MA Luxury Brand Management

The scholarly investigation of the diverse forms of luxury brand management has not been the sole preserve of management studies, but has taken on a distinctly multi-disciplinary character with contributions from sociologists, historians, economists, anthropologists and designers.

This module provides a thorough understanding of the unique practices associated with successful luxury brand management. The module probes the essence of luxury brand management, and explores the diversity of meanings associated with luxury across different markets, as well as the impact of social networks and digital developments.

In the contemporary luxury market, companies have to be connected with customers in increasingly creative ways. This is a field of great flux as managers of mainstream brands are increasingly looking at entry into the premium level, and managers of existing luxury brands try to tackle sections of the mass market. Thus, luxury has to distinguish itself through distinctive approaches to retail, information technology and marketing. Luxury provides the opportunity to stay close to one’s customers and to provide the things that they want. Luxury has traditionally been seen in a tangible way, especially with regard to fashion goods, but an emerging field on inquiry is the growth of experiential luxury and the expansion of luxury management skills into new areas such as tourism and hospitality, museums and art galleries, and theatres. The distinctive features of luxury brand management arose from a combination of theory and practice, and consideration is given to emerging future trends. It explores geographical and regional perspectives within their historical contexts with regard to the luxury sector or knowledge domain with reference to the development of luxury brands in Europe, and to the use of luxury items in Asian and African court-based societies. It examines in particular the rapid emergence of Japan as a major consumer and developer of luxury brands and how its own distinctive practices in retail, notably the close relationship between customer and retailer, became influential.

Luxury was once the preserve of skilled artisans, often grouped in guilds, making goods to order for wealthy and aristocratic customers and patrons. Access to luxury has become more widespread with even governments (e.g. China) introducing policies extolling the importance of access to luxuries and estimating the salary levels at which people can enjoy becoming luxury consumers. Few people in the 21st century have access to one-off goods and experiences, but many luxury brand managers have explored ways of customizing goods and experiences to provide a sense of uniqueness for their customers, often using digital-aided design that enables the customer to take part in the design process. Customization reinforces the notion that a tangible or intangible experience with a luxury brand creates a feeling of specialness. The module examines the techniques and strategies used by luxury brand managers and developers to engage closely with their customers and to expand their customer base. The strategies involve not only the design of material goods and intangible products, but the creative use of digital media, retail and marketing to connect closely with customers. These management approaches will be illustrated with case studies from the established brands of the West, but also from emerging brands in Asia, Africa and Latin America.

The module probes the essence of luxury brand management and explores the differences between mass, premium and luxury brand management strategies. The issues covered by the module provide a strategic perspective on the dynamic characteristics and opportunities associated with luxury brand management in a global context and examine the main forms of management in relation to the luxury goods and services industry. It introduces industry perspectives on luxury in relation to new venture creation and product development. There is a focus on the practicalities of management and an examination of the human resource management issues relevant to this sector. The module also discusses corporate social responsibility and environmental issues relating to luxury brand management. It covers the different approaches required in the management of branded luxury goods and the provision of luxury experiences and their underlying rationales.

It shows how, as small firms grew, the need for specialist managers became imperative and a sub-field of management known as luxury brand management came into being. It describes how theory and practice drawn from different sectors became synthesized in the context of luxury brand management. It examines and rationalises the success of those business models that have achieved sustainability and profitability, and highlights the management models that have been used to transform small family businesses into major brands. It examines the role of the intrapreneur as a form of corporate management style that integrates risk-taking and innovation, as well as associated rewarding and motivational approaches. It provides an understanding of the theoretical and practice-based approaches to management in relation to market entry strategies, market re-positioning and brand refreshment, as well as services and management approaches using critical thinking.

