Envy is what drives the purchase

Two groups, two kinds of problem

Procter & Gamble and LVMH have one thing in common: they create a brand for each product, as Al Ries explains. There are no “P&G” nappies or toothpastes, just as LVMH doesn't sell bags, perfumes, wines and patisseries under a single brand. The second thing they have in common is that both solve people's problems, though different problems.

P&G's brands solve practical issues: my child isn't using the potty yet? I need nappies. I've got a cough? I need Vicks VapoRub. And their marketing works like this: they spell out leadership, offer discounts and coupons, use direct-response copy. That's right for mass-market products. In luxury we need to do it differently.

So what problem do Fendi, Givenchy, Loro Piana, Louis Vuitton solve? I don't buy a Fendi scarf or a Loro Piana jacket simply because I'm cold.

The two psychological problems

I found what I believe to be the truth through a psychological analysis: luxury brands solve two macro-problems in the customer's mind.

The first: they position people in consumer society. We are people who come into contact with others (customers, suppliers, investors, people we're attracted to, friends, family) and naturally luxury brands exploit people's need to position themselves in relation to others. If I want to communicate my position, I use a certain kind of brand.

The second: they solve a problem of insecurity. An insecure person might buy luxury goods so that others don't judge them badly on first impression: a few branded items to act as a shield. I prefer to work on the first hypothesis, personal positioning, which a brand can make more of.

The buying behaviour for a luxury brand's product is the direct result of the consumer's perception of the emotional and social-status benefits that come from buying and owning a product of a particular brand.

Rolex in New York, Patek in Atlanta

It would have been too easy to put a Casio next to a Rolex. There's competition among luxury brands too, and people position themselves according to the clients they're going to visit. If I'm going to New York to see a young, go-getting developer, I might wear a Rolex GMT. If instead I'm going to Atlanta, a conservative city, to see a developer who certainly votes Republican, drives a Mercedes S-Class and has a certain kind of furniture in his office, then I wear something in gold and steel, from a brand seen as more prestigious, like a Patek Philippe.

The same goes for polo shirts: if it's Saturday and I want to keep a low profile I wear Lacoste, if I want a cooler look Fred Perry or Ralph Lauren. And for cars: if I'm going out with Italians I turn up in a Ferrari, if I'm going into certain other circles I arrive in a Bentley to play the English lord. That's how it works, believe me. I challenge you to prove me wrong.

Even at the very top there's always an element of envy, otherwise the game wouldn't work. Bill Gates doesn't need to prove anything with a watch: he takes his private jet because he likes playing badminton and comes to Europe in a baseball cap. The other billionaires envy him for being able to do that. Trump wasn't in the top 10 richest Americans, yet he had things others richer than him didn't have: a Boeing 757 with his name on it, parked behind the rallies in Iowa. He created a personal brand, because evidently he'd been aiming for the presidency for twenty years. I wrote that in 2018. Today he's in his second term, and that 757 is still flying.

The red circle rule

This is one of the most important images in the book and it shows a fundamental rule of luxury communication. At the centre is the brand. Around it, the potential customers. In the mass market I sell the product and communicate my brand and my advertising only to potential customers in my target: if I have to sell a Toyota Aygo, I talk to the customer torn between the Aygo, the Twingo and the Panda.

In luxury a bigger circle is added: the mass of people who will never be able to buy but want to. So marketing has to be aimed at everyone, not just potential customers. It has to embrace everyone, so that potential customers buy your brand to stir envy in the people who will never be able to have it. When you achieve that, you have created a luxury brand.

My brand has to help people position themselves in society: that's the problem I solve. To do that it has to communicate to the masses in the same way it communicates to potential customers. The envy of the masses helps position high-end products and their customers at the top of the social game. Anyone who wears a certain watch, a certain pair of shoes or carries a certain bag does so thanks to the mass of people who want them but can't have them. Envy is what drives the purchase.

You see it in practice when you post a photo of a villa: the masses who can't buy comment “Wow, I'll never be able to afford this even if I worked five lifetimes”, and the interested customers see the masses' comments. Anyone who says brand awareness is useless is wrong: if I'm not known, who's going to give me €50,000 for a kitchen? Nobody.

I have a piece of evidence I use in the classroom. Naples is, together with Milan, the city where our page has the most fans and the most interactions in Italy. We've never sold a kitchen there. But those comments, “what a dream”, “do you have dealers in the province of Naples?”, are read by the real customers, in Cortina, in Salerno, in Milan, and they're what makes them buy. The masses who don't buy are working for you.

Privacy is a value too

It isn't always social proof. A particularly wealthy person who books out a whole restaurant in Rome even though there are only three of them is looking for the very best, and can't find anything better there: leadership works in luxury too, in fact the more of a leader you are the more you're sought after. And it could be about privacy. It's the same reason aeroplanes have economy, premium economy, business and first class: you buy space. A first-class traveller doesn't arrive before one in economy; the plane lands at the same moment for everyone. But in first class you spend €12,000 to have 4 seats in a private space, in business €3,000–4,000 to have 10–12, in economy €600 to be one of 150. Privacy is a value too.

From my book Direct from Milano and my classroom courses. Figures and examples updated September 2026.