What’s the price???

Many luxury brands sell a lot of products with their logos prominently on display. Whether it’s the little honeybee or snake on Gucci apparel or the horse in the Ferrari logo or the Versace Medusa, you definitely know it when you see it.

A few weeks ago, I went to Sephora in search of a new fragrance for my personal use. They have a wide variety of fragrances from considerably inexpensive to luxury brands such as Channel, Dior, Versace, etc. After several minutes of smelling fragrances and asking the employee who was helping me for suggestions, I decided that I would buy the Versace’s Bright Cristal. I was delighted by the fragrance. It had a spectacular smell; a good fixative and the appearance of the bottle was very luxurious and attractive. What I did not know about this charming Versace fragrance was its cost. I was so focused on its appearance, good brand name and the desire to buy a good product that I forgot the most important thing: THE PRICE. I proceeded to ask for price of the product and its cost was $60.00 per ounce. In my mind I thought: “What’s the price??? Maybe she is wrong. No, she is not wrong. We are talking about Versace, of course it will not be cheap. What were you thinking, Desiree? Duh…” Long story short, after thinking about how I should use my discretionary income on that purchase, I made the payment for the Bright Cristal. I had many options at that time, one of them at the same price but offered me more ounces of perfume, others the same amount but cheaper. In the end, I made the decision for two reasons: the wonderful smell and the name of the brand (of course).

Versace is one of the leading international fashion design houses and a symbol of Italian luxury world-wide. It is the homage to extravagance and elegance and they have built that reputation over many years in the industry. You can see famous people like Lady Gaga in their advertising campaigns and, their collections in the most popular fashion shows in the world. As an article form Quora says: “Versace doesn’t make clothes that are avant-garde, arty, or untouchably elegant; it makes clothes for red carpet photo calls in Cannes and parties aboard a rap mogul’s mega-yacht in Monaco.” Humble, right?

Luxury, is the desire of many human being (at least sometimes in life), but only a few are lucky enough to cherish and raise their lifestyle in the lap of luxury. When I left the store I forgot that the fragrance cost me a day of work. I felt a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction. For a moment, I felt part of an exclusive and fancy brand community and like a Runway model walking down the streets in Soho.

Marketing concepts from Marketing The Core 8th Edition by Roger Kerin:

• Discretionary income is the money that remains after paying for taxes and necessities. It is used for luxury items such as a Cunard cruise.
• Brand community is a specialized group of consumers with a structured set of relationships involving a particular brand, fellow customers of that brand, and the product in use. A consumer who is a member of a brand community thinks about brand names, the product category, other customers who use the brand, and the marketer that makes and promotes the brand.