Simply Speaking: Velvet rope - the tightrope between longing and belonging

Building reach is the start of all glory in marketing. Reach before you preach. Get famous before you try to persuade. Facts feed narratives that in turn get woven into stories. These stories create a reputation, and a brand is nothing but a ‘reputation of reputations’. This is taken as sine qua non across categories. When it comes to prestige and luxury, the essence holds but mutates in form. In this world, the knowing must invoke the craving not the having. It is important for luxury to remain accessible at a stretch. Those who desire desperately often never end up deserving, that’s the cruel reality. This need to belong to the ‘in crowd’ is what fuels the fire of desire.Reach many but be accessible to a few.

A velvet rope has become the very hard boundary between the in and the out crowd. The red carpet lies beyond this red rope. A ‘velvet rope’ is used literally of course, but even more so figuratively. It marks the barrier which may be only a foot or two off the ground yet it may take a lifetime or even generations to cross over.

The velvet rope is credited to George and Louise Boldt when they opened the first Waldorf hotel, later to become The Waldorf Astoria, on 33rd Street and 5th Avenue in New York City in 1894. But it was at another New York legend, Studio 54, in the year 1977 that Ian Schrager and Steve Rubell, made it a high symbol of ‘admission restricted’ as the marker of status and cool. The dance club ran for four short years, but it burned into collective memory the desire is to make it past that velvet rope and belong to the select few.

Jean-Paul Sartre’s famous, existentialist dictum ‘L’enfer c’est les autres’ – ‘Hell is other people’ can be a benchmark for successful modern ‘prestige roping’. Make no mistake, the ultimate goal for all prestige brands is maximization of revenue but being rare and scarce builds and protect a brand’s equity. Traditional mass marketing is about serving needs, prestige brand building is the business of creating desire. Their job is to keep us wanting …to stand and shine above and beyond their competition, creating an allure that goes beyond reason. The desperation should be such that the response can only be a rush to splurge and indulge.

The one major defining conflict -largely subconscious- is that between individualists and collectivists. A modern prestige powerhouse brand relieves this contradiction by only staying slightly out of reach, balancing inclusivity with exclusivity. You are never permanently in but never out forever either. Forever longing for a sense of belonging.

How is this balance between inviting proximity and maintaining distance made possible? The brand expansion is always done top-down. The showcase targets are very aspirational to the volume targets. Immense care is taken to nurture and foster relationships with a small base of tastemakers and trendsetters. Growth is best when gradual, carrying along original fans as continuous proof of their superiority and desirability as well as advocates/evangelists to help them target and convert the broader market.

The entire approach must preserve a sense of rarity, a feeling of exclusivity strategically controlling supply to foster demand. Underlying it all is a simple outpricing of some consumers to give the rest a feeling of being in. Broadly the quest for status via consumption is an intended outcome of prestige brand consumption. It signals that we have access, to something exciting, enriching and more fun.

Man is pulled by two contradictions the need to belong and the need to stand out. The urge for exclusivity assumes that the others will know of it. Even when exceptional, man wants recognition of the envious collective. To make bonds, connections and emotive associations is the nature of social man but all the while he craves the halo of singularity. Indeed, we are unified in our hunger for exclusivity.

The MINI brand is a great example of this act particularly since its re-launch in 2001, with the BMW group, A classic case on how to market without over-marketing. They built desirability and equity while growing at double digit rates, all the while adhering to a rule of ambiguity that folks buy into the lifestyle with the MINI, but they need a lifetime to belong.

When it launched in the US, it deliberately limited sales to 25,000 cars of the 200,000 that were then produced annually. Of course, they wanted to conquer this most important market of all, but they wanted to build and protect their elusive-exclusive equity at the same time. A tightrope indeed, and quite a gamble, but it paid off. Playing hard to get and yet, or rather because of it, making it all the way to the top. They created a sense of scarcity and exclusivity of belonging to a certain aspirational elite of creative and cultured sophisticates.

Evolutionary psychologist Geoffrey Miller describes this as ‘the two audiences’ in his seminal work Spent. Advertisements for accessible luxury goods typically find themselves in magazines with broad circulation. The brand can reasonably assume that most people reading that magazine are unlikely to make a purchase, but widespread advertising serves the goal of informing wider social circles of a brand’s lofty status. Everyone knows that BMW is the “ultimate driving machine” even though less than 1% of us has ever driven one. “The advertising of luxury brands educates the general population to help elevate the status of those -and only those - who can afford their products” points out Miller.

This broad, socially widespread, acculturation is necessary for signalling to take place. This is key for all industries, from cars, to handbags, to clothing. As Miller states, “They advertise in Vogue and GQ not so much to inform rich potential consumers that they exist, but to reassure rich potential consumers that poorer Vogue and GQ readers will recognise and respect these brands when they see them displayed by others.”

The results are brands and products that project an aura. Luxury, especially affordable luxury, unlocks the power of symbolism by associating brands and products with certain desired attributes. Luxury brands do this through building this symbolic meaning not only in the minds of their target set, but in the broader public as well.

For brands in the luxury sector, attributes tend to centre around wealth, status and personal style. However, with the right strategy and execution, any characteristic can be symbolised. Luxury brands may have perfected the symbolism game, but they’re not the only players. Using a similar playbook, brands in all industries can harness this creation of aspiration.

Status is an elusive concept. It spans across social interest, attraction and deference. In any species of social primate, a higher-status animal is simply one who is looked at and groomed more often by others and who is solicited more often as a friend, ally, or mate. Robin Dunbar in his book ‘Grooming, Gossip and the Evolution of Language’ has shown that we humans use verbal grooming—talking and trading gossip—instead of physical grooming to ingratiate ourselves with higher-status individuals. Possession of brands advertise one’s status and acts as status symbol. But the awe and status are conferred unto us by other people. It dwells in the minds of observers.

Brands that confer such exclusivity are – by design – being false. They have perfected the balancing act between keeping folks in and keeping even more folks out.

The highest order of exclusivity is, of course, that which cannot be bought.