The module provides an understanding of the role of the luxury brand manager in relation to IP legislation and the contexts in which legal advice should be sought. It will introduce students to contemporary theory and practice in policy-making and industry by bringing in occasional speakers from ICCE’s networks in the industry. The term intellectual property (IP) refers to intangible assets created by the mind. IP is often afforded time-limited, legal monopoly protection. Intellectual property rights (IPRs) refer to the legal rights, including trade-marks, copyright, (industrial) design rights, and patents and, in some cases, trade secrets, that grant the right to control the use of intellectual efforts. Intellectual property laws have been around for many centuries but, in response to economic and industrial changes, it was not until the 1996 World Trade Organization (WTO) Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement that IP took centre stage, though luxury and fashion patents had long received a great deal of attention in terms of world policy. While the importance of IP legislation is recognised by the vast majority of countries, the level of enforcement of IP laws varies. Reference is made to the British legal context, but the emphasis is on international legislation as the student body is likely to be diverse in terms of nationality. There are many historical and contemporary examples of IP infringement, including both commercial and artistic, and sometimes IP infringement is encouraged by brands and artists.

IP has been a cornerstone of the world of luxury as brand managers have a key duty to see that the IP rights of their employers are enforced and respected, and increasingly brand infringement is used as a marketing device. Conversely, there are cases in which brands appear to use independent designers’ work without attribution. Luxury refers to a very broad area of trade which includes intangible products such as fashion goods and experiential luxuries such as gastronomy, tourism and the performing arts. Chefs, designers and craftsmen alike have an interest in protecting their IP, and luxury brand managers need to be aware of the very different ways that IP applies across different fields. The module also considers the role of the luxury brand manager in the ethical exploitation of IP and draws attention to the way IP legislation reflects values and value.

An increasingly important debate concerns the relationship between IP and high-quality products whose rights are held collectively within a given culture, which is a pressing concern in the emerging economies. Towards the end of the 20th century an increasingly common concern began to be expressed by the leaders and policy-makers of emerging economies, notably in Asia and Africa, that Western fashion and luxury designers were exploiting the rich artistic registers of traditional cultures without any form of acknowledgement either in terms of attribution or payment. By the second decade of the 21st century the focus of this debate began to change as companies, particularly from the increasingly powerful economies of Asia began to appropriate traditional African designs to produce copies of traditional African goods. This caused further ire as the industrially produced copies often undercut traditional producers inhibiting their attempts to develop traditional crafts into luxuries as had happened in diverse locations in the West. Issues relating to cultural appropriation, joint authorship, gender and ethnicity will be actively explored in the module.

The World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) was created in 1967 “to encourage creative activity, to promote the protection of intellectual property throughout the world”, but by the 21st Century it was not seen as having the necessary skills and powers to combat IP abuses in emerging counties. However, specialists from a variety of disciplines are increasingly addressing these concerns through policy advice on IP legislation. Recent policy concerns Traditional Knowledge (TK), know-how associated with cultural identities, and Geographical Indications (GI), production methods specific to geographical locations. WIPO prioritises their development, as GI and TK are becoming increasingly important in global trade and policy. WIPO draws on the earlier Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, which was adopted in 1886. A formative part of the module will include making presentations to the class with an appropriate range of technology under the guidance of the tutor.

The Dissertation is an extended piece of written work of 12,000 words, more or less 10%, on a research topic of your choice (but subject to approval). It is undertaken during the Spring and Summer terms with preparation and consultation in the Spring Term and research and writing up in the Summer Term. The dissertation comprises a critical review of the literature and/or original analysis of documentary and/or other evidence on a chosen topic within the fields of your programme.

The dissertation is intended to assess the full range of students’ abilities and to apply a range of learning outcomes, which the programme enables students to develop. In particular it enables assessment of the ability to design, develop and write an advanced research project using primary and/or secondary materials appropriate to the topic and according to the necessary conventions of scholarly work. It requires independent motivation and self-directed learning, under supervision, and enables students to demonstrate competence for critical analysis and sustained persuasive argument.

