It was big news back in 2015 when Ian Rogers jumped from Apple to become the new chief digital officer at LVMH (Louis Vuitton Moet Hennesy, which owns watch brands including Bulgari, TAG Heuer, Hublot, and Zenith). Jing Daily (a publication focused on digital trends in China) has a brief interview with him, in which he discusses his move from Apple to LVMH, how to do luxury online the right way, and what “luxury” means.
Here’s what Rogers had to say about the luxury industry and the mobile experience:
He grants that, in the digital beginning, the “luxury industry was smart to stay away from putting a bunch of couture dresses in a grid, add to cart, check out.” But he emphasized: “I think they did miss the fact that consumers” don’t associate luxury directly with goods anymore as much as with an entire customer experience. Rogers gave a surprising example of Uber’s app as “a pretty luxury experience” in terms of ease and immediacy of use.
It’s a pretty prescient point, one that the Retail Prophet actually made recently as well, when it wrote that every company is not a data company (as is so commonly preached), but every company is an “experience company.” Companies must focus on designing each and every moment of a customer’s experience with the brand. Experience is the new “bricks,” while technology, data, content, and digital are the “mortar” holding them together.
This is especially important to understand at a time when luxury brands are not only competing with each other for a consumer’s dollar, but with actual experiences: travel, events, concerts, etc. Consumers want something they can post on their Instagram feed to signal to others they’re living the good life; to that end, a watch is nice, but Bora Bora is better.
Some brands in the watch industry have learned this better than others.
Head to Jing Daily for the full article.