Cult of the Luxury Brand: Inside Asia's Love Affair with Luxury

by Radha Chadha, Paul Husband

The Cult of the Luxury Inside Asia's Love Affair with Luxury is the first book to explore how and why an extraordinary luxeplosion is rocking Asia. And it's not just the glitzy upper crust that is getting swept up in the frenzy-secretaries clutch Burberry bags, junior executives sport Rolex watches, and university students stroll around in Ferragamo shoes.Hong Kong boasts more Gucci and Hermes stores than New York or Paris. China's luxury market is growing so quickly that it will be the largest luxury market in the world by 2014. Even India, relatively new to the luxury scene, has three-month waiting lists for hot items, while in Tokyo, which is the epicenter of the luxury cult, 94% of women in their twenties own a Louis Vuitton bag.Written by world-leading retail consultants who know their way around the Asian market, The Cult of the Luxury Brand draws on over 150 interviews with industry experts and market studies in ten countries. It offers glimpses of Asia's thriving retail scene from glorious flagship stores in Tokyo to bustling local markets in Seoul, and seeks to understand consumers' inner motives for this obsession. Not so long ago, your place in society was defined by your role and your heritage; now it's all about your Chanel suit and your Cartier watch.The luxe cult is so powerful that Asian consumers account for as much as half of the eighty billion dollar global luxe industry. Radha Chadha and Paul Husband describe how to elevate your product's status while simultaneously pumping it out to the masses. They crack the code of the cult, offering a tried-and-tested approach for creating a devoted following for your brand. Whether you are a business professional targeting the Asian consumer or a shopper trying to understand your own love affair with luxury, this book illuminates the mysterious inner workings of one of the world's fastest growing industries. At last a book that arms the fashion industry with actionable insights into the psyche of the Asian luxury consumer. Written with charm and verve, the book reveals the soul of Asia in all its nuanced splendor, showing how the culture of nations shapes its people's fashion sensibilities and passion for luxury brands.- Vivienne Tam, fashion designer Fascinating. The Cult of the Luxury Brand is the first insightful exposition of this dramatic re-framing of traditional Asian values. It is full of insight and vital source material for anyone interested in understanding modern Asians.- Miles Young, Chairman of Ogilvy & Mather Asia Pacific Excellent and timely. The Asian market is red hot, and by focusing on the luxury brand, we can better understand the rapid social changes taking place in Asia today. A great topic, one that professionals in many fields want to know more about. It's happening now - and Chadha and Husband have got the story, in a way that the competition does not. It's 'hands-on', accessible, informative, professional and lively. - Dr. Kaori O'Connor, leading anthropologist on material culture and fashion, and author of The Way We Wear A fascinating and informative ride through cities like Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Tokyo. There is no other place in the world where luxury is the currency of power than Asia, where what you wear speaks volumes about who you are. The Cult of the Luxury Brand is a must-read for anyone who is looking to enter the retail development market in Asia, an invaluable tool in understanding the psychology of the Asian consumer. - Bertrand Pellegrin, Marketing Director of Lane Crawford Painstakingly researched and easy to read, an amazing look inside the luxury brand trade. - Ambar Brahmachary, President of JWT Japan In this superb book, through a series of case studies and insightful analysis, Chadha and Husband highlight new marketing tools that companies are successfully implementing to create and build the luxury cult. This is a must-read book for executives who want to build their luxury brands in the booming Asian markets. - Sunil Gupta, Professor of Marketing at Harvard Business School Savvy marketers can use this information to plan how to penetrate the Asian market. The prose is lively, engaging and witty, elevating this marketing manual into the fun-to-read category. getAbstract enthusiastically recommends it to those with a passion for fashion, a curiosity about the Asian shoppers' psyche or an interest in entering the high end Asian market.- Wear Your SuccessPart How and Why1 A Love Affair with Luxe2 Finding Meaning in an LV BagPart What and Where3 An Insatiable Yen4 Hong Kong and Yin and Yang5 From Mao Suits to Armani6 South Indebted to Luxury7 Single-Season Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines8 The Next China?Part Behind the Cult9 How the Cult is Created10 Advent of the Genuine Fakes11 The Future of LuxuryNotesAcknowledgmentsIndex

Genres: Fashion, Nonfiction, Business

300 pages, Hardcover

First published November 9, 2006

Reviews

[Jaime · Rating 1 out of 5]

While it poses as research, the book is nothing more than an extended advertisement for luxury brands. The writing is nauseating as the authors gush with empty cliché after cliché. The book contradicts itself at numerous turns, is inaccurate, makes unsupported gross generalizations, and consistently offends.

