استراتژی لوکس خرده فروشی:ایجاد کاریزما از طریق هنر و سحر و جادو

Luxury retail strategy differs from other retail strategies not merely in distinctive formulations of product, price, distribution, and appeals to customer distinction. Instead, it increasingly stands or falls on the legitimacy of a charismatic creative director. The director offers an aesthetic brand ideology. Luxury retail draws on the principles of art and magic to assemble the charismatic persona of the creative director and to diffuse his aesthetic ideology to the brand. Moreover, luxury retail strategy enlists magical and aesthetic principles within and without the store to achieve these ends. Finally, retail luxury is producer rather than consumer oriented and seeks to generate awe rather than community. This strategy appears to be to some extent a response to legitimacy crises provoked by recent strategic extensions of luxury brands into mass marketing. We offer some implications for marketing in which the charisma of a key personage is at stake.

After designer Alexander McQueen's suicide, the PPR Group announced that it would continue to produce fashion collections and accessories under the McQueen brand. Some analysts questioned the strategy's viability, implying that it would be difficult to continue promoting the brand without the actual designer's persona and vision (The New York Times, Feb 19th, 2010). Behind this concern lie the questions of how effective luxury retail strategy is created, who is the creative persona at the heart of luxury organizations ( McCracken, 1989, Stern, 1994 and Weierter, 2001), and what role that creative persona plays in the effective staging of luxury retail ( Wæraas 2007). Responding to recent research on retail and luxury brand strategy, our aim is to answer these questions. Our general concern is to determine what dimensions differentiate luxury retailing strategy from other retail marketing strategies (Arnold and Reynolds, 2003 and Carù and Cova, 2006). Following Verhoef et al. (2009), we want to establish what retail strategy is on offer in luxury outlets, that is, to identify a holistic configuration that characterizes luxury retail (Baker et al. 2002). To respond to our general question, we develop a theoretical perspective anchored on the charismatic creative director in luxury retail; we examine how luxury retailing establishes brand legitimacy (Arnold, Kozinets, and Handelman 2001) by linking the retail offer to the charismatic persona of the creative director through magical principles; we assess what kind of ideology contributes to luxury retail strategy (Borghini et al., 2009 and Floor, 2006); and we suggest how luxury retail strategy differs from that of other themed retail (Kozinets et al. 2002). Our discussion contributes to understanding the nature and role of charisma, retail ideology, and persona in retail marketing management.