Going small for a big luxurious impact

Only a month after Ivan Ng moved from his year-long post of senior marketing manager at Jones Lang LaSalle to his current role of associate director at Quintessentially Neville McCarthy, he’s already got his hands full.Yet, the bulk of his time is not spent on organising large corporate events that luxury brands used to love so much, but on smaller, closed-door events such as private tasting for recently-acquired client, Diageo – an alcohol distributor for the likes of Johnnie Walker, Smirnoff, Baileys and Guiness.“In the luxury or the ‘mastique’ market, the trend is that marketers are not just looking for media relations or a localised campaign or social media capability. They want a direct network to the customer: they want one-on-one interaction with their clients whether online or offline,” he said.For the past two years, Hugo Boss has been hosting large-scale fashion shows on the Mainland featuring star-studded personas such as movie-stars Yun-Fat Chow and Tony Leung as well as Taiwanese supermodel Chi-Lin Lin.Though these large-scale events are rarer in Hong Kong and luxury brand owners usually opt for colossal out-of-home spreads (think Prada billboard across The Bank of China building in Central), Ng said marketers are streamlining their budget to target “actual customers who have the money and intention to buy their products”.“These small, focused events work especially well with small brands, some of which are not even sold in mass channels. So they have to plan their marketing budget strategically.”“Of course they still do outreach, but only with top-level customers. And their spreading the word will create a much higher aspiration factor than using mass media.”Whether these closed-doors events in Hong Kong are reluctant compensations to brands’ budget shift to the Mainland, this change in landscape still makes sense: when the starting price for a Patek Philippe (one of the least socially active luxury brand), for example, looms around 70,000, why would they care about the mass?“Online and offline media is still important, but when a brand starts at that price point, the mass doesn’t matter as much as direct access to top customers, said Ng.As part of QNM’s team development, Amy Perkins – previously director of QNM – has also been promoted to managing director.