On Monday I attended a portion of the “eCommerce Innovations & Strategy Forum” as part of Luxury Interactive 2008. Sheldon Gilbert, CEO of Proclivity Systems [disclosure: our client], Mary Senin, Corporate Director of E-Commerce Marketing, The Ritz Carlton Hotel Company, Misty Locke, President, Range Online Media and David Manela, Vice President, Ideeli, participated in a panel session on online strategies for luxury brands.
It was an interesting discussion that opened my eyes to some of the dilemmas that face the luxury market in a virtual world. Alot of the discussion centered around replicating the ‘brand experience’ in an online forum. If the brand is all about personal service, prestige, being ’seen’ or being exclusive – how do you replicate that through a website? There was some chatter about luxury brands often being late to the digital party – but as Missy Senin pointed out, the next generation of luxury customers is online, and that’s where the brands need to be. According to Senin, if they don’t make inroads in the online community, they may lose those prospective clients in the future. David Manela also pointed out that with all of the tools and technologies available, you can create a luxury, personalized experience online for customers and brand advocates. Mary Senin also shared a story about how technology can also work against a company if they are not prepared. She shared a story about an unsuccessful attempt to implement a ‘live chat’ feature on their website but when the backend support wasn’t there it led to frustrations on the customer and service sides.
Another insight shared by Locke was on the topic of ROI. For those of us that live in the Web world, we love to measure everything – clicks, views, abandons, conversions, registrations etc. However, just because we can measure everything, doesn’t mean that we should. Often, this focus on measurement may lead us to dissapointment because the ‘metrics’ don’t add up to our expectations or measure the true value. There are still many benefits of online advertising and interactivity that cannot be effectively measured or that lead to an immediate action. Locke lets her clients know that these are long term investments in your brand, in raising awareness, in positioning and other criteria that cannot always be measured in clicks.
Check out the photos on Flickr.
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