Since the affluent consumer is spending more and more time online, it should come as no surprise that luxury brands want to do more to reach their clients digitally. Discussing digital strategy for luxury brands was the driving purpose of the Digiday Luxury Brand Breakfast, which met at Restaurant Aquavit on August 23rd. Three experts–Skip Brand, CEO of Martini Media; James Gardner, founder and CEO of CreateThe Group; and Rick Webb, revenue consultant for Tumblr–spoke about how luxury brands can target, engage and keep their digital consumer. Here’s what they had to say.

*The luxury consumer is online to both work and play.

They’re busy people who spend money to save time, but they also enjoy their downtime. CreateThe Group’s James Gardner cited Burberry’s website as a great example of a site that’s both easy to use with a straightforward interface and clean presentation of detail shots, and engaging to interact with, notably, the Burberry Acoustic collaboration, Livestreams of fashion shows, and the Art of the Trench game. The goal is a seamless integration of communication and commerce, where a consumer can interact with the brand and, from there, make a quick purchase should they choose to. Keep in mind: since the luxury consumer is a big fan of their tablet, content should always be optimized for that device.

*No more banners and buttons: rich media is key.

According to Martini Media’s

Skip Brand, 7 out of 10 luxury marketers agree that high-impact ad units are as effective as print or TV. Static content simply doesn’t catch the eye as well, particularly when current technology allows for multimedia experiences that can engage the consumer and promote the brand. All effective web content should deliver an emotional experience, but this is particularly important for reaching the luxury consumer. So long as the content isn’t intrusive–auto-playing videos in particular can be cringe-worthy–the luxury consumer will be more eager to watch a slideshow or video embedded into sidebar ad space than they would click through a static banner.

*It’s not an ad; it’s content.

59% of marketers believe that video is more effective at building brand awareness than TV, and with the Internet’s unpredictable potential for virality, this rings particularly true. As long as the content is funny, interesting, moving, stunning or otherwise engaging, the consumer is willing to forget that they they’re technically interacting with an advertisement. Even more powerful are the opportunities to hide the fact that the content is even an ad at all. Tumblr’s Spotlight and Radar are clever ways of subtly integrating ads into the platform as promoted content. An individual or brand can purchase a spot in those two sections to have their page or a post promoted for all 64 million Tumblr users to see. Since Tumblr is such a visual medium, many users don’t realize that the art, photograph, or animated gif in the Radar is secretly an ad for a brand, to the point where, Tumblr’s Rick Webb joked, users will still beg him to never introduce ads to the platform. 
 

For more information about digital marketing for luxury brands, please visit Martini Media.