Marketing Analysis of Cartier - Essay Example

? According to Brakus, Schmitt and Zarantello (2009:52 Marketing practitioners have come to realise that understanding how consumers experience brands is critical for developing marketing strategies for goods and services”. Discuss this claim with reference to one luxury brand of your choice. (The Luxury brand is Cartier) Contents Introduction 3 Literature Review 3 Case Study 7 Conclusion 10 References 12 Introduction Brand experience is important in the field of customer experience for the products and services offered by the companies. Brand experience could be explained as the range of emotions, feelings, sensations and other behavioural responses that are evoked by the brand stimuli. The stimuli related to the brand that evokes various behavioural responses of the consumers are due to various features of the brand which are namely, the communications of the brand, the packaging of the products offered under the brand names and the market environment created by the brand strategies of the company (Aaker, 1996, p.47). Brand experience is of high importance to the companies in today’s market as the brand experience enjoyed by the customers creates an attachment towards preferred brands and hence, develops brand loyalty. In order to sustain business growth in the competitive markets, the companies put additional focus in including brand experience in their market strategies. By acquiring a loyal set of customer through brand experience, the companies have been able to acquire and maintain substantial market share in the industry. This piece of work includes a review of the literature on brand experience and the marketing strategies adopted by the companies in order to develop their brand experience (Aaker, 1997, p.352). The aspect of brand experience has been discussed in context to Cartier luxury brand. Literature Review The age of globalization has opened up the markets in several economies and the companies have expanded in the global markets in order to tap the potential market demand. The increase in market competition has increased the bargaining power of the customers. Over the years, the companies have observed changing trends in the customer behaviour in accepting brands from the available market options. Thus understanding the customer behaviour is important from the point of view of the companies in order to sustain their market shares. Brand experience has emerged as an important consideration for addressing the behaviour of the customers and their responses to various brands that they use in today’s competitive market. The behaviour of the customers related to brand experience depends on not one but several features of the brand like brand personality, brand community, brand attachment, brand trust and brand love (Ariely, 1998, p.36). The brand experience could be conceptualised as the generation of feelings, sensations, emotion of the customers in response to the brand related stimuli. The concept of brand experience emerges with the classification of customer’s experience into sensory, affective, intellectual, behavioural features of the customer’s behaviour (Schmitt, Zarantonello and Brakus, 2009, p.65). The feelings generated in the customer due to the sensory stimulus refer to the customer’s response to the aesthetic features of the product. The sensory emotions within the customer are generated by the focus on beautifying the product through better packaging. The better packaging in comparison to others provides as sense of assurance and belief to the consumer. The affective component of brand experience generates different customer behaviour as a result of the underlying belief and ideas of the customer on the particular brand. The affective behaviour of the customer is based on the direct and indirect interaction that the customer had in relation to the brand. The intellectual behaviour of the customers in relation to the brand is based on the knowledge and experience that the customer has in relation to the brands. This is cognitive response of the customers who are aware about the brand. The behavioural experience of the customer is based on the overall experience on the brand that is gained through incidents in the course of livelihood. These incidents and news about the product stimulate specific behaviour of the customers in context to corporate brands. The concept of brand experience is applicable for the luxury goods as well. The luxury brands are often termed as prestige brands that are mainly targeted to the affluent sections of the society. The luxury brand experience mainly includes the experience of the elite class of the society who could afford to purchase the luxury products and attaches the brand personality to their own attitude and lifestyle (Arnheim, 1974, p.52). The luxury brand generally contains a high share of expenses on account of brand promotion as a percentage of the revenues. The marketing strategy lays emphasis on enhancing the brand personality and its dominance in the brand community aimed at providing unique experience to the elite customers (Arnold, Reynolds, Ponder and Lueg, 2005, p.140). The importance of brand experience in the marketing strategies of the corporations could be understood by the benefits obtained by the companies in the competitive on account of brand promotion. For example, the companies could enhance the brand experience of the product by offering a better packaged product (Arnould and Price, 1993, p.25). This addresses the sensory emotions of