Équité CEO Daniel Langer in Forbes on the trend disrupting Western luxury brands in China

Performers in Han costumes holding festive lanterns. Photo Forbes / Getty Images

Original article by Pam Danzinger in Forbes, January 23, 2023

Luxury brands are distinguished by being huge value creators, but today, creating value in the traditional way, through exceptional quality, craftsmanship and service, is the price of entry, or what Daniel Langer Langer, CEO of consultancy Équité and executive professor at Pepperdine University, calls mere “hygiene factors.”

“It’s not a significant value driver anymore,” he said. “The new savoir-faire in luxury is to create a reality in which clients feel high desirability because the brand can create cultural capital for them. Creating cultural capital means to be able to access, process and operationalize real-time information on trends, trending topics and client sentiment. And requires cultural empathy on a global scale.”

This is where local Chinese brands and designers have an edge. They are more than participants in the guochao zeitgeist, but creators of it, not outside observers. As such, they are uniquely positioned to create cultural capital for the rising wave of guochao -fueled consumers in ways no Western brand can.

“Cultural capital is earned every day, and its importance becomes critical for success. The ability to be a cultural actor, the ability to influence and inspire audiences, is becoming the driving force of value creation in a digitally-native world. This is a completely different skill set than before and very few brands master it,” he concludes.

Read the full article in Forbes with the link above