What drives customers in the luxury industry? How do digital, sustainability-oriented and well-informed target groups behave – and how do they communicate?
Our students of the 5th semester Brand Management addressed these questions in a practical project with Iris von Arnim and immersed themselves into the luxury market.
Iris von Arnim is a family-run Hamburg fashion label, known since 40 years for luxurious cashmere. The company focuses on the tradition of craftsmanship and timeless fashion of the highest quality.
The task for our students: A repositioning of the brand to increase awareness in younger target groups.
Under the direction of Prof. Dr. Jörg Igelbrink, the teams developed four new positioning approaches and strategy derivations based on an in-depth analysis of the luxury market and a social media analysis.
Based on this, the creative team developed campaign approaches and emotional models for the Iris von Arnim brand and the men’s label “Uomo”. Methods and models such as diffusion models, social media analysis and brand key development were used.
After the students had worked exclusively online on the project during the semester, they were given the chance to present the last practical project of their studies live on site.
In the headquarters of the fashion label – a beautiful art nouveau villa near the Alster – they presented the results of their work to the management team and managing director Valentin von Arnim.
To celebrate the successful project and to enjoy the mild summer night, the students stayed for a get-together in the picturesque garden of the villa to further discuss their ideas with the team and the managing director.
“In the course of the practical project we were able to gather positive experiences and new know-how about the luxury segment and the brand Iris von Arnim. Our main findings include the incredibly emotional involvement of luxury consumers and the trend towards target group rejuvenation among traditional luxury brands,” says student Lotta Willig.
“The Corona crisis made the project even more exciting because we were dependent on purely technical resources and could apply a similar digitization process to Iris von Arnim’s target group. During the course of the project, we became aware of the potential and the accompanying challenges of this traditional company in the course of digitization.”
As a thank you for their work, our students were generously offered cashmere products as a reward for their work. Now they can find the answer to the question of the evening themselves: “What does cashmere actually smell like?”
