BusinessMagazin

Tag: luxury

  • Element of surprise

    The events that marketing calls ”cross promotion” or even advertising are increasingly reliant on the element of surprise, and organisers have imagined connections that are not necessarily obvious or conventional. If the cars on display at the mall or the theatre plays in coffee shops are no longer something out of the ordinary, trying a luxury coach for an hour while watching a theatre play or configuring your car among racks of Dior clothes is not as conventional, at least not in Romania. To companies, the idea generates a number of advantages, from consolidation of their image to lucrative aspects. Surprise can also make consumers forget about the crisis budget and leave with the keys of a car instead of a dress or buy a blouse or a piece of furniture during the intermission of a theatre play.

    When the AutoItalia representatives launched the Infiniti brand (the Nissan luxury division) on the Romanian market they avoided the classic option, a party in their own showroom. Instead, they chose to display the cars in front of one of the biggest multibrand luxury store, Victoria 46 and open a configuration space inside the store for one month. As a result, the luxury fashion fans could configure one of the Infiniti models from the dashboard installed on the top floor of the store while checking out the new Christian Dior or Yves Saint Laurent collections. ”Victoria 46 is a trend-setter in terms of clothing, it targets connoisseurs first of all. It was a natural choice as a partner for Infiniti, because the two brands have lots in common,” explains Mircea Eremia, general manager of Infiniti Romania. On the other hand, the malls, one of the places automotive importers like to use to advertise, are no longer settling for simply displaying the models and have started to organise events for car fans.

    For one day, the car park of Plaza Romania was converted into a rally track, with pilot Titi Aur offering a drifting demonstration just like in the ”The Fast and Furious”.

    TRADUCERE DE LOREDANA FRATILA-CRISTESCU SI DANIELA STOICAN

  • The Hotel at the Spa

    However, the future of spas looks brighter, and has to do with the hotel operators who realised that a select hotel without a spa simply does not work very well anymore. ”In 2005 I was trapped on the financial market and seeking a place to escape to for a bit of relaxation,” says the owner of Eden Spa, Liliana Paraipan, who had tried the spa centres outside Romania and realised this market needed to be opened in Romania, as well.

    In August 2005, Liliana Paraipan, at the time deputy general manager at the Romanian Commodity Exchange, decided to open her own spa, the first such centre in Romania, – after training in spa management and marketing in the US. In 2005, three months after the launch of the spa business, Paraipan left her position at the Commodity Exchange and started to work on educating the market: ”It was not easy for me to sell the spa therapy concept, because relaxation was directly associated with spending time in beauty parlours and body contouring.

  • The offensive of discounts

    Whereas retailers in the United States have been betting on significant discounts even for new collections, the answer of the European groups, which adamantly reject this policy, was to revive their secondary lines of business. Between American discounts and European’s stubbornness to keep the traditional sale periods, is the consumer that can be lost in the low price spiral. Raluca Banciu, general manager of Alliance International, which operates the Paul & Shark store on Calea Victoriei recalls that she has lately happened to see some clients, especially foreign ones, demand a discount for buying a product from the spring/summer collection of the brand.

    ”We only offer loyalty discounts for frequent shoppers or for those that buy high-value products, but we cannot offer discounts for one or two products of the new collection,” the manager says. The type of consumer the Paul & Shark manager is talking about has been educated lately on a market where repeated sales, outside the traditional periods, have been promoted as a way to overcome the crisis. Still, this can have a boomerang effect, because the discount policy has also changed the consumer’s behaviour, who, once accustomed with permanent discounts, will have a hard time accepting – if ever – the full price. Scott Malkin, chairman of Value Retail, who built a one billion-euro business by selling products of luxury brands in outlets, says that discounts in the US are example of panic and desperation that can drive consumers away.

    After a recession, consumers tend to revert to the practices of the past, but in the case of such a crisis, they simply reject them. Retail specialists in turn are now wondering whether shopping was changed forever by the policy embraced in the wake of the financing crisis – the strategy to drive sales has relied on discounted price tags even for new collections, an approach that has never been seen before.