Today’s Luxury Brands Need Exceptional Media Experiences
Feature by Havas Media Lux
Conventional wisdom in the media landscape has long suggested that collective buying power and control of volume dictate success. The recent merger between Omnicom and Interpublic exemplifies this thinking as one of the most significant developments in the industry this year. However, in the luxury sector, we must question whether size truly determines distinction. In this space, prestige often outweighs volume.
Image: Loewe x Suna Fujita campaign, 2024
Emotive storytelling through ultra-premium, intentional formats
Over the past year, luxury brands have increasingly relied on celebrity visionaries to redefine cultural relevance and drive success in a competitive and volatile market. Figures like Pharrell Williams at Louis Vuitton and, more recently, A$AP Rocky at Ray-Ban embody this strategic shift away from volume, instead using their influence across music, art, and fashion to shape brand identity. Traditionally, creative directors dictated consumer taste by introducing new products, but their role has evolved beyond fashion design. Now, they craft entire lifestyles, educating consumers on what they should desire and creating new cultural narratives beyond just handbags or clothing collections. Today's Creative Director's role is to reinforce a brand's values of innovation, creativity, pioneering spirit, and entrepreneurship.
Last year’s Cannes Luxury Lions underscored the growing need for creativity in luxury marketing, celebrating work that redefines innovation and storytelling. Last year's winners highlighted the importance of engaging environments that inspire new audiences through thoughtful media usage. Achieving this within strict brand guidelines and measurement frameworks can be challenging, making the right agency partner essential—this is your way into outsmarting the competition, rather than trying to outshout, and thinking differently about your annual planning or latest campaign brief. It's your ticket to creating meaningful (and award-winning) work. New luxury audiences are increasingly demanding that brands think differently, too. Havas Media Lux’s latest New Codes of Luxury report also confirmed that entertainment is the now – creativity, innovation, and storytelling are prerequisites, and future brand growth relies on it. The right media partner will excel at opening up all options for achieving this.
Image: Tag Heuer x Ryan Gosling campaign, 2024
Collaboration is the catalyst for elevation
Image: Miu Miu 'Summer Reads’ Newsagent takeover, 2024
This approach deserves deeper examination for luxury brands operating in an ecosystem increasingly defined by personalisation, experiential marketing, and carefully curated touchpoints. Luxury clients now have unprecedented access to sophisticated, tailored solutions—uniquely designed to capture attention and enable the intimate customer engagement that luxury audiences expect and demand.
This landscape creates numerous opportunities for luxury brands to distinguish themselves without relying on the overwhelming media budgets of mass-market competitors. While investment quality certainly plays a crucial role, the true differentiator lies in developing disruptive, creative thinking and accessing bespoke, premium solutions. This is particularly important for luxury brands, where perception, positioning, and presence in the right environments matter much more than sheer exposure volume. Cultivating and nurturing sophisticated relationships with a bespoke luxury agency that holds premium media partner relationships has become essential.
Agencies that serve the luxury sector, like ours, Havas Media Lux, must create unique opportunities to connect with premium media partners and develop exceptional creative media solutions that align with our luxury clients' commercial and brand aspirations.
This can only be achieved when carefully selected media partners have access to the appropriate agency teams—client services, strategy, activation specialists, or leadership. Within Havas Media Lux, we have been cultivating a nuanced understanding among media owners through our wider Havas Unlocked event, which is designed to facilitate closer collaboration and strategic discussions with premium media partners, allowing us to explore new opportunities and better serve our clients by unlocking innovative ideas and approaches.
At Havas Media Lux, we're committed to replacing transactional interactions with meaningful dialogues that reflect the sector's appreciation for craftsmanship and attention to detail. We understand that investing time in truly understanding a client's objectives—and what represents authentic campaign success for their brand legacy—results in significantly better outcomes for all parties.
This not only protects the creative process but also elevates expectations regarding how luxury brands should be presented in media environments. This highlights the importance of creating space for these sophisticated conversations, especially for building long-lasting client relationships. Continuous innovation and the discovery of unique opportunities are essential to maintaining brand prestige.
A true, trust-worthy partnership is key
Image: Jaguar Land Rover x Rugby World Cup X Kano
With more channels and platforms available than ever before, media agencies with the right media partners can enhance the experiences they can offer to brands with a focus on creativity and innovation. Showing thoughtful consideration for the client challenge and delivering bespoke solutions ensure media agencies and partners remain true collaborators to brands—a necessary component in a brand’s success story.
It’s also essential that all partners understand the brand ethos and what makes them tick. Luxury brands spend time defining their vision, their relationships with consumers and what makes them different; media partners need to respond to that and show up accordingly, and the right agency can ensure this. The right media agency partner will foster potent relationships with the right media owners, creating bespoke opportunities on a client-by-client basis.
Success begins with a strong brief
Image: Abercrombie & Kent, "Life, Well-Travelled” Brand re-launch campaign, 2025
Your media agency and its media partners need absolute clarity on what the brand or client wants to achieve. A good media agency ensures the problem is clearly defined so that the solution is simple and can be directly linked to driving commercial results.
Demonstrating that you have a complete joint understanding of what success looks like will not only boost the credibility of a campaign but will also increase the visibility of the partnership. This will build trust and inspire both teams to collaborate in the future, helping to reimagine and strengthen the relationship so that the agency and brand can grow smarter together.
The ultimate acknowledgement of a strong media agency-client relationship is entering an award together—proving to others that together, your work is necessary, inspirational and effective. We've witnessed this at Havas Media Lux through our partnerships with leading luxury brands. We consistently push boundaries to introduce fresh perspectives and innovative concepts, resulting in multiple media firsts and recognition at the industry's most prestigious awards—a testament to the elevation that true luxury collaboration unlocks.
This demonstrates that increasingly more than mere spending power, the harmonious convergence between specialised agencies, luxury clients, and premium media partners helps unlock mutual growth and is ultimately where true distinction emerges.
What does this mean for media in 2025?
Firstly, it’s crucial that brands truly understand the role of their agency–what's working, what’s not? If your media agency can build the right relationships, with the right media partners, it will open up a world of curated, bespoke, stand-out opportunities. The right media agency and partner relationships will help your brand excel in new, creative and innovative ways. Secondly, be laser-focused on your audience and crystal clear on what do you want to achieve with your brief—your media agency will thank you for that!
To find out more about Havas Media Lux get in touch via Hmgukcomms@havasmg.com or via their website havasmedialux.com.