What's In A Logo?

Today’s customers have infinite knowledge at their fingertips. We know more about manufacturing processes, materials and labour than ever before. Could this mean the end of paying a premium for brands?

- Georgina Lavers

The quality is actually quite good; my briefcase's hardware is made in Italy from a well known supplier. Many brands these days cheap out and don't even use solid brass.” The above is a quote from a commenter at PurseForum, a million-strong online community dedicated to all things bags. Take a meander around, and you’ll start to get a sense of just how much we know nowadays. The forum is like a nerdy Aladdin’s cave for handbag lovers. No question is left unanswered, no hardware left unexamined. The members are encyclopedic in their knowledge and all-too ready to debate strap length, hardware quality, or the merits of lamb or calfskin leathers. They know where a company dyes its leathers; if its strap is made in Italy, but the rest of the bag in Taiwan. And if a brand is shortcutting on quality, they should expect to be duly named and shamed – alongside photographic evidence.

Their members may be more scrupulous consumers than the average luxury Joe, but do they point to a shifting pattern of consumption? As we collectively become more discerning, with a keener sense of intrinsic value and interest in quality above all – do brands still hold power over us all?

The state of play

The new luxury customer is hard to pigeonhole. We buy 60 per cent more items of clothing than we did 15 years ago, but hold onto the clothing for half as long. We are more impulsive and fragmented buyers than our baby boomer parents, there’s no one channel that can capture us, and we’re a fickle bunch when it comes to brand loyalty. At least, that’s what we tell ourselves.