Describe the Expert Craftsmanship of Luxury Products

Craftsmanship is a strong selling point for luxury brands.

From the Rolex website:

Rolex uses only naturally occurring gemstones of the highest quality, very carefully selected according to strict criteria of purity, clarity and intensity. The master gem-setters at Rolex are hailed for their technique in producing flawless setting and alignment and emphasizing the exquisite brilliance of the precious stones....The 18 kt gold that adorns Rolex watches is created and cast in the Manufacture‘s own foundry. These exclusive alloys, composed of 75% pure gold and a mix of silver, copper, palladium and indium, are the fruit of long years of research to perfect the process.

Describe Craftsmanship By Humans, Rather Than Tech

Luxury brands seem inferior if they were designed by technology or AI, except for functional products (e.g., automobiles; Xu & Mehta, 2022).

Avoid User-Generated Designs

Some brands acquire designs from users:

Threadless features the user designer’s name on the tag inside its T-shirts and even ships every product with a card emphasizing that like-minded others create its designs (Fuchs, Prandelli, Schreier, & Dahl, 2013).

Luxury brands should avoid this strategy because it tarnishes their expertise. Though researchers prevented this drawback by legitimizing user designs, describing the users as artists, or partnering with celebrity users (Fuchs, Prandelli, Schreier, & Dahl, 2013).

• Fuchs, C., Prandelli, E., Schreier, M., & Dahl, D. W. (2013). All that is users might not be gold: How labeling products as user designed backfires in the context of luxury fashion brands. Journal of Marketing, 77(5), 75-91.
• Xu, L., & Mehta, R. (2022). Technology devalues luxury? Exploring consumer responses to AI-designed luxury products. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 1-18.