Janus Thinking

A study to be published next month by scientists at the Netherlands’ Erasmus University will argue that being happy can help you live a longer life.  It concludes that, while being happy does not cure ills, it does correlate to people not getting sick in the first place.  It can also add years to your life because happy people are more likely to look after themselves, both physically and mentally.

So should happiness take its place as the consummate luxury pursuit?  And, if so, how can it be pursued?

Happiness as a concept is being studied from more and more perspectives.  Developments in neuroscience are allowing scientists to measure and map our behavioural reactions to an increasing number of stimuli.  Is the ultimate luxury product then the one that registers the best emotional response to you personally or perhaps the highest average positive emotional response amongst a given group?

Lord Richard Layard of the London School of Economics has also developed an economic model which is often referred to as “happiness economics”.  He argues that current tax regimes and public policy do not address (or attempt to disincentivise) the negative impacts of competiive consumption rom our lives (i.e. the consumption which does not make us any happier, or makes us even sadder).  Nor does it account for the fact that our tastes evolve over time so that we might need extra money to achieve the same level of happiness as someone with different tastes.

Various studies have also determined that our level of happiness does not substantially increase after an individual’s purchasing power reaches around US$10,000.  Instead, cultivating closer ties to one’s family, friends, or to common interest groups can help, or being able to freely express oneself (in speech and through voting, for example) and to enjoy a reliable and predictable system of justice can make one feel happier. (And even more interestingly, these might differ according to how one pursues his life purpose, as an earlier Theta vs. Lambda post suggests.)

The jury is still out on whether happiness itself will become the metric du jour for what constitutes a luxurious life.  For now, its material proxies still seem to be hotly pursued.

The way in which consumers interpret companies’ marketing efforts affects how successful their marketing has been.

This might seem like an obvious point to make, but it is a particularly useful point to remember in the marketing of luxury products.

To understand better these different pathways to interpretation, I have developed a simple characterisation consisting of two personality types.

I call them Theta and Lambda. These two personality types differ based on what individuals perceive to be
their life goals or purposes.  These differences are central to how they then interpret the products they buy.

The typical Theta (Θ) personality seeks affiliation and control as an ultimate life purpose.  Because of this, they loom to fit in or contextualise themselves within a desired group and use socially-derived understandings of product characteristics as a basis for their consumption.

Lambdas (Λ), on the other hand, seek achievement and uniqueness as an ultimate end goal.  As a result, they are more likely to interpret products based on their individual responses to the product, how it helps/prevents them to stand out, and how the product benchmarks against their regular consumptive patterns.

What this means is that marketing strategies – and particularly those of luxury brand owners – can apply different positioning to similar products in order to fulfill people¹s different expectations for how the product is meant to help them represent themselves and reflect their life goals.

John Donne once said that no man is an island, but newly released findings from U.S.-based Coldwell Banker suggest that man still wants to buy himself a piece of one as the ultimate luxury home site.

More than 300 rich households in the U.S. were interviewed for the poll.  To be classified as such, they must own a home worth in excess of $1 million dollars and have an equal amount of liquid assets to invest.

27% responded that their dream home would be located on an island while another 22% preferred a more rustic setting and only 18% selected a suburban or foreign location.

Interesting that many of these choices seem to reflect a desire to escape — or at least get away — rather than become more connected.

Here’s a follow-up to two items we’ve covered on Janus Thinking before. The first–remember this bibliochase chair of many books? You can now purchase a similar sofa–the Flexform Oltre–to cater to all your reading and lounging needs. It looks very cool, though I wonder if those pillows might start pushing books out the sides.

And this diamond-encrusted Mercedes? At the time I wasn’t sure of the car’s provenance, but thanks to its resurfacing on Boing Boing Gadgets this week (and thanks to the commenters on the site)–I now can say that the car is actually encrusted with Swarovski crystals, and was made to promote a German car accessory maker’s new ‘crystal collection’ of car accessories. More photos and info here.

The Hermes Birkin is one of the world’s most coveted handbags, with a two year waiting list and the devotion of many celebrities (have a look at this Google image search to see a few). By having a well-crafted product and attentive customer service, Hermes has found a way to keep prospective buyers interested and willing to wait for the bag they want. But this carefully maintained demand is at risk of evaporating if enough luxury-minded consumers read Michael Tonello’s new book Bringing Home the Birkin: My Life in Hot Pursuit of the World’s Most Coveted Handbag, out later this month.

In an interview with Reuters, Tonello exposed Hermes’s big secret: the two year waiting list doesn’t apply to Hermes’s best customers. He said:

I would go into a store with a list in my Hermes Ulysse notebook and pile up scarves, shawls, bracelets, worth about $2,000. This made me seem a regular Hermes client. Once I had that pile ready to buy at the last moment I’d ask for a Birkin and they would usually produce one of the back room. In 2005 I bought 130 Birkins in a three-month period — and you tell me there is a waiting list?

