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.

As stories continue about how much the wealthy are suffering in this economic downturn, it’s interesting to note what people are still spending on. This article from the Wall Street Journal reports that many luxury firms have so far been resilient in more difficult economic times, finding consumers at the high and low end of the luxury market who are still willing to spend. The article includes examples from three individuals:

Jordan Shapiro, a 25-year-old Wall Street recruiter, says he isn’t sure what his income will be this year, so he put his plans for an African-safari honeymoon on hold. But he splurged a few weeks ago on a $3,000 Omega watch, which he considers an investment. “I hope it’s going to retain or gain value,” he says.

Stephanie Wickouski, a 55-year-old New York attorney, walked out of an Hermès store this week with a “heart-stoppingly expensive” $950 cashmere shawl. Despite the price, she says the shawl is a good value for the money, because it has “range and permanence,” meaning it can be worn over a dress, paired with a skirt or even worn on an airplane when it gets cold.

Margaret Schwartz, a 24-year-old assistant ad-sales representative in New York, shops for clothes at cheap-chic chain H&M. Yet she recently bought a $300 pair of Bulgari sunglasses — one of the Italian jewelry label’s least-expensive items — because she figured she could afford an “investment piece.” “Aviators are always in style,” she said, strolling past Tiffany’s Wall Street store.

This small amount of information about each individual is enough to categorize them as Lambda or Theta. I would consider Mr. Shapiro and Ms. Schwartz to be Thetas. In their mid-twenties, they consider their luxury purchases as investments. I would guess that they are also using their purchases as a way to stand out among their peers (Mr. Shapiro can be seen in his watch on Wall Street, and Ms. Schwartz’s sunglasses are “always in style.”). This desire to fit in is a typical Theta characteristic.

Ms. Wickouski, on the other hand, seems to be more of a Lambda. She recognizes how expensive her new Hermès shawl is, but the pleasure and utility she derives from it makes it completely worth it to her. She interprets “range and permanence” as something highly desired; the shawl makes her unique.

An awareness of what Thetas and Lambdas are looking for, and of what products represent to them, can help marketers reach these individuals more directly.

Photo by Doozle

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.

Social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace haven’t traditionally been associated with luxury brands–largely because they’re mainly used by young people who aren’t able to afford expensive luxury goods. However, two complementary factors–increasing numbers of users with discretionary income on the sites and an increasing desire to ‘hook’ young people early on a brand–are changing some luxury brands’ online strategies. Case in point: Cartier. The company recently created a page on MySpace for its new ‘Love by Cartier’ collection. The page, more tastefully done than most user MySpace pages, shows audio, video and photos related to ‘Love by Cartier.’ As of this posting, the campaign has 3929 friends, including celebrities like Lou Reed and Sting.

I wonder about the value of these sorts of pages to the brand. From the IHT:

Ben Hourahine, futures editor at the London branch of the ad agency Leo Burnett, said the use of social networks was appropriate at a time when consumer attitudes about luxury were changing. In a recent survey of U.S. consumers by the agency, only 7 percent said they thought “luxury” meant being part of an exclusive club.

“Luxury brands in the past had this unattainable aspect to them,” he said. “Now they realize they need to connect and communicate with people.”

I’m skeptical because I’m not so sure the MySpace audience matches up well with the Cartier’s target audience. Given the quality of some of the interactions on the page (THX 4 THE FRIENDSHIP!! ALL THE BEST! GREETZ FROM HAMBURG, RALF), I wonder if the positive association these users gain with the brand is worth the tarnishing they’re giving the brand by being so, well, MySpace.

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.

Most people go to an art museum to appreciate fine art and broaden their cultural horizons. Is this still the case when the art on display is known to be fake? Next year the Brooklyn Museum in New York will put on a show featuring pieces of Coptic sculpture known to be counterfeit. Acquired between the late 1950s and early 1970s, these pieces have never before been shown to the public, and their provenance is dubious at best. One example from a recent article in the New York Sun:

One New York dealer, Jerome Eisenberg, acknowledged in a phone interview that he had sold the museum one piece now considered to be fake, a roundel with a border of palm fronds and a central bust. The museum acquired the piece in 1960.

Asked where he bought the roundel, Mr. Eisenberg said that he purchased it from a “very reliable, very ethical” dealer in Cairo, a Copt named Kamel Hammouda. Asked if he knew where Mr. Hammouda got the sculpture, Mr. Eisenberg said that it was against the rules of the trade at the time to ask such questions.

“When you’re buying antiquities in Egypt or Beirut or Turkey or Algeria, you don’t ask the dealer who dug things up,” he said.

