Using the field of material culture as its methodological departure point, this Palgrave Pivot explains the strategic advantages that brands can set in place when their executives are fully in command of how to move from strategy to tactics. Specifically, it studies the brands, their products and signature experiences as well as their relationship with the consumer in an attempt to define the greater powers that have pushed fashion labels in and out of fashion. It focuses on case analysis of specific luxury fashion brands and attempts to link those to the greater context of material culture while also elaborating on theoretical discussions. Bridging theory and practice, this book explores the relationship between creative strategy and cultural intelligence.

Despite being one of the most traditional industries, the luxury sector is highly dynamic and rapidly changing influenced by new ideas, aspects, fields, technologies and generations. One of such influences is the prevalence of digital technology and social media. It challenges a number of major premises of luxury brands, including exclusivity, status, authenticity and sensory experience. This special issue of Market and Organizations explores luxury consumption and production in a digital and experiential era. Authors take a multidisciplinary and holistic perspective to explore the role of digital customer experience in rethinking the luxury industry in the future. The objective is to advance knowledge on luxury in marketing and economy by bringing together international scholars (research in French and English) from different disciplines and practitioners working in the field of luxury.

What does luxury value mean? What constitutes luxury, and what does not? While previous research has focused on luxury as a global business and how companies have generated, communicated and monetized luxury, this book draws on empirical research to examine how consumers understand and interact with it. It identifies the components of luxury value, as seen by consumers, and the most influential factors that shape these perceptions. Drawing on a range of disciplinary approaches, the author investigates how consumer segments differ in their perception of luxury products, and how different generations understand value. A comprehensive overview of consumer perceptions of luxury, this book is a must-read for those students and researchers interested in luxury studies.

What makes someone covet a Kelly bag? Why are Cirque Du Soleil or Grey Goose so successful despite breaking all the conventions of their categories? What does Gucci's approach to marketing have in common with Nespresso's? And why do some people pay a relative fortune for Renova toilet paper or Aesop detergent even though they hardly ever 'advertise' and seem to have none of the 'functional performance advantages' conventional marketers would seek to demonstrate? Prestige brand experts JP Kuehlwein and Wolfgang Schaefer have dedicated themselves to studying what drives the success of prestige brands. Rethinking Prestige Branding collects their insights. Uncovering the secrets of why and how some brands are created more equal than others, Rethinking Prestige Branding includes over 100 case studies from Apple and Abercrombie & Fitch to Tate Modern and Tesla. Rather than re-telling brand success stories or re-hashing long-standing marketing principles, it takes readers on a colourful journey behind the scenes of today's marketing pros. This book will fascinate marketing professional just as much as those who are simply curious as to how premium brands tick.

Rethinking Europe's Future is a major reevaluation of Europe's prospects as it enters the twenty-first century. David Calleo has written a book worthy of the complexity and grandeur of the challenges Europe now faces. Summoning the insights of history, political economy, and philosophy, he explains why Europe was for a long time the world's greatest problem and how the Cold War's bipolar partition brought stability of a sort. Without the Cold War, Europe risks revisiting its more traditional history. With so many contingent factors--in particular Russia and Europe's Muslim neighbors--no one, Calleo believes, can pretend to predict the future with assurance. Calleo's book ponders how to think about this future. The book begins by considering the rival ''lessons'' and trends that emerge from Europe's deeper past. It goes on to discuss the theories for managing the traditional state system, the transition from autocratic states to communitarian nation states, the enduring strength of nation states, and their uneasy relationship with capitalism. Calleo next focuses on the Cold War's dynamic legacies for Europe--an Atlantic Alliance, a European Union, and a global economy. These three systems now compete to define the future. The book's third and major section examines how Europe has tried to meet the present challenges of Russian weakness and German reunification. Succeeding chapters focus on Maastricht and the Euro, on the impact of globalization on Europeanization, and on the EU's unfinished business--expanding into ''Pan Europe,'' adapting a hybrid constitution, and creating a new security system. Calleo presents three models of a new Europe--each proposing a different relationship with the U.S. and Russia. A final chapter probes how a strong European Union might affect the world and the prospects for American hegemony. This is a beautifully written book that offers rich insight into a critical moment in our history, whose outcome will shape the world long after our time.

This study reveals how our monetary system reinforces scarcity, and how communities are already using new paradigms to foster sustainable prosperity. In the United States and across Europe, our economies are stuck in an agonizing cycle of repeated financial meltdowns. Yet solutions already exist, not only our recurring fiscal crises but our ongoing social and ecological debacles as well. These changes came about not through increased conventional taxation, enlightened self-interest, or government programs, but by people simply rethinking the concept of money. In Rethinking Money, Bernard Lietaer and Jacqui Dunne explore the origins of our current monetary system—built on bank debt and scarcity—revealing how its limitations give rise to so many serious problems. The authors then present stories of ordinary people and communities using new money, working in cooperation with national currencies, to strengthen local economies, create work, beautify cities, provide education, and more. These real-world examples are just the tip of the iceberg—over four thousand cooperative currencies are already in existence. The book provides remedies for challenges faced by governments, businesses, nonprofits, local communities, and even banks. It demystifies a complex and critically important topic and offers meaningful solutions that will do far more than restore prosperity—it will provide the framework for an era of sustainable abundance.

The world’s foremost business thinkers explore organizations can be redesigned to survive and thrive in tomorrow’s hypercompetitive global environment.