the customer. The consumers look for associated and attractive features when looking to purchase a product among the several substitutes offered in the market. The design of the product, the logo of the brand, the colour of the product, the brand promotion strategies, the medium of communication for advertisement of the product and the environment in which the product is marketed stimulates behavioural responses within the customer (Bagozzi and Heatherton, 1994, p.47). The psychological influence of the brand experience on decisions of purchase leads to increase in market share of the brands with the growing the acceptability and brand loyalty. By offering a unique brand experience to the customers, the companies in various sectors like Fast manufacturing Consumer Goods, telecommunications, constructions, luxury brands have been able to enhance their revenue earnings as well as profitability in the competitive global markets (Bellizzi and Hite, 1992, p.352). A comparison of the traditional marketing approach undertaken by the companies in the earlier days and the modern marketing approach undertaken by the companies would provide us with deep insight on the rationale behind focus on brand experience of the consumers in order to gain competitive advantage over other players (Berlyne, 1974, p.48). The customers from earlier days to the neo-modern era have looked to attain the maximum value for money spent on the products purchased by them. A review of the corporate brands in several industrial sectors, namely Disney, HBO, Google, Apple, Microsoft, Reebok, Adidas, Home Depot, Coca Cola, Pepsi, Volkswagen, Rolls Royce have attached increasing importance on the design of the products offered by them to the customers. The design of the product logo like in case of Disney, the packaging of Coca Coal, Pepsi, the marketing promotions of Apple, Microsoft, the marketing environment of Rolls Royce, Volkswagen, Google online advertisements and promotions have stimulated favourable behaviour from the target customer. The favourable brand experience for the customers has allowed the brands to get competitive advantage through increasing use and access by their customers (Biel, 1993, p.75). The brand loyalty of customer has allowed the companies to gain sustainable growth over the years. The review of literature on the marketing strategies of the companies shows that by the end of the twentieth century, the companies have started to adopt the integrated marketing communications approach (Bloch, Frederic and Arnold, 2003, p.555). The integrated marketing communications strategy aim to adopt a comprehensive set of practices in order to provide the customers with enhanced brand experience and at the same time keep the customer aware of the several features of brand offerings through appropriate promotional strategies (Boulding, Kalra, Staelin and Zeithaml, 1993, p.21). The brand communication strategies include the brand promotional efforts considering product quality and price, place of promotion, better packaging of the products, information on sales and customer service, alignment with the online marketing and consumer behaviour in the industry, public relations, trade shows and corporate social responsibility (Brakus, Schmitt and Zhang, 2008, p.25). This integrated set of marketing strategy has been able to address the sensory, affective, intellectual and behavioural responses of the customer with the aim to generate brand loyalty of the market. Case Study Cartier is a luxury brand that designs, manufactures as well as distributes and sells jewellery items, wristwatches to their elite group of customers. The company was founded by Louis Francois Cartier in 1847 in Paris, France. Cartier luxury brand was under complete ownership of the Cartier family until 1964 but was later sold to a group of investors in 1972. The company is currently headquartered in Paris. The luxury brand now operates as a wholly owned subsidiary of Compagnie Financiere Richemont SA. Cartier specializes in manufacturing luxury wristwatches like Santos launched in 1904, exclusive jewelleries designed for the royal families like Bhupinder Singh, the Maharaja of Patiala in India, etc. Cartier luxury brand has a rich history of selling its luxury products including the jewelleries and wristwatches to the celebrities and the royal families. It could be noted that King Edward VII order 27 items from Cartier for the purpose of his coronation in 1902 and offered a royal warrant to Cartier in 1904. Cartier luxury brands have world wide customers in the various countries like Spain, Greece, Portugal, Russia, Belgium, Egypt, UK, US, Japan, etc (Cartier, 2013, p.1). From the time of its inception in 1847, Cartier operated through the retail stores in Paris. With time, Cartier increased its presence in several other countries as it expanded its business of selling luxury jewelleries and wristwatches to the elite group of customers (Cacioppo and Petty, 1982, p.131). From the earlier years, the traditional marketing strategies were adopted for selling the luxury products and services to their customers. Over the years, Cartier luxury brand increased its presence in 125 countries and started to sell the luxury jewelleries and wristwatches through 200 retail stores. Cartier has consolidated its luxury brands through five flagship retail stores spread over Paris, New York, Tokyo and London. The luxury products offered and customer service offered in the retail stores provided brand experience to their customers over the years (Carroll and Ahuvia, 2006, p.85). The luxury brand of Cartier has been able to provide a rich brand experience to their customers by addressing the several aspect of customer behaviour that include the sensory, affective, intellectual as well as the behavioural responses to the luxury brand. The elegant designs of the luxury brand of jewellery have been able to generate favorable responses among the elite group of customer who have been able to identify the brands in line with their affluent lifestyle. The affective responses have been generated by the underlying beliefs of the elite customers on the Cartier luxury brand. The rich heritage of Cartier has been responsible in establishing the trust and belief of their customers on the luxury brand. The elite group of customer is also aware of the features of the luxury brand of jewellery and wristwatches. The knowledge and experience obtained by these customers have developed positive intellectual behavior in accepting Cartier as the preferred brand. The behavioral responses of the customers of Cartier brand have been overwhelming due to the overall preference of the brand. This has been created as a result of the news and events in daily life where Cartier jewelleries and wristwatches have been used by a wide segment of elite customers (Schmitt, Zarantonello and Brakus, 2009, p.65). The marketing strategies adopted by Cartier in the neo-modern age have changed the dimensional approach of the luxury in putting additional emphasis to the brand experience in order to sustain the growth rate of their business in the competitive market. The luxury items of Cartier which includes the elite wristwatch that is unique in its design and the exclusive jewelleries are highly prices and aimed to be sold to the affluent section of the society who could attach the brand personality and the heritage to their lifestyle and attitude (Celsi, Rose and Leigh, 1993, p.22). In order to generate favourable behavioural responses from the elite customers in accepting the Cartier luxury brand, the company has adapted to the changes in the society which saw a shift in the business from the traditional mode to the e-commerce. This has been aimed at generating favourable intellectual response from their elite customers who have already shown favourable sensory, affective and behavioural responses as brand experience of Cartier. Cartier set up its online presence through official web stores which portrayed the exclusive designs of the jewelleries and the wristwatches for sell. The elite group of customers identified the expenditures incurred by Cartier in keeping up with the elite trends as efforts to include themselves in the brand community (Chandrashekaran, Rotte, Tax and Grewal, 2007, p.162). Cartier being a luxury brand spent heavily on the advertisement of the luxury jewelleries and wristwatches. The online promotion of the luxury items of Cartier allowed them to spread the brand message and the heritage of the brand to several elite sections in different corners of the world (Edell and Burke, 1987, p.433). The feedbacks provided by the customers available in the online modes also act as brand stimuli for influencing decisions over accepting the brand. Thus the shift in marketing strategies of Cartier by taking into account the behaviour of the elite section and changing perceptions of brand experience have led to positive results for the company (Pao-Long and Chieng, 2006, p.958). The benefits of marketing strategies of Cartier by laying additional emphasis on the brand experience could be analysed as given below. The inclusion of brand experience in the marketing strategy of Cartier led the company to undertake approaches that would best highlight the heritage of the brand to a wide section of the elite customers who could afford to purchase their luxury items (Chattopadhyay and Laborie, 2005, p.16). Cartier focussed on brand related stimuli to generate favourable sensory, affective, intellectual and behavioural response of their customers towards accepting their luxury brand. The brand promotion channels and the adoption of the online medium of marketing have allowed getting access to increasing number of customers who have shifted to online medium for the purpose of communication and transaction. The online promotions have enabled Cartier to display its unique design to the elite customers who could also compare with other luxury brands in the online mode and take quick and informed decisions (Anderson and Sullivan, 1993, p.138). The investments by Cartier in promoting its brand through the online mode, spreading the message of brand personality to the elite customers and establishing the value for money have led to the increasing acceptability and brand loyalty for the exclusive luxury designs by Cartier. Conclusion The aspect of brand experience is one of the most important factors that are considered in the marketing strategies by the companies in the neo modern age. The shift of marketing strategies from the traditional to the neo modern age has developed due to the process of globalization, the increase in purchasing power of the consumers and the option to respond differently to various brand options available in the market. The luxury brands consider the brand experience as one of the essential factors for success of the product. The luxury brands have shifted their promotional channels and marketing environment according to the shift in the purchasing mode of the elite group. 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