury domain are private shopping clubs that are members-only, where members are given special offers on big brands. Luxury flash-sale site Gilt Groupe has been offering exclusive sales to its Facebook fans – more reason for them to go online and buy and feel special.

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With Chinese consumers massively shopping for luxury abroad and online, traditional marketing formulas have limited impact. It is time for luxury brands to rethink their go-to-market approach, putting digital at the core.

Wei proudly shows her latest catch: a colorful textured leather mini handbag she bought during her last business trip to Paris. Wei epitomizes the shopper the whole luxury industry seems to be after at the moment: a start up entrepreneur from Hangzhou and representative of China’s ‘Cultured Youth’, she is both very success driven and hungry for culture.

In fact, she is part of the upcoming generation of Chinese shoppers who are redefining luxury marketing through a triple change: structural change in the market dynamic, change in consumers attitude towards luxury and change in how they navigate the world through digital.

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