Within the luxury sector brands need more than just a consumer, they need loyalists, admirers and enthusiasts, but once this precious relationship is created how do you maintain the desire? 

1. Keeping current 
Beauty branding and packaging should be an alluring metaphor for the promise of transformation contained within. However, premium cosmetics are also synonymous with the forward thinking and fast moving realms of fashion and science and so transformation and rejuvenation of the branding and packaging is essential to ensure it remains desirable and relevant.

2. Stepping stones 
Beauty from couture fashion brands, such as Chanel, remain the epitome of desire because they provide more accessible, entry level products to those who lust after the unobtainable quilted handbags and tweed suits. Brands that operate solely in beauty can, however, follow a similar tactic by offering ranges, from premium to super prestige, that capture early entry and maintain the desire to up trade and grow within the brand.

3. Walk the availability tightrope 
Desire and ubiquity are uneasy bedfellows in the supply of luxury goods. If a brand is available everywhere, from multiple online outlets to superstores, the market soon reaches saturation and consumers can get bored and inclined to let their attention drift. It’s not always easy to strike that elusive balance between fuelling demand and supplying enough to satisfy the bottom line while also keeping consumer appetites keen. But to achieve long-term desirability for your brand, this is exactly what you must do.

4. Halo effect 
Special editions enable brands to create a temporary spike in demand for limited releases, which have a positive halo effect on consumers’ overall desire for a brand. Brands such as Nars and M•A•C have explored artist and celebrity collaboration collections to great effect, with some editions selling out online within 24 hours and generating a newsworthy buzz around the brand.
 
In the end, for a premium beauty brand to remain desirable it must be beautiful, it must be coveted, it must feel exclusive and yet be obtainable – just not too obtainable.

 

Tom Hearn is the business director at Nude Brand Creation, a branding and design consultancy. a luxury branding and packaging design agency, which has worked across the beauty sector on brands such as Enhance. Based in Old Street, London, it was born in 2003 out of a desire to do things differently. Nude is independent and proud of it. The partners who run the business are very hands-on, you get what you see – delivering what’s right, creating great work.  Nude digs deep into the heart of a brand, to lay bare its strengths and uncover its true potential.