the case of Ferrari: the prestigious manufacturer used to be known to limit the number of vehicles it produced each year. From 2007 to 2017, the number of cars manufactured was oscillating between 5,000 and 7,000 cars per year. This Malthusianism was first a guarantee of exclusivity for the happy (few) customers of the brand. Since 2017, the policy has been altered and the volume of cars manufactured increased to around 8,500; the number of cars shipped was 10,131. It introduces also a spectacular difference from Porsche, its reference competitor, which shipped 280,800 vehicles in 2019. The other “luxury” of Ferrari obviously rests on its almost-century-old presence in the circuits of international motor racing and especially in Formula 1. Since 1950, the Scuderia Ferrari has won 238 Grand Prix races, 16 Constructor World titles, and 15 Drivers' World titles. It is a euphemism to say that the amateurs of exceptional automobiles dream about Ferrari cars: in 70 years of existence, the brand has been able to jealously preserve its status as a myth. The absolute differential belongs to the winner with respect to all the other (defeated) competitors.
The glassmaker Daum cultivates its difference by being the only European brand to produce “pâte de cristal” using the lost wax method. Its history is intimately linked to that of the Arts décoratifs and l'Ecole de Nancy in the early twentieth century. Daum appears, in this regard, to be a good example of these traditional luxury brands relying on a glorious past often linked to an artistic movement. It is an asset with which younger competitors can hardly compete; however, the prestige of tradition alone is not enough to guarantee the relevance or today's competitiveness of Daum's product offering.
Reasonable Luxury
As a counterpoint to these two examples, the Zara case can bring further light to the luxury concept. From an original business model, this brand of mainly ready-to-wear is the only one to propose, in a continuous, fast, and efficient way, the latest fashion products. Zara founded its difference on the service (new products every other week) and psychological comfort (a guarantee to be in fashion) that it provides to its clients through a logistical mastery, superior to that of its competitors. Its time-to-market (between 2D designs to product in the store) is less than two weeks.
The approach is innovative, and it is the most successful business model in that industry. This success is based on logic of volume supported by logistical excellence, which position the brand outside of the perimeter that we have qualified as true luxury. This is confirmed by Zara's positioning on the square of consumption values. The constant renewal of its products is both strength and weakness: the ever-fluctuating universe of the brand cannot offer strong representations, the possible world that consumers would dream about. Zara is weak on the utopian/mythical vertex. However, it is anchored in hedonism—pleasure and fun to be in fashion—which gives competitiveness to its offering. Moreover, the brand cultivates the research for minimum costs in order to be able to offer products at the lowest possible prices, which is the antithesis of the strategies of true luxury (see Figure 1.5).
Zara is therefore a brand of affordable (or mass) consumption, selling to the highest possible number of customers. Of course, Zara offers a distinctive feature, fashion at a reasonable price, but this distinction is a fugitive one. It is a very relevant business positioning and no doubt still promised to a rich future; however, it cannot be confused with that of real luxury.
Authentic Luxury
In opposition to Zara's positioning—mass affordable latest fashion—we can evoke the watchmaker Patek Philippe's 2018 advertising campaign for its men's collection: a video in black and white, a timeless tone, a father with his young son, a mother with her daughter in luxury contexts around the world; a watch model shown at the end of the video after the legendary slogan: “You never actually own a Patek Philippe. You merely look after it for the next generation.” The slogan has been used for more than 10 years, and that makes it one with the most longevity. The advertising highlights tradition and heritage values, permanence, and uniqueness of the product, all in opposition to the logic of volume. The key ingredients of true luxury are gathered in this communication, cleverly removing any culpability for the buyer. The economic and utilitarian dimensions are fully occulted in favor of the transmission of values: the watch is no longer a luxury in the sense of an expensive whim; it becomes a pure symbol of tradition, and a wise investment.
We have used the term true luxury to distinguish it from intermediate luxury, because the question of authenticity is decisive. True luxury never lies or pretends to be what it is not. Patek Philippe promotes its authenticity through the transparency between its brand identity and its communication. The watchmaker shows itself as a family business whose roots date back to the nineteenth century, defending a lasting legacy of excellence and innovation and intending to promote its watches through its brand values. The brand comments its own campaigns in terms that clearly refer to the existential values of the top right vertex of the semiotic square of consumption values: “our visuals show a father introducing his son to the idealized world of Patek Philippe—a world where our customers can belong and share the perennial values of our family business.”
Luxury, Being and Appearing
The issue of authenticity is an obsession of our time. Very fashionable in academic circles, it concerns, rightly, most of the managers of luxury brands whether product- or service-based: it is probably the major challenge that faces brands in the twenty-first century. The online Merriam-Webster Dictionary gives this definition of the adjective “authentic”: “True to one's own personality, spirit, or character.”
The French Dictionary Le Petit Robert proposes: “That which expresses a profound truth of the individual and not superficial habits or conventions”: one understands how luxury, in a perpetual quest for distinction and assertiveness in a world of appearances, may be trying to acquire this quality. How do brands manage to meet this requirement? Another semiotic square can help us understand it.
The Square of Veracity
The semiotic square can be applied to the meanings generated by the semantic axis “being/appearing”: It is the square of veracity, proposed by the semiotician A. J. Greimas (1917–1992) and used extensively in the analysis of representations.
This scheme may initially seem abstract, but its use is simple. As in the previous model, contrary and contradictory relationships generate four types of concepts: being/appearing, not being/not appearing.
From the tensions created between these different poles emerge several categories of meaning that will allow us to classify various discourses of luxury and, hence, better identify issues that brands have to face.
Being and appearing simultaneously is truth: in other words, one is really what he seems to be. On the other hand, being and not appearing is the secret: one does not show what he really is. Not being and appearing is the lie or sham and imitation: one sets out to be something other than what he or she really is. Finally, not appearing and not being escapes the space of discourses: it shows nothing and is nothing. It is here in the category of wrong, false, or simulacrum.
Armed with this representation, we can characterize the different forms of luxury we have mentioned so far (see Figure 1.6). The sides of the square can be assimilated to axes of intensity on which we can position various categories of luxury—or, more specifically, various brands.
What we called “true luxury,” to distinguish it from “intermediate luxury,” is positioned around the top left vertex, in the category of the truth. However, we see that we need to introduce a separate new distinction, because that genuine luxury can be either
