Fashion and audio branding: The analysis and interpretation of luxury fashion marketing concepts

Abstract

Fashion and music serve as the key identity markers in any historical period. In the twenty-first century the symbiosis of fashion and music as the interdependence of visual and audio constituents of time has found its development in the frame of marketing theory, which links the branding of luxury fashion apparel with audio branding. The article contains an analytical review of contemporary luxury fashion marketing concepts, as well as the analysis of audio communications being used by high-end fashion brands. The specific aspects of the contemporary luxury fashion market, such as multidimensional product perception, emotional drivers of buying behavior, and hedonic and aesthetic motives of consumption are discussed in terms of their dynamics and in relation to the latest brand-management concepts and approaches. Audio communication is considered in a broad socio-cultural context of music semiotics, from the perspective of modern media and is interpreted with reference to the development of key fashion brand equity drivers. As a result, three strategies of brand management based on the conscious use of music are distinguished: luxury strategy, fashion strategy and interaction strategy. The authors formulate key techniques, formats and methods of building fashion brand equity via audio-communication with reference to familiar cases from business practice.