Luxury
Branding
Chapter 11 · The Oxford Handbook on Luxury Business
Oxford University Press · Pierre-Yves Donzé (Ed.) · 2021 · pp. 219–248
143
Articles
7,248
References
5
Core tasks
4
Brand portraits
What is a luxury brand —
and how do you build one?
Luxury branding is one of those topics where everyone has an opinion and nobody has a definition. The chapter attempts both: a systematic ordering of the research field and an original conceptual contribution — not as a guide, but as an orientation map for all who engage seriously with luxury.
The central finding: luxury branding is neither purely cultural nor purely commercial. It is the management of a permanent tension — between what a brand is and what it communicates. Those who resolve this tension lose. Those who hold it win.
The analysis draws on 143 articles from journals in marketing, management, economics, psychology, and sociology, as well as a reference analysis of 7,248 sources — not only to show the state of the field, but also where it comes from.
An important distinction
Premium
Pricing strategy. Positioning. A quantitative, analytical category — describes where a brand stands in competition.
Luxury
Origin. Desire. Cultural depth. A qualitative, ambiguous category — describes what a brand means in society.
Both concepts are orthogonal — not on a single scale. Every luxury brand follows a premium strategy. Not every premium brand is luxury.
Publication
Luxury Branding
Benjamin Berghaus
In: Pierre-Yves Donzé et al. (Eds.),
The Oxford Handbook of Luxury Business,
Oxford University Press, 2021.
Chapter 11, pp. 219–248.
DOI
10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190932220.013.13
Published
13 January 2021
„The key insight for successful luxury businesses emerges on the subject of carefully balancing commercial growth with qualitative ambition."
Five core tasks of luxury branding
The chapter proposes a process framework: five steps that every luxury brand — whether being built or maintained — must address. Thought linearly, lived iteratively.
Targeting
Addressing the right part of the market with precision — beyond vague membership of the luxury segment. Segmentation by age, gender, culture, and the specific occasion of consumption.
Shaping
Forming the brand with narrative, design, and origin. Brand communication, arts connections, country-of-origin effects — so that the brand earns the right to be perceived as luxury.
Experience Design
Designing every touchpoint: flagship store, online channel, social media. The purchase process is part of the product — and co-creation by the customer is a growing topic.
Extension
Growing the brand without diluting it. The tension between reach and credibility is one of the most persistent challenges in luxury management.
Protection
Securing the accumulated brand value — against counterfeiting, positioning drift, and the gradual loss of the differentiation claim.
Four brands. One question.
Rolls Royce, Patek Philippe, Cartier, Burberry — four brands with unique origins and fundamentally different strategies. What they share: the same basic question about the relationship between growth and identity. These portraits are part of the original manuscript and are not included in the published version.
Rolls Royce
Heritage as principle
No competitor enjoys comparable reverence in the luxury segment. Rolls Royce consistently limits its production to four-figure unit numbers — not from capacity constraints, but from conviction. The result is not an automobile brand, but a category: automotive culture for the passenger, not the driver.
Patek Philippe
Beyond a lifetime
Patek Philippe positions its product not as pleasure, but as obligation. The brand carries the history that makes such words credible in the first place — and has thereby established itself as a reference case for positioning with maximum temporal depth.
«You never actually own a Patek Philippe. You merely look after it for the next generation.»
Cartier
Course correction with consequences
Between 2012 and 2017, Cartier underwent a notable realignment. L'Odyssée de Cartier: historically grand, cryptic, unmistakable — the signature of the brand. Juste un Clou: sports cars, fashion, skaters — the signature of the target group. What was lost in the process was visible: those who know both campaigns recognise the costs of customer orientation at the expense of brand profile.
Burberry
Renewal without surrender
From an overextended brand of the 1990s, through targeted licence buy-backs, a focus on the trench coat, and reinvention of the boutique concept, one of the most innovative luxury brands of the 2010s emerged. The insight: modernisation does not mean changing the product — but the way it is presented.
«To modernize, you don't change what you offer – but how.»
Luxury or Premium?
Ten questions for a self-assessment of your brand. No right or wrong answers — only honest ones. Based on the research underlying the chapter.
At the end you will receive a rough classification with concrete conclusions — and, if you wish, an invitation to a conversation.
What the chapter offers depending on your perspective
For practitioners
What brand managers in the luxury segment really need to know — beyond marketing recipes.
-
Luxury and premium are not a question of quantity. The boundary lies not in price, but in the type of positioning — heritage, desirability, cultural depth.
-
The five core tasks are an action framework from initial targeting to final protection of brand value — thought linearly, but lived iteratively.
-
Growth and exclusivity stand in permanent tension. Those who scale risk what carries their brand.
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Cartier as a teaching case: rapid rejuvenation costs differentiation. When the appearance is no longer recognisable, the promise fades.
For researchers
A systematic view of an interdisciplinary, fragmented field.
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143 articles identified (search March 2019, EJIS journals, 1982–2019) — dominant in marketing journals, marginal in management and economics.
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Reference analysis from 7,248 sources: the intellectual roots reach from Veblen (1899) and Bourdieu (1984) to Aaker (1991), Keller (1993), and Kapferer (2004).
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Finding: no unified canon, no dedicated journal, high definitional inconsistency — the field is broad but shallowly anchored.
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Research map: Consumer Psychology (largest group), Social Economics, Characteristics of Luxury (Conspicuousness vs. Subtlety, Awareness vs. Rarity).
For learners
Concepts, cases, and the one question that remains at the end.
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Luxury = desire × scarcity × social signalling. Branding = the management of this equation over time.
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Rolls Royce: what heritage means when it need not be defended. Patek Philippe: positioning beyond a lifetime. Bentley: when premium and luxury overlap.
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Why premium and luxury cannot be defined with perfect clarity — and why this is nonetheless managerially relevant.
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The key question: is a luxury brand a commercial consequence — or a cultural obligation? The chapter suggests: it is both, and therein lies the challenge.
From the concluding section of the chapter
Berghaus, Benjamin. 2021. "Luxury Branding." In The Oxford Handbook of Luxury Business, edited by Pierre-Yves Donzé et al., 219–248. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
DOI
10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190932220.013.13
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