One of the main purposes of the dissertation is to enable the student to deepen his/her knowledge and understanding of the content and capabilities of the overall programme. The dissertation is written at the end of the programme and provides an opportunity to delve more deeply into a specific topic area and to synthesize knowledge acquired in previous studies. It provides the capability to use a holistic view critically, independently and creatively to investigate complex issues relating to luxury brand management. The dissertation provides the capability to critically and systematically integrate knowledge and to develop a knowledge of the research methods appropriate to his/her dissertation. The dissertation involved planning and use of adequate methods to conduct qualified tasks in given frameworks and to evaluate this work. The dissertation needs to present and discuss the conclusions as well as the knowledge and arguments that form the basis for these findings in written English. The citations and list of reference should conform to a consistent house-style (e.g. Harvard). The student must demonstrate am awareness of the ethical considerations related to research.

This module critically analyses the growth and character of cultural tourism and the growing relationship between the creative industries and cultural tourism.  It critically interrogates notions of the creative class, the creative city and the experience economy which have been used to underpin strategies in cultural tourism development. Ideas about the growing sophistication of cultural tourists and their changing tastes suggest that travellers wish to move beyond consumption to ‘prosumption’. With increasing competition between tourism destinations, the development of timely, attractive and innovative tourism products has never been more necessary – whether using the historic environment in creative ways or exploiting contemporary cultural forms. 

This module looks at the governance of cultural tourism at different spatial levels (from UNESCO to local government and local partnerships), best practice in destination management and the development of new tourism products. The geographic spread of cultural tourism and the greater diversity of products, necessitates the examination of issues related to contested meanings, authenticity, ethics, and sustainability. 

This module comprises weekly lectures delivered by the module tutor and guest speakers followed by seminar sessions to develop, explore and apply the ideas developed in the lectures. Group and individual tasks will give student the opportunity to work with the key concepts developed in the module. The seminars will also be used to support students in the development of their own research. Fieldwork in week 5 will introduce the students to key cultural and creative tourism ideas in central London.

This module explores the relationship between culture, tourism and regeneration. Tourism has long played a role in the economic social and physical transformation of towns and cities in cities famed for their proximity to coast or spectacular scenery – from the centres of the grand tour, to spas, coastal resorts and cultural centres. However in recent decades the nature of city tourism has changed. This module explores the growth and increasing diversity of cultural tourism, the role it plays in urban centres and their regions and the ways in which cities have reinvented and rebranded themselves as centres of leisure and recreation consumption using major cultural infrastructure investment, heritage commodification, events and festivals.

Underlying this transformation are the planning strategies that use culture as a means of transforming urban economies in the face of industrial change. With decline, reorganisation and new technologies transforming traditional manufacturing industries and services, cities have been searching for new strategies that promise to deliver investment, jobs and prosperity. The need to tackle not just employment but housing, social, physical, and environmental problems has necessitated an approach to tackle multiple problems in a single strategy – regeneration.

Recent research in Asia has questioned the widely held assumption that tourism arose in the UK during the mid-19th century as a result of Thomas Cook’s introduction of the ‘package’, a combination of the cost of travel and another service.

It has been shown that travel and leisure existed in early Han Dynasty China as scholars and priests explored mountainous areas giving rise to one of the civilizations most enduring art forms, the landscape painting. Travel and leisure also seem to have gone hand in hand with that other widespread phenomenon, the pilgrimage, with the attendant development of hostelries, storytelling and souvenir production.

Industrial forms of tourism were introduced to Asia by European colonial powers in the late 19th and early 20th century with the development of hilltop stations to provide relief for officials and merchants working in tropical areas. Grand hotels were introduced with the Sarkies brothers opening up famous establishments in Myanmar (Burma), Singapore and Indonesia (Dutch East Indies). The inter war cruise ship industry made Asia accessible to wealthy Europeans and Americans with perceptible impacts on Asian hospitality traditions and visual and performing arts.

Western artists used the opportunities provided by tourism to open studios in Asia, notably Bali, often working alongside indigenous artists to create hybrid and highly creative art forms. The post-war era opened up parts of Asia to Western mass tourism, notably the so-called ‘rest and recreation’ of the US military in Thailand.

Tourism was also used as a nation building strategy by Asian leaders such as Suharto in Indonesia to encourage his countrymen to travel and to get to know their country and to project a tourist friendly external image of stability.

