Key takeaways from the Publicis/CBNews Paris Luxury Summit 2021

The 8th edition of the Paris Luxury Summit, co-organized by CBNews & Publicis, called for the sector’s urgency to act by identifying key strengths and mobilizing creative energies to adapt to an ever-changing digital world.

With Bertrand Humblot as our Keynote speaker, along with Tatiana Dupont, Head of luxury at Linkedin, we not only had a chance to share our insights on how luxury brands are thinking about social advertising but also learned what’s on the minds of the leading luxury brands when it comes to digital and Web3.

Our key takeaways that show where luxury is heading:

NFTs, AR, and the Metaverse

By 2025, 55% of luxury clients will come from Generation Z and Millennials. Capturing the attention of these new generations is luxury’s main focus for the years to come. NFTs, AR, and Metaverse will be the emerging channels to engage this audience.

Digital fashion exists for NFT avatars (digital self-forms within the Metaverse) or for social media applications. The collaboration between Balenciaga and the computer game Fortnite produced a range of clothes available both digitally to game-players and in real life in Balenciaga stores.

Dolce and Gabbana has taken a somewhat different approach through launching NFT wearables of its clothes with a platform called Polygon. This format enables the items to exist and be traded across the Metaverse. They have also launched an initiative for the items to be available as both physical and digital pieces to combine the virtual world with reality.

Ray-Ban Stories: Hands-free, smart glasses with integrated camera have been developed this April in collaboration with Meta (formerly Facebook). These glasses allow you to take photos and video, make calls, and much more, while allowing you to stay immersed in the moment.

Louis Vuitton shows some impressive numbers from their AR & Metaverse campaigns: 6.53M AR stories impressions (try-ons + views), 215K AR Photos/Videos Filter recordings, and 47,533 AR Filter shares.

Luxury X Entertainment

Luxury brands are exploring entertainment and gaming as a way to build brand awareness in a digitally native world.

For its Fall 2021 collection, Balenciaga launched an exceptional project: the creation of a futuristic adventure video game accessible on all platforms, where the players travel to our planet in 2031 via an avatar in order to become the Master of Two Worlds – “Afterworld”.

Burberry has partnered with Blankos to produce their own online game within the metaverse based on a character called Sharky B.

Balmain partnered with Netflix to create a mini-series called ‘Fracture’ and imposed this format as a new way of storytelling and exposure for their successful brand.

Gucci was one of the earliest luxury brands on TikTok. Gucci leveraged both paid and organic marketing. Their #accidentalinfluencer campaign was their first foray, which promoted their vintage-inspired Gucci Tennis 1977 sneaker with videos, including bespoke choreography for TikTok, bringing in 2.5 million views.

Noen Eubanks, a Tik Tok influencer & content creator with over 10M followers, became the new face of Céline and also walked the runway for Prada.

Star Music Entertainment Inc. has produced the TikTok AD for L’oreal Japan YVES SAINT LAURENT BEAUTE’s hit product ROUGE VOLUPTÉ ROCK’N SHINE.

Sound & Voice

The luxury industry has reached many milestones in visual stimulation. The auditory sense is the next challenge for a new customer experience.

“L’Atelier Balmain” podcast explores key themes and compelling stories of this 75-year-old fashion house, with insights from Olivier Rousteing and members of his team helping to make clear how each and every Balmain runway builds upon an incredible legacy.

Dolce & Gabbana used Twitter Spaces to unveil their NFT collection, allowing users to host and participate in live audio conversations hosted within “Spaces” (aka audio chat rooms). Twitter offers new video formats like the live event page: 400M+ views of the live fashion shows in 2021, a gain of  +166% vs. 2020, and new e-commerce options, such as ‘live shopping’ and carousel formats.

Luxury X Sustainability

“Buy less, choose well, make it last.” – Vivienne Westwood

In spite of using sustainable materials and raising funds for environment preservation, building a new, sustainable image for luxury is becoming an important narrative. Second-hand luxury, investing in start-ups and education, raising awareness via impactful social campaigns – these are the actions that can make a real difference.

For 2021, the secondhand luxury market, which includes handbags, clothing, jewelry, and watches, is estimated to be worth €33 billion ($37.2 billion), according to Bain & Company. This is a 65% increase from 2017.

Recently, Gucci owner Kering invested in high-end resale platform Vestiaire Collective.

New business models are appearing: Weston is repairing 20K shoes per year close to their atelier; big groups like Kering & LVMH are investing in startups who are creating sustainable materials.

Omnichannel & Cross-network strategy

We are seeing massive adoption of new distribution channels and touchpoints: LinkedIn ad spend, exclusive virtual events on social platforms, native shopping, apps, gaming, and NFTs. A great example is Louis Vuitton who does it all!

The brand has been actively involved in high-profile campaigns, sponsoring major sporting events, such as motorsport and yacht racing, showcasing their fashion shows live on social media, experimenting with social commerce, and Metaverse. Louis Vuitton intelligently uses each of their social channels to showcase this content and create advertisements for their powerful community (FB 24M followers, Instagram 45.2M followers, YouTube 904K subscribers).

By bringing cross-network performance analysis and insights into one central platform Paragone enables luxury brands to succeed.