Influence of collaborations with visual art on luxury brand identity: Pilot study

Abstract

The article examines the collaborations of luxury brands with visual arts and its impact on the ingredients of brand identity using the example of Louis Vuitton. The purpose of this research is to investigate the impact of collaborations with visual art on luxury brand identity and find out what elements of identity are enhanced by collaborations. An online survey was conducted among luxury brand consumers. Both closed and open questions were included in the questionnaire. Totally 443 responses were received, and 295 of them were included in a representative sample of the study. The Louis Vuitton brand which systematically uses the collaborations with visual art and is one of the leaders in the application of brand artification was selected for this study. In the paper the main attention is focused on the Louis Vuitton products from the limited collections with the designs created in collaboration with the Japanese artists Takashi Murakami and Yayoi Kusama, and the American artist Jeff Koons. The modification in the Louis Vuitton brand identity caused by the collaborations was estimated on the basis of the Kapferer’s brand identity prism elements: physique, personality, culture, relationship, self-image, reflection. In accordance with the Kapferer’s brand identity prism, six hypotheses were formulated where three of them were fully confirmed and one hypothesis is partially verified. The research has demonstrated that the art collaborations with visual art enhance the intangible elements of the luxury brand identity — personality, culture and relationships but do not augment physique and self-image. This study has shown a partial impact of visual art collaboration on the luxury brand identity, however, the authors have not estimated the influence of other forms of art, for example, music. The impact of the other forms of arts may be considered in further research.