Storytelling Training: Best Practices for Luxury Brands

Luxury brands need to appreciate themselves and tell stories about their own successes.

What features should the story of luxury brands have?

Storytelling is as an important step for any luxury brand. So join Virlan in our new blog. You’ll learn more about storytelling and its several benefits for luxury brands.

In comparison to consumer goods that have experienced single-digit, flat, or even negative growth, the luxury brand market has seen very high growth over the past two decades. While the global growth rate has been in single digits, surprisingly the growth rate in China has been around 20%.

Storytelling in luxury brands and its huge importance

Still there are some luxury brand executives and managers who do not celebrate their great successes. In China, for example, many Western brands continue to lose money or underperform, contrary to their expectation. This is a sad fact that almost no one will openly admit. But behind the scenes, many managers are trying hard investigate and fix this problem.

And this struggle goes beyond China. Except for a few very successful brands such as Chanel, Gucci, Dior or Louis Vuitton, many luxury brands have not realized their true potential. They either do not grow as much as their peers, or they are unprofitable, or both.

What is the status of your brand?

Is your brand developing luxury products?

Do you know the huge importance of storytelling for your brand?

If not, you should know one of the biggest hidden dangers that can destroy luxury brands is not having the right story. But what does this mean? It means luxury brands need to be completely clear about their position. They should express what makes them different from other brands. Furthermore, they should be able to communicate with the customers during their journey.

One of the most common mistakes is that brands talk about themselves. They do this without translating their message into a tangible benefit for customers. For example, many luxury brands talk about their craftsmanship, experience, design, and exceptional services. It sounds great, but also very vague. Instead, they should specifically tell their customers what kinds of unique values and services they provide for them.

Exceptional and incomparable craftsmanship has great value only if it is significantly different from other luxury brands. They should be able to present this difference to customers as a brand’s value proposition. When we help clients to build a new brand or improve their existing brand, we always define the brand’s value proposition from the customer’s perspective. Especially for younger consumers who expect the most.

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To create value proposition, luxury brands must offer logical and emotional benefits

Both are essential and need to be a constant part of the brand story. However, only a few brands are crystal clear about their emotional ctore, their main purpose, and the way they inspire their customers. hey express their emotional position in the form of a dream (by creating one!). The problem is, unless this dream is clearly defined, it rarely creates customer value. As a result, it does not differentiate the brand. More transparency is needed.

Thus we usually find brands that just talk about themselves in a imprecise way. They don’t differ much from their competitors. Not surprisingly, a Chinese executive working for a European brand has recently said, “We all do the same thing. All brands seem to do exactly what others do.” Obviously, this does not create a lasting competitive advantage, and that is exactly why many luxury brands struggle.

In China, for example, young people are obsessed with brands. They expect to hear a clear and meaningful brand story. Missing a mark could be another reason why many Western brands fail in this market.

lack of precision

Another danger that threats luxury brands is lack of precision during the customer journey. There are very few brands that can continue the storytelling on a regular basis. When thinking about staying at a hotel, the customer journey is predictable. Few unexpected things may happen. This is why many experiences are known as “category experiences” instead of “brand experience”. This destroys the value of brand and weakens it. The emotional experience depends on the quality and training of sales staff. It also requires transparency.

Lack of sufficient digital tools

Furthermore, many brands lack sufficient digital tools to support the sales staff with specific customer insights. Accordingly, they are not able to create personalized digital customer journey. In today’s world, having a digital infrastructure for proper support is no longer an option, but a necessity.

Benefits of storytelling

When brands do this in the correct way, they can create tremendous value for it. This allows them to set a price for it and also develop a sense of luxuriousness in their category. Value is created through the brand name and its story. Products are only part of the brand value delivery system; They do not add luxury value by themselves. But the brand does it. This is why it is so dangerous not to tell the right brand story.

Optimizing your brand story is very important. It creates new opportunities. It also increases your revenue and profitability.

On the other hand, underestimating the importance of brand storytelling has destroyed many brands.