The "Winter" Of Global Luxury Goods Is Still Continuing.

This winter is fierce and long, with Michel Gutsatz (Michel Gutsatz) (Central Europe). market "They are suffering," said an adjunct professor of marketing and vice president of Marseilles School of Commerce.

The latest data show that it ranks number one in the world. Luxury goods The consumer group bought 31% of the world's luxury goods, of which more than 60% were purchased overseas.

However, for various reasons, people who were once heroic and throwing money were not willing to buy overseas, but the growth of consumption in mainland China failed to make up for overseas losses. Therefore, global luxury sales in 2016 will still be down.

Global luxury "winter" continues

Strictly speaking, the top level brand The cold winter began in the middle of 2015, and many brands such as Chanel, Prada and Gucci dramatically reduced their retail prices in the mainland of China, and increased the prices of foreign goods. Subsequently, there were more news that LV had closed stores continuously. One and a half years passed quickly, and almost all the methods were exhausted, but sales data of top brands remained low.

Professor Kutas said that its sales volume of Cartire, MontBlanc, Vacheron Constantin, Jaeger Le Coulter and other brands in April 2016 declined by 18%, and sales in the first 5 months dropped 14%. Profits in the first half of the fiscal year could fall by 45%. The sales volume of Prada in the first half of this year dropped 15%, while that of Chanel 2015 decreased by 23%, and the total revenue decreased by 17%. "The results they announced this year are never before."

A group of latest data from Bain showed that:

1, in 2016, China's consumer spending on luxury goods will generally slow down. Purchasing channels will force the luxury goods industry to solve the global price difference. In 2016, luxury goods will have more price adjustments.

Data show that in 2015, the mainland China luxury market showed a decline of about 2%, and the market size dropped to around 113 billion yuan. Sales of watches, men's clothing and bags were the main reasons for this trend.

2, 2016, as Chinese consumers return to the Chinese market, the Chinese luxury market is likely to rebound, which is expected to show a low single digit growth. However, the growth of domestic consumption expenditure is less than that of overseas market consumption.

3, Chinese consumers are increasingly turning to experiential luxury consumption. El Luxor Hotel / resorts, luxury cruise ships, luxury spa and so on are becoming more and more popular.

Source: Bain's mainland China luxury consumer research in 2015 (sample size =1447); literature research; Bain analysis

Chinese people buy luxury goods, focusing on "low price".

According to Bain report analysis, over the years, the purchase of luxury goods in China has gradually evolved into "trading" rather than "experiential". Due to the lack of attention and training in the Chinese market, consumers are more concerned about prices by means of discounts and low prices. Most of the consumers in China pursue discounts and concessions when shopping abroad. As for the cultural connotation, history, handicrafts and artisan spirit that the brand is proud of, the things that should be pursued are all blocked by prices.

This is reflected in the domestic market, and it also proves why Chinese people like to consume in famous discount stores. Famous discount stores are now an important channel for Chinese consumers to buy low-priced luxury goods.

Source: Bain, 2015 China mainland luxury consumer research (sample size =1447); brand interview; famous discount shop interview; analyst report; Bain analysis

In fact, "discount" and "top level" are fragmented, because buying a top brand at a discount is a paradox in itself. For this reason, as the luxury brands headed by Chanel and Cartire began to implement the global unified pricing, at the same time, the Chinese government adopted a series of measures, including strengthening management and control, cracking down on purchasing agents, promoting cross-border electricity providers, lowering tariffs and adopting monetary policies, and so on. It tried to bring extravagance consumption back to the mainland. The price advantage of overseas purchases was no longer, but the enthusiasm of overseas Chinese crazily decreased suddenly, but the consumption of mainland consumption was not yet ignited. So Bain decided that in the past two years, the overall trend of luxury consumption is going to decrease.

The younger generation no longer believes your story.

The top brands have achieved unprecedented success around the world. This happened three years ago, but in just three years, brands have been in an unprecedented predicament. What has happened?

