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MSLGROUP Launches ‘For the Love of Luxury’ Whitepaper from MSL China

"For the Love of Luxury" - Our new report identifies three types of female luxury consumers in China and untapped opportunities for luxury brands to effectively engage

Shanghai, China - December 15, 2011 - MSLGROUP, the largest PR and social media agency in Greater China and India and a top 5 global agency, today announced the release of 'For the Love of Luxury', MSL China's latest executive whitepaper on understanding and engaging luxury consumers.

Asia's love of luxury is represented by the fact that Japan and China are the first and second largest consumers of luxury goods in the world, respectively. In China, females accounted for more than 50% of luxury consumption last year. Far from being a homogenous group, 'For the Love of Luxury: Communicating with young, Chinese, urban, and female luxury consumers', MSL China's latest whitepaper, reveals that the female luxury consumer in China cannot be bucketed into one entity.

It also points to a large and growing segment of non-wealthy female luxury consumers in China and a need for high-end brands to better understand and engage with the three following types of luxury female consumers identified in the report:  

• Desktop Cinderellas, non-wealthy, white-collar professionals
  Example: Lala from 2010's movie "Go Lala Go!"Lala is portrayed in the film as a regular first-jobber and it chronicles her rise through the professional ranks. She expresses her changing status through fashion.
• Golden Dolls,second-generation entrepreneurs
  Example: Florinda Ho,daughter of Stanley Ho, a casino magnate and one of the wealthiest men in Asia. She is currently studying fashion design in the United Kingdom.
• Trench Coat Tigers,cosmopolitan career women
  Example: Wan Bao Bao, the granddaughter China's ex-Prime Minister Wanli, is a famous Chinese socialite educated in New York and Paris. She has her own fine jewellery line that has graced the covers of magazines such as W and Vogue.

Each of these three groups of female Chinese luxury consumers is frustrated by the dearth of local knowledge and expertise on luxury brands and luxury lifestyle, often preferring to purchase luxury goods abroad as a result. Desktop Cinderellas, Golden Dolls and Trench Coat Tigers also portrayed a strong dislike to being perceived as "baofahu", or newly rich.

Commenting on the findings, Par Uhlin, Managing Director, MSL China said, "Our whitepaper,For the Love of Luxury: Communicating with young, Chinese, urban, and female luxury consumersreveals thatbrands often fail to engage with a fast-growing group of luxury consumers who are, in fact, not wealthy. For luxury brands wanting to establish consumer loyalty amongst a new and burgeoning audience, they need to understand the luxury consumer groups we have identified and engage them with relevant, personalised content using local China communications tools."

Drawing these insights together, 'For the Love of Luxury'provides luxury brands with recommendations on improving communications strategies, branding, and customer experience in China. Brands wanting to establish consumer loyalty amongst this new and burgeoning audience need to recognize the deep-reaching social drivers of these groups, explored in the whitepaper, and personalise strategies and tactics accordingly. Luxury brands need to engage their female Chinese audience through local, influential social media communications tools with story-telling content on how to live a luxury lifestyle through travel, arts and health. This should be underpinned by an education programme to increase local product and brand knowledge - something that both consumers and on the ground retailers lack.

To learn more on the communications opportunities for luxury brands, click here to read 'For the Love of Luxury: Communicating with young, Chinese, urban, and female luxury consumers'