Luxury brands have a compelling opportunity to lead when it comes to purpose, says Alix Baldwin. So, what does being purpose-led really mean for luxury and how can brands unlock this new era of value?
In a recent Re_Set poll, 92 per cent of respondents said they strongly believed it was important for luxury brands to have a positive impact on the world. With this in mind, next-generation luxury brands must quickly ask themselves: how are we adding value – not just to the lives of our customers, but to society as a whole?
Making sense of purpose
It’s no longer enough for brands to merely sell products, no matter how sustainably they do so. Today, what also matters is the wider mission and purpose underpinning the brand and the organisation. Nowhere is this truer than the luxury market.
Luxury brands have always known that their customers are not buying out of need. Nor are they buying ‘just’ a product. Instead, they are buying into something much bigger than this: a club, a name, what the brand stands for, a shared vision and set of values. In other words, they are buying into the brand’s purpose.
Think of Patek Philippe, arguably a leader on purpose in the luxury watch market. You probably already know its tagline: ‘You never actually own a Patek Philippe. You merely look after it for the next generation.’ Introduced when the company launched its Generations campaign in 1996, the slogan speaks to the brand’s values of quality and heritage.
Not only does this strongly connect the product with the buyer’s own story and values, but it is clearly a big tick in the sustainability box, too. Your customer isn’t just buying a watch – they’re buying something they can pass down to their children. An heirloom that will become part of your (and their) legacy.
A strong sense of purpose will give brands a competitive advantage in a crowded market. So how can you unlock this new era of value by embracing purpose and becoming purpose-led?
1. Look to your roots
The good news is that you don’t have to start from scratch. A luxury brand often has the advantage of a rich, unique story based on authenticity and heritage. Why did your brand start doing what it does? How does it do it? And in what way is this special? How has it evolved over time?
Luxury brands can explore their origin story to understand and clarify what it is they stand for, and why they continue to exist today. In many cases, this will form the cornerstone your purpose.
Take luxury leather fashion house, Mulberry, for example. Founded in 1971, Roger Saul was inspired by his father, who worked for Clark’s shoemakers and had a passion for quality and hard-wearing leather. This family history and interlinked values have shaped the quintessentially British brand we know today.
2. Engage your employees
As well as looking back in time to your history, brands should also look within the business today. What is an organisation after all? It’s a collection of people, each with their own story, own reason for joining the company, and their own reason for doing what they do every day.
Sparking a discussion about purpose – what it means to the people who live and breathe your brand – can help you understand what you want to achieve as a business.
At Re_Set, we engage leadership teams through our Intervention methodologies to spark a moment of change. For example, working with Re_Set enabled the European arm of Michael Kors to co-create a customer-centric purpose and appeal to future generations of shoppers.
The magic moment came from a series of ‘purpose discovery’ workshops designed to inspire and enable the team to explore and depict what the wider mission of the business really was.
3. Re-connect with your customers
For luxury brands to succeed in the future, they need to connect their actions to their purpose more clearly and speak directly to their customers. That’s according to a recent poll by Re_Set, in which 80 per cent of our contacts surveyed said purpose was the most important focus area for brands – beating heritage, ambassadors, and even product line.
The Restory – an on-demand luxury product repair service – is an example of a brand already doing this. By restoring items to give them a new lease of life, they are moving towards circular fashion – something which requires customer behaviour change. The company believes this should be easier to achieve in luxury, because people have made an investment and are therefore more likely to take care of the items they’ve bought.
Thais Cipolletta, The Restory’s Co-founder and Head of Atelier, sees an opportunity to educate The Restory’s customers on sustainability with each restoration. “There’s been a shift in the luxury industry,” she says. “There’s a renewed focus on increasing the longevity of items, which is where we can help. If you love something you’ve bought, we want to help you keep loving that piece forever.”
“Lots of customers don’t know the possibilities when it comes to revamping their existing luxury items,” Cipolletta adds. “I see our job as making these items desirable for longer, so people don’t discard them so easily.”
4. Consider your position with the industry
A strong and clear purpose can often create impact beyond your organisation itself. When your reason for existence becomes about a wider mission, you will likely find commonalities with suppliers, peers, and competitors.
Stella McCartney has always been a sustainable brand, but it’s recently been highlighting its purpose more broadly in its efforts to change the industry. The language it uses in its communications speaks to this: “We are change agents; we are activists.”
This stance is a great example of how truly purpose-led businesses are thinking beyond their borders and engaging with others to create system level change. The luxury businesses that collaborate and work with others for a much greater goal are the ones that can arguably make the most impact.
5. Elevate your sustainability ambitions through purpose
Sustainability and purpose often go hand in hand. This is especially the case in luxury, where customers buy into a brand and narrative. Remember: it’s not just a bag, it’s about what that bag represents and the fact that’s it’s not a throwaway item.
British fashion designer Anya Hindmarch is no stranger to the sustainability conversation. In 2007, she ran a campaign, ‘I’m NOT a Plastic Bag’, creating wallet-friendly canvas tote bags, to draw attention to single use plastic and its damaging impact on the environment. More recently, in February 2020, she launched the ‘I Am A Plastic Bag’ collection – this time creating bags made out of recycled plastic bottles, coated with recycled windscreens. Each piece is designed to never be thrown away.
Sustainability is a key part of the brand’s purpose, says Hindmarch: “It gets me out of bed every day, to think, ‘How can we make a difference in our tiny way? How can we communicate and do our bit?’”
A strong and compelling purpose can create the backdrop – the north star if you like – from which you depict your tangible sustainability ambitions and goals. You will likely find that an overriding purpose also helps stretch and widen your sustainability ambitions, as well as helping explain the priorities internally and externally.
Driving value through purpose
With customers demanding more from their luxury brands, it’s no longer an option to operate without purpose. In a fast-changing world and crowded market, luxury brands must act fast to stay at the top of their game. What customers wanted five years ago – or even 18 months ago – is very different to today. At Re_Set, we believe purpose can be a unique lever to accelerate change in your organisation and build growth, momentum, and true positive change, from within.
This shouldn’t be a terrifying prospect, but an exciting one. Defining (or redefining) your purpose is a unique way to reset your organisation through a critical assessment of why you exist. By doing this – and embedding it through your organisation – brands will find themselves ahead of the competition.
Alix Baldwin is a Manager at Re_Set
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