In the past 15 years, brand marketers have always been using content marketing as a magic weapon, with customer satisfaction as the purpose. Everyone knows that they need to establish emotional bonds with their customers, and tell them to the brand story.

As a result, the mobile Internet is still using this old method today -- the brand story has appeared in various social media, which fully occupy 23% of the total information. The brands invited the Hollywood team to make beautiful films and continuously push the information to customers. In the eyes of the brand, social media is just another way to carry all kinds of advertisements. They don't understand that this era has changed, and the old ones are no longer working. They don't understand why these elaborate and expensive contents will be submerged in massive amounts of information in a moment.

In the European and American markets, some people have done some surveys and statistics, and found that the younger generation is ungrateful to advertisements. They are critical of brands. Young people believe most in the recommendation of friends and family members, and consumers' comments on credible platforms. This is especially true in China.

With the continuous improvement of education level and innovation level, people begin to put forward higher expectations for brands. They no longer believe in stories told by others. They want to see the truth and even become part of the story.

The cultural age is also the digital age. All people can get too much information quickly and easily. But most brands still use digital channels as new advertising channels, constantly exporting content. Twitter, Facebook, micro-blog, WeChat and even mail can be used to find all the channels that can be used in the market and publish the same content.

However, social media is not a magic wand, it is not just lighting up to solve all problems. With the expansion of channels, the improvement is probably only the advertising budget and the cost of obtaining customers, but the effect is negligible, which is the worst result of marketing. When consumers are unwilling to listen to or believe in the story of a brand, what should the brand do if they spend a lot of money on the content?

It's ecology, not advertising.

The brand should take advantage of the digital ecosystem rather than the digital advertising channel.

First of all, let's clarify these concepts.

1, we need to know what the Internet is. The Internet is an emotional word and an emotional world. People go online to find people with the same passion. All previous studies have shown that people on the Internet have the same rule: in order to find information, they surf the Internet; through search, go to some websites related to their interests, and then use the community to find friends who are interested in each other.

A recent study in Facebook shows that if the content of a brand is only related to its own interests, such content is not very popular. The way netizens love to see each other is to communicate with the brand themselves, and the process of brand expression is not so brand like. From this point of view, the current social media marketers are not doing enough.

2, communities and communities, groups and groups through social media links, these groups will produce new ideas, new products and new aesthetics, and even invent new practices, which will have common passion and interest, produce a common culture, this culture will create the future brand. Therefore, brands need to be clear about how to connect with these cultures.

In social media, we divide people into four categories:

The first type, closely related to the topic and closely connected with the community, is called the insider.

The second type is that in the same community, people who do not communicate with each other but pay close attention to the topic are called followers.

The third category is people who are not too interested in topics.

The fourth category is people who are not interested in people in the community.

The brand should be clear about what kind of people to aim at, and assess the relationship between people, all the tools are available. Today, China has been leading the world for ten years in the digital process. Even zacha Berg has said that he wants to make Facebook WeChat, because he understands WeChat represents the future.

3, in China, brands use social media to do marketing. They need to subdivide online and offline customers. The basis of their segmentation depends on their interests, cultural backgrounds and diverse needs. On this basis, they can create dialogues that can be talked with, and become the objects of conversation, rather than just exporting brand content.

This is not a simple thing to invite some big stars to be brand spokesmen. Find the most important and active users in the community interested in brands, let them influence other users as opinion leaders, and send other users to retail outlets or e-commerce outlets under their influence, and then evaluate the effect. The result is not good enough to stop, and the effect is good enough to further develop.

Three essential elements of operation brand

There is not much difference between the luxury industry and other industries. They all need to play the advantage of the Internet age through social media to achieve a long-term vision. The three elements that remain unchanged include:

The brand must know all the customers and know their names in detail. As a brand, it is essential to have a good understanding of customers and even know their names. This is not fundamental because of the progress of science and technology and the development of technology.

There is no point in separating digital channels from offline channels. Online and offline integration is a norm. Brand needs to be seamless. Future market needs more "CIO" to solve all kinds of technical and information problems for brands.

The application and implementation of digital media will determine the success or failure of luxury brands.