If Tonello is telling the truth (and there’s little reason to believe he isn’t–he says he has receipts to back up his story), he’s revealing some interesting things about Hermes–that the two year waiting list is an illusion, maintained to keep an air of exclusivity (and it seems to be working) and that Hermes made it a priority to keep their absolute best customers satisfied by giving them Birkins if they asked for them. They can’t have it both ways–it makes business sense to keep those willing to spend the most happiest, but Hermes benefit most in the long term by not giving preferential treatment to some customers.

[photo by yri]

Brioni, Rolls-Royce and Stella McCartney are among the luxury brands pondering or already operating stores in India, where spending on luxury goods is expected to grow from $4 billion this year to $30 billion by 2015. India now has 54 dollar billionaires, gaining 19 in the past year. Of course these and other luxury companies are seizing a growing opportunity, but should the major disparity of wealth in India (three quarters of Indians survive on 50 cents a day) give us pause? As we’ve seen before on Janus Thinking, acting in a socially responsible manner can help luxury companies grow their markets. Those companies going in to India would be wise to understand the full impact of their entry.

[Photo by Ooodit]

Two lines of pricey spirits were recently released, revealing an uncommon attention to detail in their manufacturing processes (thereby hopefully bringing out fine characteristics for connoisseurs to appreciate).

Dos Lunas now has a Grand Reserve Tequila. Distilled in sherry oak casks and aged for over ten years (longer than any other commercially produced tequila), the spirit is meant to compare favorably to cognacs and single malts. It’s sold in hand-blown Baccarat decanters for $2,500.

And for those who prefer fine scotch, Macallan have launched a luxury Scotch range.

This ‘Highland Single Malt’ is 55 years old, and only 420 Lalique crystal bottles will be available for $12,000 each. Said Marc Laverdiere of Macallan:

You very seldom encounter 55-year-old whiskies because the chances for the whiskey to continue to age beautifully, to continue to interact with the wood in such a way that it remains nice and positive and harmonious are rare as the whisky grows older.

Despite the high-end price of the single malt, it still falls significantly short of the record for Scotch set in December at an auction in New York, when a private investor bought a 60 year old Macallan for $54,000. The market for fine spirits clearly exists–at the same auction, an anonymous buyer purchased a library of 729 bottles of Scotch for $102,000.

[via Reuters and Robb Report]

Last month a discussion at the Paris Fashion Group heralded the continuing success and integration of Fair Trade and sustainable goods into luxury products.  Comments from the panel suggested that luxury consumers are not necessarily interested in ethical considerations, but rather in finding a unique and “industrial” product.  And this new type of demand seems to be increasing; some are even calling it a “meta-trend” for this generation of luxury shoppers.

Sylvie Benard, a spokesperson from LVMH, also noted that the brands her company represents–such as Moet-Hennessy and Louis Vuitton–do not publicise the great strides they are making in their production process.  Nonetheless, they are reducing the amount of water being used to produce their champagnes, cutting the amount of electricity being used in their flagship  Louis Vuitton store in Paris, and working with producers in the developing world to build their local economies. Although they don’t talk about this, Benard noted, “To be extravagant out front you need to be impeccable out the back.”

[via AFP]

Businessman Bernie Ecclestone apparently has too many classic cars for his liking.  Last week the Guardian reported how the President and CEO of Formula One held “the billionaire’s version of a spring clean” by selling off 50 cars in his private collection, many of which he has never driven.

The highlight of the show was Ecclestone’s 1937 Mercedes Benz 540K Spezial Roadster, which sold for £3.85 million ($8 million).

Simply touring the auction became an event in and out itself as visitors paid £50 yesterday just to gain admission to view the cars themselves.  One visitor, as reported by the Guardian, visited as much to ogle other visitors as to appreciate the cars themselves:

We have more money than we know what to do with, so we thought we’d come here.  And we wanted to see what greed looks like.

The full takings of the sale have not been released, but not all the cars went for millions or hundreds of thousands of pounds–a 1964 Ford Anglia Deluxe Saloon went for £5,588.

A French artist named Dogmael Damien has set up his own website targeting billionaires in search of their next big acquisition, a recent Art Newspaper article reports.  The artist’s site is now online and markets itself as “Paintings for Billionaires Only”.  Each of the three paintings currently on the site can be had for only €150 million (and without any commission!).

None of the paintings has sold as of yet, but Damien has held firm to his concept.  He writes further on the site:

The acquisition of these paintings will cause a shock in the Art World, not only for the spectacular stunning massive price paid for it, but also for the private way it will be sold, far away from the noisy auction places. 

This private sale would have made these paintings the world’s most expensive ever sold in art history. The Most expensive Living Artist.

The recent boom in art sales has seen works of art selling for well beyond their list prices at art fairs or presale estimates at auctions.  A Russian billionaire businessman named Alisher Usmanov recently bought 450 lots outright before the start of a Sotheby’s sale in October for “substantially above” the initial expectations of the sale.