American Accessible Luxury in the European Market. The Concept explained on the Basis of Four Case Studies

Master's Thesis from the year 2016 in the subject Communications - Public Relations, Advertising, Marketing, Social Media, grade: 2.1, University of Applied Sciences Münster, course: Marketing International, language: English, abstract: The purpose of this research paper is to analyse the recent phenomenon of American luxury brands being accessible in Europe, for example Coach, Kate Spade, Michael Kors, and Tory Burch. As they are new accessible luxury brands in Europe, it is of interest to compare them to true luxury brands like Louis Vuitton or Hermès in order to precisely determine the concept of accessible luxury, as well as how this concept is perceived in the European market. American accessible luxury in Europe is a very current topic as brands such as Coach, Kate Spade, Michael Kors, and Tory Burch appeared on the European market only ten years ago. These brands apply some of the same marketing strategies as luxury brands but differ in their positioning, raising the dilemma of being more affordable than traditional true luxury brands while still wanting to convey a desirable, luxury feel. Analysing the positioning of these brands will give some key information about the customers’ perception of these brands. The goal is to guide the management and marketing teams on how to create more brand value, in order to encourage the customer to buy these brands and remain loyal to them.