High-End Branding – 5 Steps to Create a Remarkable Image

When you buy an iMac or a Hermes bag or a Porsche, you do so in part because these brands raise your status. Not every brand has what it takes to be considered luxury, but for those that do, how do they brand themselves in such a way where their image is perceived as a desirable status symbol?

High-end brands can cement themselves among consumers by highlighting their quality craftsmanship, product scarcity, and luxury heritage. The brand must also know its tone and image and play those up. 

This guide will tell you what you need to know about high-end branding, including more on what it is and how to achieve it. We have lots of great information to come, so keep reading. 

What Is High-End Branding?

First, how does one define high-end branding?

This form of branding encompasses luxury names in all areas and relates to how they promote themselves to their target audience. 

Let’s break that down a little further. What exactly is a high-end brand? While people do perceive luxury brands differently, what’s undeniable is that certain companies are considered higher-end than others.

Many luxury brands in 2021 are fashion houses and include names such as Gucci, Chanel, Hermes, Dior, Rolex, Tiffany, Prada, Versace, and Armani.

Other luxury brands are Nike, Porsche, Louis Vuitton, Cartier, and Ferrari. 

Every company must have a brand, which encompasses a variety of elements to create a unique personality that resonates with a target audience. Here are the seven elements of branding.

Positioning

Positioning doesn’t refer to where your high-end brand advertisement would go on a webpage, but rather, which niche you occupy. If yours is a luxury company, then maybe you’re a fashion house; so, fashion would be your niche.

The other elements of branding can solidify your position in that niche. For instance, most luxury brands tend to take on a more mysterious tone with their advertising and use dark colors. 

Imagery

What kind of images are associated with your brand? This imagery is recurring on your website, social media, and in advertisements and marketing campaigns. Your imagery of choice can include your own photos or stock images. Graphics are also a part of this category.

Think of imagery as the aesthetics that pull together your brand. We created a post courtesy of our blog that highlights a variety of retailers and their websites so you can see what your options are regarding luxury imagery. Gather more information by reading our article about the 47 best luxury online shopping sites!

If your niche is luxury real estate or luxury travel, those links will inspire your own high-end branding and imagery.   

Font

Your font choice is a big element of high-end branding. If you select a font that’s too cartoony or childish, then even if all your other elements are on-point, the font will detract from your message. 

If you go back to our example of luxury retailer websites, you’ll notice a commonality in the font choices. Most of those high-end brands selected simple, but timeless, fonts in large text and in black against a white background. 

That doesn’t mean your own luxury brand has to do the same, but the sites do have a uniformity about them, despite not being related in other ways besides niche. 

Tone

Your tone is all about how you speak to your customers and prospective customers. From the headlines of your emails to your Internet ads and social media posts, every brand must have a consistent tone in its communications.

Going back to what we mentioned earlier, in high-end branding, a mysterious, even sexy tone is common. Most luxury tones are formal to represent the upscale nature of their products or services. If it’s appropriate, you can even wax romantic with flowery storytelling.

When creating a tone, it should be unique but not so hard to nail down that those among your staff can’t keep it up. After all, maintaining your brand’s tone will be a collective approach among staff, not something that one person alone does. 

Tagline

Taglines are short statements that companies flout as part of their branding. Many luxury brands don’t splash their tagline on every Internet ad, commercial, and billboard, but these brands do have taglines nevertheless.

A tagline helps make a company more memorable and can confirm its household name status. For example, Nike’s “Just do it” slogan is something that almost anyone can recite. Gucci’s slogan maybe isn’t as catchy but does exemplify its luxury status: “Quality is remembered long after price is forgotten.” 

Color

What color palette does your luxury brand use to represent itself? This is another decision that, although it seems small, can play a big role in how your brand is perceived. 

The colors you select can impart more of a masculine or feminine feel or shift your tone towards serious versus playful. Your hues can also exemplify luxury. 

Just don’t think that means you’re stuck with shades of gray and black. Those hues are timeless, but if every luxury brand went with that color scheme, the world wouldn’t have ever gotten Tiffany Blue, the iconic color of Tiffany & Co.  

Logo

Finally, there’s your logo, which is one of the biggest components of your high-end brand. Your logo accompanies your brand everywhere, showing up in advertising, marketing, social media posts, email signatures, and on your website. 

