Louis Vuitton is still the luxury brand that has the most “intimate” relationship with UAE consumers, according to MBLM’s 2018 Brand Intimacy Study. LV is followed by Hugo Boss, Dior, Chanel, Gucci, Cartier, Burberry, Dolce & Gabbana, Hermes and Prada on the top-ten chart for luxury brands.
The luxury industry as a whole is ranked 7th out of the 15 industries surveyed. “Identity” was the most prevalent “Archetype” in the luxury sector. An Archetype is a pattern or marker that characterises a brand. The Identity archetype reflects the “aspirational images or a consumer’s deeply-held values.”
“The UAE has a complex relationship with the luxury sector. The category’s performance is average in our market but given the focus on luxury in our daily lives, there are clear opportunities for brands to enhance the strength of their customer bonds and build stronger emotional connections.” – William Shintani, Managing Partner at MBLM
Brand Intimacy, a new marketing paradigm invented by MBLM, is defined as “leveraging and strengthening the emotional bonds between people and the brands they use and love.” The study reveals that top intimate brands deliver superior results related to revenue and profit growth by creating deeper relationships with their consumers.
Amid the luxury category’s average performance in UAE, Louis Vuitton held its number one ranking in the luxury industry for the second year running and sixteenth in the overall ranking for the UAE. Louis Vuitton is the only luxury brand to make it to the overall top 40 list.
The two biggest climbers were Hugo Boss and Dior. Hugo Boss jumped from twelfth place in 2017 to second place. Dior jumped from number eight to number three while also having the highest rank in the “Nostalgia” archetype in the luxury category. Hermes and Michael Kors had a surprising dip in performance, dropping six spots each from three to nine and six to twelve respectively. However, Hermes ranks highest in “Ritual” Archetype where a brand is ingrained into daily actions.
Gucci ranks highest in “Indulgence,” for delivering moments of pampering or gratification. Gucci also ranks highest for male consumers. Chanel, at the fourth spot, had an improved score but not enough to improve or maintain the second spot from 2017. It scored highest in the “Fulfillment, Identity and Enhancement” archetypes.
The MBLM 2018 Brand Intimacy Study is based on an online quantitative survey conducted during 2017 among 6,000 consumers, of which, 3,000 were in the United States, 2,000 in Mexico, and 1,000 in the United Arab Emirates. The respondents had to be between 18 and 64 years with an annual household income of $35,000 or more in the U.S., and similar socioeconomic levels in Mexico and the UAE. Next, quotas were established to ensure that the sample mirrored census data for age, gender, income or socioeconomic level, and region. The data was modelled from a total of 54,000 brand evaluations to quantify the mechanisms that drive intimacy.
The survey was designed primarily to understand the extent to which consumers have relationships with brands and the strength of those relationships, from fairly detached to highly intimate. This study, according to MBLM, “provides more than a mere ranking of brand performance and was specifically designed to provide prescriptive guidance to marketers.”
MBLM is based in New York with offices in seven countries including the UAE. It focuses on creating, building and sustaining Brand Intimacy using a diverse and integrated team of disciplines. Among MBLM’s long list of clients are names like PayPal, American Airlines, Adnoc, AT&T, Crane, Dubai World Center, LAN, Miami Worldcenter, UL, and United Way.
