Why do logos in luxury goods tend to get smaller as the price rises?
- The truly wealthy may use more discreet markers that only other insiders can recognise, whether a Louis Vuitton bag or an Alexander McQueen gown
Would you be able to tell the difference between a US$20 purse from Walmart and a US$5,000 luxury bag?
According to Jonah Berger, marketing professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and author of “Invisible Influence: The Hidden Forces That Shape Behavior”, their similarities are more alike than one might think.
Along with professor Morgan Ward, Berger analysed the correlation between price and brand prominence in hundreds of products and found a surprising relationship.
As expected, the cheaper the product, the less the brand was identified; as the price increased, branding became more prominent. But as price further increased, branding became less prominent again. For example, of 10 sunglasses ranging between US$100 and US$300 that Berger and Ward studied, the majority featured visible logos – but only a few out of 10 US$500-plus sunglasses had a brand name or logo on them.
For every US$5,000 increase in price, the logo shrinks by a centimetre – luxury items with less prominent logos are more expensive, according to Berger.
If logos are meant to convey status, why would people spend money on expensive logo-less goods that aren’t discernible from their cheaper counterparts, Berger wondered. While luxury brands are higher quality, it doesn’t explain the premium price they charge for less prominent branding.
The answer lies in the exclusivity that subtlety creates.