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Is Digital Killing the Luxury Brand? The democratizing power of the Web means figuring out how to go online without going downscale By John Ortved

High-end fashion brands have a problem. Let’s call it the “Kreayshawn quandary,” after the young Bay Area rapper made famous by the Internet and her hit song “Gucci, Gucci,” which has gotten over 16 million views on YouTube. Sample lyrics: “Gucci, Gucci, Louis, Louis, Fendi, Fendi, Prada...the basic bitches wear that shit so I don’t even bother.”

It may have taken a rapper to say it best, but the message has been clear for a while: Luxury designers are losing their cachet. And the problem is only being intensified by the medium that made Kreayshawn a star.

Just a few years back, most high-end fashion brands distrusted all things digital. Their fear was understandable. Digital is democratizing; it’s about accessibility. The brand image for high-end fashion is all about inaccessibility: Keep the masses out so that the people who can afford to buy their way in feel they’re exceptional.

 

Then those haute couture designers who’d shunned new media took some hits—thanks to the recession—from price-slashing department stores and discount websites, at the same time they began paying attention to changing retail statistics. And an industry obsessed with being ahead of the curve realized it was dramatically behind.

“A couple of years ago, we were in Italy, and we met with [Donatella] Versace and [an executive at] Armani…and they were like, ‘Digital, whatever,’” remembers the CEO of an agency that deals with several luxe brands. “Now it’s, ‘How can I do it?’ There’s been almost a cataclysmic shift.”

(click here for more...ADWEEK.com)