Luxury brands

A luxury brand or prestige brand is a brand for which a majority of its products are luxury goods. It may also include certain brands whose names are associated with luxury, high price, or high quality, though few, if any, of their goods are currently considered luxury goods.

LVMH (Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy) is the largest luxury good producer in the world with over fifty brands, including Louis Vuitton, the brand with the world's first fashion designer label. The LVMH group made a profit of €2 billion on sales of €12 billion in 2003. Other market leaders include Richemont and Kering (previously PPR, after it purchased the Gucci Group).

A rather small group in comparison, the wealthy tend to be extremely influential. Once a brand gets an "endorsement" from members of this group, then the brand can be defined as a true "luxury" brand. An example of different product lines in the same brand is found in the automotive industry, with "entry-level" cars marketed to younger, less wealthy consumers, and higher-cost models for older and more wealthy consumers.

The advertising expenditure for the average luxury brand is 5-15 percent of sales revenue. This rises to about 25 percent with the inclusion of other communication such as public relations, events and sponsorships.

Since the uprising of the 'luxury brand' in the 1800s, department stores dedicated to selling all major luxury brands have popped up in most major cities around the world. Le Bon Marche located in Paris, France is credited for being one of the first of its kind, but also Neiman Marcus, Selfridges, Lane Crawford, Isetan, Fortnum & Mason, Lord & Taylor, Harvey Nichols, Barneys New York, Saks Fifth Avenue, David Jones, KaDeWe, Harrods and Holt Renfrew are seen as some of the most influential and historical. Most big fashion houses & jewelers from Chanel to Tiffany & Co. have boutiques located inside these massive stores.

Another phenomenon of the luxury market are "Luxury Shopping Avenues". Certain thoroughfares like Leeds' Victoria Quarter, Milan's Via Monte Napoleone, Florence's Via de' Tornabuoni, Rome's Via Condotti, Tokyo's Ginza and Aoyama, Moscow's Tverskaya Street, New York's Madison Avenue and Fifth Avenue, Boston's Newbury Street, Hong Kong's Central, TST and Admiralty, Chicago's Magnificent Mile, Beverly Hills' Rodeo Drive, Paris' Champs-Élysées, Avenue Montaigne and Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, London's Bond Street and Sloane Street, Mexico City's Avenida Presidente Masaryk, São Paulo's Rua Oscar Freire, Prague's Pařížská, Toronto's Mink Mile, Düsseldorf's Königsallee, Lisbon's Avenida da Liberdade, Melbourne's Collins Street, Singapore's Orchard Road, Bengaluru's UB City, Amsterdam's P.C. Hooftstraat, Athens' Voukourestiou Street and Kolonaki district and Frankfurt's Freßgass, Sandton, Johannesburg's Mandela Square are some places where most luxury brands tend to be concentrated.[citation needed] These retail districts concentrate luxury good stores that are managed by large corporations, while conventional and independent retailers are pushed out because of increasing rent and real estate prices.