• by Margaret A. Starvish , November 1, 2007

For high-end goods, a Web search may be futile

You can buy plane tickets, percale sheets and paper clips on the Web these days. But if you're looking for a new Rolex, you're out of luck.

That's because the company doesn't sell its watches on the Web and doesn't plan to any time soon due to a belief that a refusal to sell on the Web policy is the best way to keep consumers from being duped by counterfeiters.

Rolex isn't the only company playing the wallflower when it comes to the Web. Concerns about fraud and a fear that the Web isn't a pristine enough environment for their products have kept many luxury marketers from fully embracing the Internet, says Milton Pedraza, CEO of the Luxury Institute.

But the decision to eschew the Web also poses problems for luxury brands, which are losing the opportunity to use the Internet as a sales channel. Michael Koziol, executive vice president, North America, for digital shop Nurun (which counts LVMH, Loews Hotels and Evian among its clients), offers that brands need to cede some control in favor of functionality.

"The Web is not a completely controllable medium like broadcast or print," Koziol says, "but it offers marketers the best ability to not only reach but also engage a targeted group of consumers and allow them to truly interact with the brand."

But even Koziol says that luxury brands should be choosy about where they put their ads; he's a fan of Style.com, the blog DailyCandy, and the interactive online sections of The New York Times.

While luxury brands are reluctant to go online, their customers aren't. One study by JupiterResearch found that affluent Internet users (those with annual household incomes of more than $100,000) spend three more hours online daily than their less affluent counterparts. And a recent study by the Luxury Institute, which bumped the income minimum up to $150,000, found that around 99 percent of the survey respondents used the Web to research products and services, and about 98 percent shopped online.

Message in a Bottle
The purported bathwater of choice for celebrities across the globe recently took its image even more upscale with the introduction of the Evian Palace bottle, the brand's take on luxury bottled water that's available only in restaurants, clubs and resorts.

The bottle features a stainless-steel spout, an engraved stainless steel coaster, and a training session in its proper use. To introduce this überwater to the public, the company chose a mix of print, digital, PR events and television product integration, with a campaign that targeted fine dining consumers and the restaurant trade. The digital portion kicked off in September and is running through December of this year on three sites: DailyCandy.com, CitySearch.com, and nymag.com (the online home of New York magazine).

The ad itself was highly stylized and interactive. Users could click on arrows at the base of the bottle, spinning it slowly around for a 360-degree view, or click through to an Evian Palace bottle microsite for more information. The ad also listed venues where users could find the bottle; mousing over the venues gave their location.

While statistics on the success of the campaign were not available as of press time, Evian is continuing to advertise online, and recently launched an integration with Second Life.

The High-End Dream Kitchen
There may be no finer fridge in which to chill your Evian than a Sub-Zero. Fashion maven Isaac Mizrahi's got one - as visitors to Epicurious.com found out when the site featured a video tour of his kitchen. People who took the tour were shown a "Dream Kitchen Sweepstakes" advertisement running to the right of the video.

That initiative was a prime example of the integrative effort that Christopher Parr, consumer marketing manager for Sub-Zero, says is a key piece of their online marketing strategy. "There wasn't really a destination for high-end kitchen appliances," says Parr. "So we decided to create that destination with the help of Epicurious." Users who click on the ad are taken to a Sub-Zero branded microsite where they can enter a contest to win a new kitchen, learn more about the featured brands, and build their own design portfolio. The online ad is supported by both targeted e-mail blasts and a print campaign, all designed to drive customers to the Dream Kitchen microsite and to highlight a premium class of appliances.

Parr believes that the online luxury audience is looking for substance, sticky environments where they can spend hours educating themselves about a brand, and an opt-in mechanism. "Once you capture their information, you can continue to wine and dine the customer," he says. "That's when the relationship really begins."

The Original SUV
Like the people who market Sub-Zero, those who market Land Rover value integration. "When we work with publishers we don't simply buy media online," says Joao Machado, online associate director for Mediaedge.

Machado's team worked with Land Rover to set strategy and objectives for a campaign to launch the all-new 2008 LR2, Land Rover's answer to a premium compact SSUV. The online portion of the campaign ran in April and May of this year, with ads targeted to adults ages 25 to 54 who are professionals, tech enthusiasts and live active lifestyles, and featured content similar to that of the television and print pieces (so that consumers could make a connection between all media).

The Web ads ran on several sites, including CitySearch.com, FastCompany.com, Weather.com and Runner's World Online, with each ad tailored to the site it appeared on. Land Rover also worked with CitySearch.com to put together a "sophisticated city guide," offering entertainment, dining and nightlife information relevant to the LR2 core demographic and a co-branded microsite with an affluent-audience-focused sweepstakes.
The out-of-home wireless ads ran on JiWire, which provides free Wi-Fi to customers in targeted business and luxury hotels throughout the United States. The ads themselves appeared on both the welcome screens and confirmation pages of JiWire users.

For the mobile campaign, they worked with Enpocket (which represents Sprint) to run ads across the entire Sprint network. The ads drove demo-targeted users to an LR-specific WAP site where users were able to view LR2 screenshots, learn about product features and locate a Land Rover retailer.

All the ads gave the user the option to click through to a Land Rover site, and many did. "In April there was a 21 percent increase in site traffic from unique visitors," says Jonathan Renker, associate account director at Wunderman, which produced all the creative assets for the campaign. Site traffic to the LR2 section of LandRoverUSA.com increased by 28 percent, and Renker noted a "fairly significant" spike in the Build Your Land Rover section of the site.

But the mobile campaign turned out to be the real star for Land Rover. "Mobile became a great source of interaction for those interested in learning more about LR2," says Machado. "Conversion rates went well beyond any expectations." Land Rover plans a full WAP site supporting all nameplates in 2008.