[Luka · Rating 1 out of 5]

An interesting framework to analyse Asian retail markets. I have put it to use for a little while to aid industry analysis of Asian consumer markets, mainly when looking at where European companies would be wise to focus manufacturing and sales efforts in Asia (H&M, Pandora, etc).

The model, while useful, is not thoroughly convincing and should not be relied on for more than an added perspective to include in ones inquiry.
In its admirable effort to find common traits across a Asian consumer markets it necessarily accommodates far too much uncertainty as to other variables of individual geopolitical bodies.
Secondly, it is written entirely through the lens of a Breton Woods ordered world and is likely to be invalidated in the near future as the vestiges of said system fade away. It does not validate its propositions in reliance on any fundamentals which would alleviate this.

In summary, while the model this book proposes 'may' be rather appropriate today, or rather 'today' at time of publication, I am sceptical it will be much use in future.
I will concede that as a marketing manual it is likely of great use, and certainly would have been at release, to those seeking to optimise a campaign to penetrate Asian markets with a focus on near-term results; for long-term oriented analysis of such markets and decisions to commit assets the book is rather irrelevant.

I would give it two stars but, as another has pointed out, it has a fair amount of internal contradictions, cliches and, while there is indeed great value in inferences from an individual's experience built over a career, there is rather little attempt at more than quasi-research to justify itself.

[Vikram Prasad · Rating 4 out of 5]

Insightful read on consumer buying psychology which goes behind the rising sales of luxury brands across asian nations...based on primary research conducted through personal interviews with buyers, sellers and store visits, authors paint a detailed picture of what goes in the minds of consumers in these regions when making luxury purchases...in addition to this authors also provide the societal biases, pressures and notions which drive the consumers into making such purchases..writing in fairly fluent and flowing manner...recommended read for all the marketing and sales people

[Gem Yan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Đây là quyển đầu tiên dẫn dắt mình vào con đường đọc sách, đầu tiên là cái bìa rất đẹp kiểu như Luxury, thứ 2 là nội dung nói huỵt tẹc ra những suy nghĩ của phụ nữ Châu Á, từ người Nhật rồi lan rộng cho các nước Đông Nam Á trong đó VN đang bị chi phối đúng qui trình như cuồn sách nói mặc dù VN không được đề cập tới.
Sách ra đời đã được 10 năm nhưng đúng tình hình ở xã hội VN, là dân thời trang không thể không có quyển này.

[Oanh Truong · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good read to have some hypothesis on consumer behavior of Asia, doesn’t provide details analysis and data to back for the points mentioned, but I like the story, easy to read, understand, quite close with the understanding of the countries behavior, the book can give you some of the ideas, but the rest is for you to verify and discover/ observe. Although it’s 20 years from when it was published, some of the ideas are still can be considered till now

[Sora Sophia · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is such an excellent work even though this book is not so young and things have consequently changed, it remains relevant to read in order to gain some understanding on the cultural context of Luxury in Asia. I strongly recommend !

[Anurag M · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good book to go through a journey of Luxury brands across Asia specifically.

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a book I probably shouldn't have read. It's a subject I probably shouldn't care about. Yet I did read the book and I liked it! The friend who lent it to me told me it was very interesting, but when I started talking to her about it after beginning the book, she admitted that she had only skimmed it because "it was too materialistic." A book about luxury goods in Asia? Yes, but it is also so much more than that. The authors study the different paths to development of the major Asian players: Japan, China, India, Hong Kong, South Korea, as well as Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines. With each stage of development comes its corresponding stage of luxury consumerism. The authors spent a lot of time in their research and it shows in the book. For anyone who is interested in contemporary Asian sociology, I would recommend this book!

[Cheska Lopez · Rating 3 out of 5]

I used this for my dissertation. I must say that it really helped me. What I liked about this book is that it wasn't the typical explanation of the luxury market wherein you tend to see a lot of analytical models or tools. In fact, they focused on exploring the phenomenon and how these Asian countries are the "new-found" wealth of the luxury industry in a new light. It definitely markets the brands however it emphasises on the influence of globalisation and commercialisation in countries that are customed not to spend on these things. This book unravels that intriguing urge of Asians love for luxury.

[Jenny R · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book offers an interesting look behind the *sorry to say this bluntly* brand-mindedness of Asian, especially on luxury stuff. Thorough analysis on country to country's shopping habits past present and future.

I've often wondered, everyone wants an LV bag but why does it seem to be pretty-much a must for well-off Asians (not something I admire really >__<)? Well, this book will at least try to provide that explanation.

[Daisy Ho · Rating 4 out of 5]

a good read on branding culture in asia

[Mack Asaga · Rating 2 out of 5]

*[ I´ve began to understand some things about fashion that haven't thought about. ] 20110808