If you take a page from the book of classic luxury brands, then your logo need not be complicated. Brands such as Gucci, Fendi, Dolce & Gabbana, and Louis Vuitton use initials in appealing fonts as their logos. 

You can even use your brand name as your logo, which many luxury brands from Chopard to Tiffany and Cartier do.  

How to Use High-End Branding

Now that you understand the elements of high-end branding, let’s next delve into the features that your branding must have to exemplify your status among your consumers. 

1. Excellent Craftsmanship

This goes back to the Gucci slogan: “Quality is remembered long after price is forgotten.”

There’s a reason that consumers are willing to spend twice, thrice, sometimes five times more for your products than average. They know that for the money, they’re going to receive a high-end product that lasts for a long time to come.

That’s an advantage you have over others in your niche, even if your prices are far higher than theirs. In your branding, use every opportunity to highlight the craftsmanship of your company’s products.  

2. Utilize Scarcity

Are you aware of the scarcity principle? It’s critical in your high-end branding.

The scarcity principle is a theory housed in economics. The principle goes as follows: when there’s less of something to go around, the demand tends to increase. In other words, the supply far outpaces the demand. This is known as disequilibrium. 

Interestingly, the scarcity principle has roots in psychology as well. According to the psychological aspect of the principle, when an item is scarce, it’s deemed more valuable than a readily available item. 

That explains why people line up in droves for the latest iPhone or the PlayStation 5. Even more affordable items that are advertised using terms like “while supplies last” or “limited quantities” tend to drive more interest since they’re promoted as being so few.

The psychology behind the scarcity principle is also that being told you cannot have something makes you want it more.

Brands at all price points often use the scarcity principle since it can boost sales. As a luxury brand, your products are more scarce because your audience is smaller. You don’t have to wait for a limited-time offer or an exclusive sale to create the kind of excitement that the scarcity principle often commands.

By promoting your goods as exclusive, people want them more, even if your products aren’t necessarily within a consumer’s budget.  

3. Emphasize Your Heritage

If you look at any of the biggest luxury brands, they’re all proud of their centuries-long heritages. You can read detailed company histories through brand websites to connect the dots between where these brands started and where they are today.

In your high-end branding, you need to add a heritage element as well. Even if your company lineage doesn’t stretch back quite as far as brands like Coach or Gucci, you can tell your story wherever it begins in a way that makes you stand out.

Photos of your company’s humble early days help paint a clearer picture of your roots. All along, be sure to highlight the excellence and craftsmanship that have been pillars of your company’s success, even all those many years ago. 

4. Don’t Stray From Your Brand

As we’ve said, buying luxury products is a status symbol for many. Consumers expect that you’ll continue creating that air of luxury not only in your future products but in how you brand yourself. 

Deviations from high-end branding can be a major detriment to your brand’s reputation. For example, suddenly switching to informal slang because someone in your communications team didn’t understand the brand can cause some customers to jump ship. 

Even deleting the communications is rarely enough. These days, everything gets saved and screenshotted so it never truly goes away. Your company would then be forced to acknowledge the issue and apologize for it, which will create its own wave of news, further perpetuating the issue. 

As we stated before, your entire staff must be clear on your brand. If you always send emails with your logo, it would be conspicuous to not do so. If you write emails and social media posts in a certain tone, speaking in a different tone would confuse and alienate your audience.

That’s not to say your brand must remain static for the rest of the history of your company. You might decide to upgrade your logo or change your color scheme or even tweak your brand voice. These kinds of changes are usually preceded by announcements to keep your customers in the loop. 

5. Get the Support of a Public Figure

Fragrance ads with celebrities might be a dime a dozen these days, but they always get the average consumer to stop what they’re doing and pay attention. Part of your high-end branding strategy might be to employ a public figure to promote your products in much the same fashion.

This is especially a good idea for new luxury brands that want to prove definitively which niche they belong in. Once you have the backing of a celebrity, that tells the world that yours is a high-end brand. 

Conclusion 

Luxury or high-end branding secures your place among the most beloved fashion, retail, end electronics brands in history. You can curate an image that speaks to your target audience and nets you more sales.

Mediaboom is a digital marketing agency that works with clients in industries such as luxury brands. With our help, you can increase your brand awareness, boost web traffic, and create more effective marketing campaigns.