The Luxury market is still one of the strongest success stories in print marketing. Brands continue to invest in quality publications to appeal to this lucrative market, delighting their loyal readers and advertisers. In Australia, the luxury market is maturing. With growth being driven by the wealthy Asian market, delivering luxury experiences is top of mind for brands. According to IBISWorld, this has pushed growth in luxury retailing to 11% a year over the past five years to reach $1.8 billion in 2016/17.
This growth is forecast to continue at 8.2% a year to hit $2.7 billion in 2021/22. And the luxury advertising investment is following suit. In Australia, the premium ad market which includes everything from travel to automobiles is worth an estimated $750 million. According to Zenith’s Luxury Advertising Expenditure Forecasts, luxury advertising spend rose by 3.0% in 2016. This report also indicated that despite increasing digital investments, print remains the most important medium for ‘high luxury’ advertisers.
GOING LUXE WITH PRINT
With this growth in the luxury market we are seeing brands utilising high-end paper, stunning photography and upscale content to showcase their luxury offerings and attract consumers.
Race to luxe
In August 2017, Fairfax Media’s luxury lifestyle website executivestylecom.au launched a quarterly men’s magazine Executive Style within the pages of The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald. Executive Style is a premium brand extension of the website with the first edition seeing brands such as Audi, Giorgio Armani, and Rolex back the publication.
Travel Flick through the average inflight magazine and you’re faced with content that wouldn’t be out of place in an upmarket newsstand title. Actors, authors and film stars enthuse about their favourite holiday destinations, while leading travel journalists advise on the best hotels and attractions in the world’s most exciting cities.
And it works: American Airline’s relaunch of American Way, which featured the Foo Fighters on the cover, amassed nearly 10,000 likes on Facebook, with one passenger commenting: “I suddenly have the urge to travel somewhere, anywhere on American Airlines”. Also, British Airways was recently forced to re-stock 10,000 copies of an edition of BA High Life onto its planes, as fans of the issue’s cover star, Benedict Cumberbatch, left the aircraft carrying the magazine.
Dazzling Estates
Jellis Craig produces a Weekly Property Journal and to celebrate the eighth day of the eighth month, an auspicious occasion for Chinese buyers, they solicited Neo, real-estate print and marketing specialists, and decided to print a special one-off cover. The cover featured imagery of a fish that wrapped from front to back and was finished with spot gloss and gold foil highlights, lifting this publication to premium status. This 170-page magazine successfully engaged its target audience, scheduled 80 auctions and led to record results and clearance rates for Jellis Craig.
Entertain Me
Melbourne Theatre Company’s (MTC) production of its 2018. The Season brochure ensures that it delivers on MTC’s brand values: a sophisticated, visual style which signals high quality. The Brochure, which looks and feels much more like a luxury magazine, is filled with inspiring photography that allows the messaging to be clear and the stories to come to life. It is finished with a foil embellishment and printed on premium paper which reinforces MTC’s brand reputation for exceptional quality and refined performance.
CONCLUSION
Creating a luxurious experience depends on creating a perception of exclusivity. Mass marketing on TV, radio or Facebook diminishes the sense that a brand’s product or service is an elite and quality experience for a selected few. The tactile and memorable pieces of print make an impression and connect with those most likely to shop for luxury goods in a way that other marketing channels struggle to replicate.
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