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GUEST COMMENT Luxury brands must embrace innovation: who is getting it right?

Luxury: who is getting ecommerce right? (Image: Fotolia)

Luxury: who is getting ecommerce right? (Image: Fotolia)

Robert Lockyer, Chief Client Officer, and founder of  Delta Global, explains the importance of luxury brands embracing innovation to meet the eco-conscious needs of consumers

The idea of what luxury means is changing. In an increasingly competitive sector, innovation has become essential. New ways of marketing, new products, and new strategies are required to meet shifting consumer demographics and new purchasing preferences.

Central to this innovation is luxury packaging. Often the first touchpoint between luxury brands and consumers, it has become a marketing tool that allows a brand to differentiate, excite and win returning customers.

Luxury brands that have recognized the importance of innovation. But why? The answer is that the luxury consumer no longer feels at ease contributing to the climate crisis through packaging that cannot be repurposed, reused or recycled.

42% of Millennial luxury good consumers have stated that environmental care was a critical factor when it came to purchasing luxury goods. This is no longer just an ethical issue; it is also a market imperative.

Luxury, multi-use packaging is a simple and practical solution. And there are a few brands that have long understood the value of reusable luxury packaging that transforms into a desirable commodity. Take Hermès and its big, bright, orange box, and Mytheresa’s innovative signature yellow gift box, as just two leading examples.

It took only a savvy selection of colour, and the same love for manufacturing standards that we recognise in its clothing and accessories to achieve an inimitable packaging product.

Excess packaging: less is more

There is simply no longer a need, be it for businesses or consumers, for excessive packaging. Now, as we move further into this new era of sustainable luxury, brands have turned their focus to something that continues to embody all thing’s luxury, but with an eco-friendlier production process.

And the FutureBox does just that. The ultimate luxury box for the future of our planet, the FutureBox was designed by our team to ensure the highest sustainability standards. The packaging also uses no tape, has flatpack functionality and has easy assembly functionality.

After last year’s COP26, brands must continue to centre not only their products, but their packaging, around sustainability. The materials used for the FutureBox are FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) accredited, and crucially, the box requires no magnets for secure closure, an addition that prevents even the most ‘sustainable’ packaging from being fully recyclable.

Similarly, luxury fashion brand Burberry has shown that to encourage the unboxing experience and embrace innovation, we need not require a mass of materials and waste.

Innovation is about executing a concept that brings value, it is not an exercise in overkill and excess. And, as we’ve seen in recent years, consumers are just as concerned about the reusability and recyclability of packaging.

Burberry has eliminated plastic lamination from boxes, introducing ethically sourced packaging materials, with at least 40% of such, coming from recycled coffee cups.

Understanding the customer

Nobody has implemented an understanding of the market they serve better than HEAT, which curates luxury streetwear mystery boxes. HEAT partnered with esports giant FaZe Clan to create a capsule collection.

The luxury packaging created a new capsule box to enhance this brand/consumer experience that switched out the usual black branding (which we love) to a distinctive bright red – a colour that FaZe clan fans immediately associate with the brand. And for HEAT’s consumers, it reiterated the one-off nature of the collection, giving it the feel of a sought after, rare creation, essential to consumer anticipation when purchasing a luxury product.

We were able to excite and communicate with consumers a simple message: this is a truly collaborative creation that brings together two essential Gen Z brands through innovative packaging. That packaging doubles up as a container for the consumer’s favourite video games, and was quickly caught onto by its consumers, giving it a sharable word-of-mouth and online second life.

Innovation is deployed by completely aligning the product with the packaging. That it speaks so boldly and clearly of its reusability points to a future where luxury, innovation and sustainability are happily entwined – and that is the future.

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