China Marketing
Professor by Caleb H. Tse
Individual Case Write-Ups
“Shanghai Tang”
The First Global Chinese Luxury Brand”
Apr 15th, 2015
SW(Sowon) Kim
Question:
•How are luxury brands different from mass-market brands? How does one build a
luxury brand?
•How would you characterize Shanghai Tang’s brand image and sources of brand
equity?
•Analyze Shanghai Tang’s key strengths and weaknesses in its brand strategy.
•What might have accounted for Shanghai Tang’s unsatisfactory results in building a
global luxury brand? Could it have done things differently?
•What can Shanghai Tang do to improve its appeal as a global luxury brand that is
quintessentially Chinese? How should its positioning among other luxury brands be
improved?
1. How are luxury brands different from mass-market brands? How does one
build a luxury brand?
Here is the summary of the luxury brand characteristics which differentiate it from
mass-market brands
1. Luxury is the opposite of “Vulgarity”, not opposite of “Poverty”
2. High Brand Awareness – Both Aided Awareness and Top-of-the-mind Awareness
3. Wide Brand Presence – It should be present everywhere in the world so that
Tourists can find them everywhere they visit.
4. Running an Iconic flagship stores : Helped to reinforce the brand’s image in
consumer’s minds
5. Differentiated product features : It is technically superior or has symbolic meaning
to customers such as high social status or prestige value
6. High Price and Quality as well as superior service
To make or build a luxury brand, we have to develop the process for the following brand
images as well as company identity.
