Conde Nast India: Luxury matters

Four years after publishing its first magazine in the country, Condé Nast India is set to launch its corporate campaign. While its three titles — Vogue, GQ and Condé Nast Traveller — target the affluent reader, the corporate campaign will target media planners and brand managers with reasons that make it the ideal vehicle for luxury advertising. Condé Nast India Managing Director Alex Kuruvilla points out, “We had a powerful story to tell with our three titles. While our readers are familiar with our magazines, the awareness that they come from the same group is low. The corporate campaign articulates our role in the luxury segment since we entered India.”

Slated for release in the last week of June, the campaign will use cues and statistics from its printing, distribution, marketing and editorial processes to reiterate the group’s authority on luxury. But first, the campaign will attempt to justify the need for luxury. Agnello Dias, chairman and co-founder of Taproot, who created the campaign, says, “Condé Nast made it clear that it was not a product they wanted to talk about but luxury as a concept which made the work more interesting. In terms of insights, we decided to counter the Indian perception of luxury as needless indulgence or superficial — something that is not a basic need. So the tagline of the campaign, ‘The necessity of luxury’. We say that luxury is another word for progress and stands for human aspiration.” The ads then go on to liken the need for luxury with the urge that led man to discover fire or invent the wheel.

If the campaign illustrates how today’s luxury can become tomorrow’s necessity, it also ties in the manner in which Condé Nast has internalised luxury in its operations. Right from the printing paper that is imported from Finland, its editorial content, its print run audits for above-the-board claims to an audience of over 1 million of affluent consumers who can be reached through its magazines, its websites and its Blackberry and iPad apps, all establish Condé Nast’s position in the luxury space.

Kuruvilla says that of the 250-300 brands it has on board, 95 per cent are repeat advertisers. “As a leader, we want to excite the trade about the opportunities that our mix of platforms (internet, applications and magazines) and titles offer. This will drive more brands to understand our brand better,” he adds. He cites the example of Indian jewellery brands that found the magazines an ideal vehicle to reach their consumers when earlier they would have hesitated to advertise in magazines, sticking to word of mouth instead. “Indian designers are also realising the value in of paying for ads in a medium that gives them an effective reach,” says Kuruvilla.

The campaign comprising four ads will be carried in advertising magazines and trade websites.