As the Asian economies developed, countries like Japan became major sources of outbound tourism with accompanying impacts on Western retail practices, especially with regard to fashion and luxury. By 2014 China had become the largest outbound and inbound tourism market with the introduction of China-friendly hotel ranking systems in Europe, such as the 5-dragons scheme, began to be experimented with in Europe.

Indian outbound tourism also became significant with some novel characteristics, such as an interest in the hybrid Indian-British culinary tradition of the ‘curry house’. Tourism is also one of the drives that has spread Asian culinary traditions around the world.

Although art museums use the words interpretation, education and communication as a way of differentiating between individual departments and the type of responsibility staff members have, there are important fundamental differences inherent within each term that are rarely examined or explained. This module will seek to explore these differences, and look closely at each of the three main concepts: interpretation, education and communication.

Individual sessions will examine the way in which art museums define their relationship to content, meaning and context, how they communicate their message, their interest in creating a suitable brand and image, the role of library and archive, development, fundraising and conservation.
There will be an emphasis on examining education and learning, the importance of access, diversity and the range of activities museums develop to attract new visitors and address the diversity and needs of an increasingly large visiting public.

The module tutor will introduce theories which relate to the writing of interpretative text, and consider how the experience of looking at art might be different if text were not available. There will also be a discussion regarding the role of the aesthetic in art education and the range of expectations visitors have from a museum visit.

This module will introduce students to a range of business modelling tools, and provide insight in to the characteristics of successful entrepreneurs and enterprises. The module has evolved from NESTA’s Creative Pioneer Programme and will use the Modelling Techniques that were designed and have evolved from The Academy and Insight Out which provide approaches to commercialising creativity.

It will critically review the key characteristics of successful enterprises, entrepreneurs and leaders, within the cultural and more commercially focused creative industries. It will look at the range of business models that exist and review how best to build a financially sustainable organisation.

Students will be introduced to a range of techniques:

1. Relationship Modelling – this will assist students to understand the range of business models in the creative industries, and to create the most appropriate route to market; it will consider the relationship that the originator of the creative idea has to the production, distribution and the audience/customer/client; it uncovers the student’s relationship to “reward”.

2. Evidence Modelling – this model uses Marshall McLuhan’s Tetrad Model to review the likely impact of the idea; it helps makes the enterprise tangible and to ensure that the entrepreneur remains in control of the effects of their ideas. Using the modelling technique helps students to articulate their values and the benefits of their ideas.

3. Blueprint Modelling – an approach to creating an operating plan which will move their idea to market, articulating all of the activities and responsibilities required.
Consequence Modelling – using all of the knowledge from the modelling techniques, this will uncover the financial consequences of the decisions made. It will introduce them to basic financial modelling concepts, and ensure they are comfortable with the financial language of creative entrepreneurs.

This module provides students with an in-depth engagement with the principles and practices of creative social media. The course introduces the foundations of a marketing approach to social media, but moves beyond this, focusing on the creative use of social media for storytelling, political campaigning, audience engagement, multiplatform and interactive production. From a theoretical perspective, it will look at how digital identities are created, and how we perform ourselves online. By specifically referencing the work of Douglas Rushkoff, Sherry Turkle, Jose Van Dijk, most recently looking at the ideas of ‘Lively Data’ (Lupton:2016) we examine the uses and abuses of the information that we leave behind. It will also take in the work of Goldsmiths’ Liz Moor and the rise of brands in modern culture and how this has impacted on the idea of ‘personal brand’.

On a practical level, it will explore creative uses of tools and techniques such as GIFs, live streaming, pre-roll advertising, click-bait, social storytelling and virality. The syllabus will respond to developments in the creative industries and fields of research related to social media. It will also ground students in the relevance and significance of social, aesthetic, theoretical, political and historical contexts in which social media operate. This provides students the opportunity to develop proficiency in the techniques and relevant software packages for realizing and analysing creative projects. Students will develop an ability to generate and develop social media strategies, they will understand the process by which a digital brand is created, and the production techniques to that respond to a range of different creative ideas – led by themselves and others working across different platforms – and potential client needs. They will learn how to translate narrative, conceptual and some marketing ideas into creative social media form.