Hopefully the museum will provide enough information in the exhibition such that visitors can learn what characteristics make these pieces forgeries–that will certainly foster the connoisseurship of Egyptian art.

[Photo by Dan Diffendale]

Connoisseurship, the art of appreciating fine things and understanding their provenance, importance and distinguishing characteristics, is certainly a worthy way to spend one’s time. Connoisseurs learn about objects that interest them and use that knowledge not (only) to impress people but to make others excited and see what they find so unique and interesting.

Perhaps there’s an element of schadenfreude to it, but I’m always intrigued when self-professed “connoisseurs” reveal a lack of understanding that puts into question the knowledge they think they have. Two upcoming films about the ‘Judgment of Paris,’ the 1976 French wine jury that improbably found a selection of American wines altogether superior to French wines, reveals the conceit on the part of some of the jurors. From an article in Canada’s Globe and Mail:

No nose? Talk about calling the kettle noir. But then, I’ve always advocated calling connoisseurs “cons” for short. I’ve attended far too many professional blind tastings to have much respect for people who boast about their tasting abilities.

Am I being too harsh? I think not. Frankly, to confuse an aristocratic Bâtard-Montrachet from continental-climate Burgundy with a warm-weather Napa chardonnay is the wine equivalent of mistaking a Massenet opera for Cats on Broadway. The tasters knew it, too, which is why some tried to suppress or dismiss the Paris results after the bottles came out of their paper bags

As wines can differ so much by vintage, can we be really be critical of the connoisseur who occasionally gets it wrong? I’d say as long as the stakes are ‘impressing people at a dinner party’ and not ’substantially misvaluing cases of wine for auction,’ it doesn’t matter that much if the connoisseur is occassionally wrong. He or she will be right most of the time, imparting wisdom and helping others learn about something worthy of connoisseurship.

Trying to lead others in a humane way is a challenging task. “With success comes responsibility,” they say. But what does this responsibility actually entail? Should well-intentioned leaders actually call themselves “ethical”?

To understand how ethics is applied in the practice of leadership, I usually start by acknowledging the idea that humans – as imperfect beings – are not fully capable of grasping the full spectrum of their ethical code. Because this life purpose will always remain a bit of a black box, we can only move toward this goal but can never actually reach it.

Leaders within organisations face the same ethical dilemma. They have to pursue their organisation’s purpose through their own choice of strategy development, which is inherently based on personal choice and interpretation. This also means it is easily distorted.

So how do leaders cope with these uncertainties and matters of interpretation? To start, they stay true to their own interpretation. But then they must engage with others within the organisation in order to understand how they perceive the leader’s strategy.

This engagement process requires them to be respectful and empathetic of others’ opinions while still acting purposefully in progressing toward true organisational purpose and to their own sense of ethical leadership.

We’ve seen gem-encrusted phones before, but here’s something new that toes the line between luxury and excess. Most people just use a cell phone to make and receive calls–in many markets they can get one free. But Dior recently released a pair of phones that add a little sparkle to one’s regular regime. Actually a lot of sparkle–their new top of the line “Lady Dior” phone is encrusted with 3251 carats (in 640 stones) of Swarovski crystals and comes with a crocodile-skin sheath and a mini-phone that women can attach to the outside of their handbags so they don’t need to dig when they get a call. The phone costs $26,000 (a version without the crystals and crocodile costs $5000).

Much like luxury waters, some people will find this phone irresistible and interpret it as worthy of its price, the very best phone money can buy. However I think most people will stick with phones that price in the hundreds rather than thousands.

Tiffany was in the news this week, not for a new line of diamond rings or earrings but because it lost the long-running lawsuit it’s had with eBay about the sale of counterfeit Tiffany goods on the site. Tiffany maintains that eBay knowingly encouraged sellers to dilute Tiffany’s value and trademarks by not putting a stop to counterfeit Tiffany listings on the site. Rather than resting with eBay, the burden for identifying counterfeit goods rests with Tiffany, who have to report counterfeit listings to eBay and have eBay remove them. EBay argues that like YouTube it’s up to the trademark holder to report false listings, and they already take enough action against counterfeit items because these are bad for their marketplace.

This American ruling is interesting because it diverges from recent findings in European courts. In Germany a ruling for Rolex found that eBay must make greater preventative measures against the sale of counterfeit Rolexes, and in France eBay was ordered to pay Louis Vuitton 40 million euros in damages for the sale of counterfeit goods.

Counterfeit goods damage brand value–if discovered, they’ll upset people who purchase them and receive them as gifts; they mock the effort that people make to show their love and appreciation for one another. The takeaway from this case is that one needs to be careful when make purchases from a source that hasn’t been completely vetted. When a deal sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

[Photo by minxlj]