by Sean CarrWhy Luxury Brands Should Avoid Chasing Trends: A Strategic Guide for Brand Managers
Luxury brand marketing is a different game altogether. Unlike mainstream marketing, where attention is currency and trends dominate strategy, marketing to high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs) requires nuance, subtlety, and a profound understanding of what defines value, prestige, and exclusivity.
For luxury brand managers, the task goes far beyond promoting a product or service. You’re curating an experience, telling a story, and upholding a legacy. Every campaign, video, post, or digital asset must honour the brand’s DNA. And yet, in today’s fast-moving digital world, it’s easy to feel pressure to keep up with trends seen across social media or competitor feeds.
But here’s the danger: when luxury brands follow trends, they risk diluting their value, and losing the essence of what makes them desirable in the first place.
The Risk of Trend-Chasing in Luxury Marketing
Let’s be clear: adopting short-term digital trends might work for fast fashion or tech startups, but in the world of luxury, it can do more harm than good. Here’s why.
1. It Undermines Brand Identity and Exclusivity
The foundation of a luxury brand is its heritage, aesthetic, and values. HNWIs are drawn to brands that reflect timelessness, craftsmanship, and consistency, not those that bend to whatever’s trending this month.
By leaning into mainstream content styles or viral aesthetics, you run the risk of commoditising your offer. That exclusivity, the very thing that elevates your brand above the rest, can be lost in an instant.
Hermès is a prime example. It doesn’t chase Instagram trends or fast-turnaround content. Its visual storytelling is slow, considered, and elegant. This approach is exactly why the Birkin bag remains one of the most sought-after luxury items in the world, it represents patience, refinement, and permanence.
2. Trends Have a Short Shelf Life
In luxury marketing, timeless brand assets are worth far more than fleeting engagement. Trend-based content might give you a temporary boost in visibility, but it rarely builds long-term brand equity, and when done poorly, it can date your content instantly.
We’ve seen this first-hand in our work with Saxon Air, where our focus was on creating timeless video assets that reflect the calm precision and ultra-premium experience their customers expect. Had we pursued visual trends or viral gimmicks, the content would have felt stale within a year, and the investment wasted.
Instead, we leaned into evergreen storytelling: cinematic visuals, luxurious pacing, and brand-anchored messaging that reflects Saxon Air’s high standards. It’s this kind of work that builds lasting brand trust.
3. Luxury Brands Are Leaders, Not Followers
In a crowded, fast-paced digital landscape, luxury brands still hold the power to lead. The most respected names don’t copy what others are doing, they innovate from a place of authenticity.
Chanel, Rolex, and Patek Philippe don’t rely on TikTok trends or reactive social content. They craft marketing materials that evoke legacy and permanence. Rolex, for instance, doesn’t sell watches, it sells a story of precision, endurance, and timeless value. Its brand language, visuals, and tone never chase culture. They shape it.
The Luxury Brand Manager’s Role: Steward of the Brand
If you’re a luxury brand manager, CMO or marketing director, your role is not to entertain your audience with trends, but to reinforce your brand’s identity and elevate its perception across every touchpoint.
Trends may bring clicks. But timeless content creates connection. When your brand consistently reflects quality, craftsmanship, and elegance, HNWIs take notice, and stay loyal.
Final Thought
In a world obsessed with virality and fast-moving content, staying true to your brand’s identity is more important, and more courageous than ever. Luxury is not about chasing what’s next. It’s about standing firm in what’s eternal.
With your brand, you lead. You do not follow.