This module will introduce students to a range of innovation and entrepreneurial tools that will provide them with techniques to situate a creative idea within a framework of entrepreneurial thinking. This will enable them to develop the idea to become a project or enterprise with audiences, clients, customers, users and funders. The students will be introduced to and will critically review and appraise a range of methods and techniques that have been evolved from Nesta’s Creative Pioneer Programme, use elements of Design Thinking. The module will engage with new developments in technology that is changing both the way that ideas are reaching audiences/customers and being created. Issues of audience engagement relating to access and diversity as well as funding sources which have a political dimension will be addressed in parallele with an understanding of the techniques and toold used. The culmination will involve both written reflection and a proprisition for how this knowledge can inform their future careers and projects. The students will be required to make a report of their engagement with the materials and also create a presentation of their proposed professional practice plans that takes the knowledge and synthesizes it in to their own plan. This will be presented to a forum, either live or recorded of staff, students and invited guests.

This lecture course will introduce you to the fundamentals of consumer psychology and behavioural economics.

It will give you an understanding of the fundamental decision making processes and the factors that influence these processes. It covers topics such as prospect theory and classical economics, brain structures and information processing, heuristics and rules of thumb, and framing and influencing techniques.

It also discloses the various strategies used by marketers to differentiate their products, leverage brands, set strategic prices, reduce the effectiveness of consumer search, and it compares the effectiveness of each.

The course covers topics such as the types and effectiveness of pricing strategies, individual differences in uptake of pricing strategies, value perceptions and subconscious influences (priming), and ethical and legal issues around influencing consumer choice.

The lectures in this course will be supplemented by several assignments designed to develop and enhance practical skills, and further develop familiarity with consumer psychological methods and theories.

This module provides the knowledge requirement for marketing and advertising. The module will provide a critical understanding of what consumers buy, how they buy (i.e., buying patterns), and why they buy the way they do (i.e., why we see these patterns). This knowledge in turn will enable you to improve marketing and advertising strategies of organisations both on large scale and small-scale projects. By using theory, case material and practical examples, you are introduced to the importance of theory and research-based practice in these fields.

Throughout the module you will develop a contemporary, cognitive toolkit for researching, analysing, and understanding buyer behaviour. You will contrast this current approach with traditional models of marketing and advertisement. Finally, you will learn to apply this knowledge for organisational strategy initiatives (e.g., launching a new marketing campaign). This module brings together a wide range of approaches to buyer behaviour, marketing and advertising, both on organisational and project-by-project levels. You will also be offered an opportunity to apply your learning to analysing case studies.

The objective of this module is to equip students with some of the knowledge and tools to analyse the internal and external business environment and devise marketing strategies that help to distinguish businesses from their key competitors whilst adding value to the product/service offering. The module will be divided into two section: one more theoretical and one more practice. The module will start defining the role of marketing strategy within the business strategy and the corporate strategy of the company. It will also help to differentiate the three levels, and it will highlight the relationships between these three levels of strategy. The module will then look into the process of creation of a marketing plan as a core tool for the definition of the strategy. The marketing planning process will start from understanding the market opportunities of the company, through the identification of attractive market segments, to the differentiation and brand positioning. The module will then move on the formulation of marketing strategies such as marketing strategies for new market entries, growth markets strategies, mature and declining markets strategies. Finally, students will learn how to implement and control strategy, and to measure effectively the performance of a specific strategy. In the second section, students will be required to complete a business simulation. In order to show a practical understanding of the concepts of the first part, students will be divided into teams and will be asked to complete in a simulation related to marketing strategy (i.e. Markstrat). This simulation will allow students to draw a parallel between marketing strategy and marketing tactics (4Ps). This will also allow them to apply the knowledge about other elements of marketing management that they have been studying in other modules.

