6. Luxury Branding and Digitalisation: The Case of European Brands in China

The main purpose of this research is to investigate how a luxury brand may be affected by the variables associated with the entry to a new market as in the Chinese one and how those new variables are integrated into the branding in the new geographical context. In doing so, this study reviews the main existing literature in the field—despite the limited literature in luxury digitalisation in China —and following three derived propositions through a qualitative approach, it analyses the examples of the brand strategy of three European luxury brands after entering China. The luxury brands considered in our investigation are three international ones, each with a specific consolidated brand heritage and with a sectorial positioning. This research explores and analyses the specific luxury brand building and rebranding process adopted by these three luxury brands to enter the new market and specifically through the digitalisation of the brand. The empirical research evidences the critical impact of digitalisation for successful luxury branding in the entry market strategy and has justified its adoption in the exclusive luxury sector by the socio-cultural context-related factors of the new market. It provides specific orientations and recommendations as well as best practices for luxury corporations on the specificities of branding and digitalisation of luxury in China. The research shows that a successful model path for luxury branding when entering the Chinese market and the key impact of the ‘luxury digitalisation’ strategy is usually associated with high accessibility, when compared with the traditional ‘luxury retailing’ strategy which is usually associated to the exclusivity of the luxury sector.