Project Management involves all aspects of defining, designing, delivering, and supporting organisational initiatives and product development. These aspects include planning and controlling for scope, time, cost, quality, HR, communications, risk, procurement, and their integration. It involves all activities from initiating projects to managing, directing, controlling, and closing them. This module will address all of these areas in a rigorous and structured way, using three dominant methodologies currently active in operational environments. It will provide students with an active skillset in project management and prepare them to pursue certification in any of these three methodologies. The curriculum will use lectures, activities, case studies, group work, role-play scenarios, and presentations. Students will be taught in a single lecture environment each week before breaking off into smaller groups for project management tools and software training in labs in five of the weeks.

The discourses of contemporary 'Leadership' and 'Enterprise Theory' are, much like the wider discourse of Management Theory itself, in a state of critical transformation. The authority, validity, and appropriateness of that type of scientifically influenced or 'positivist' thinking that informed so much of the early 'Taylorist' and 'Fordist' influenced work of the so-called 'first age' (Snowden, 2005) of Management Theory has been thrown into disrepute, as have many of the premises of that more contextually aware and 'constructively' influenced work that informed the so-called 'second age'.

Undermined by both the universalising and de-contextualising tendencies of that type of thinking that defined the 'first age', and the still latent problems of the 'implementation' or 'internalisation' (Nonaka, 1995) of the insights of that thinking that defined the 'second age,' we are now in a position in which – in what is increasing being recognised as the 'third age' of Management Theory – all of the principal discourses of Management Theory from Knowledge Management, to Organisational Theory, Enterprise Theory, Innovation, and Leadership, are having to come to terms with the difficult question of how they can still deal with their various objects of analysis, whether that be the essential nature, qualities, or conditions of successful Leadership, Enterprise, or Innovation, in a relatively organized, structured, and predictable way, and yet a way that does not undermine, foreclose, or delimit the essential 'complexity', unpredictability, and 'emergent' qualities of these phenomena and the contexts in which they arise. This is a problem that has seen a pronounced emphasis in recent years on the analysis of the role that the individual 'creative', 'entrepreneurial', or 'self-actualising' subject plays in the 'narrative' construction of their own relationships to those contexts in which they exist, innovate, lead, or learn (Tsoukas, 2005).

This module will introduce students to all of the main theories that have contributed to the evolution of this discourse from the early scientifically orientated, 'positivist', and 'essentialist' theories of Frederick Winslow Taylor in The Principles of Scientific Management (1911), to Joseph Schumpeter’s work on Innovation as “creative destruction” (1934), to Gordon Allport (1921) and Kurt Lewin’s (1935) early work on 'Trait Theory' and 'Situational' theories of personality as they have been applied to Leadership, to Ralph Stacey (2001, 2003, 2010), and Henry Chesborough’s (2003, 2006, 2010) recent work on 'Organisational Complexity' and 'Open Innovation', to more recent 'Transactional', 'Transformational', and 'Organic' Theories of Leadership, to Ikujiro Nonaka’s (1995) and Hubert Dreyfus’ (1997) 'ontologically' orientated theories of Innovation, and Roger Martin (2009) and Armand Hatchuel’s (2010) recent work on the value of various 'design thinking' lead creative research methodologies to the articulation of how we can most ‘productively’ act, think, innovate, and lead, within the ever increasing 'complexity' of current business environments.

The principal objective of this archaeological analysis of the history of the evolution and development contemporary Management Theory, and particularly as it has been applied to the discourses of contemporary 'Enterprise' and 'Leadership' Theory, is to enable students to develop a comprehensive understanding of not only the history of the discourse but also how the insights of these theories can be practically applied to the conceptualisation and analysis of their own projects—thus overcoming the much debated 'relevancy gap' in so much contemporary Management Theory and education.

Particular emphasis will also be placed on the 'cross-cultural' significance of this work in relation to both Gert Hoftstede (2001) and Richard E. Nisbett’s (2005) work on the differing 'dimensions' of cultural belief, value, and understanding.