RENÉE RICHARDSON GOSLINE :FAKES CAN BE GOOD FOR THE

LUXURY INDUSTRYBy Jonna Dagliden

22 : 03 : 2010 Massachusetts Institute Of Technology : Renée Richardson Gosline : MIT

Real: Stam bag from Marc Jacobs Resort collection 2009

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Fake: Stam bag from Marc Jacobs Resort collection 2009

RENéE RICHARDSON GOSLINE : FAKES CAN BE GOOD FOR THE LUXURY INDUSTRY

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Real: Dior, Lady Dior red patent

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Fake: Dior, Lady Dior red patent

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Real: Chloe Heloise tote

RENéE RICHARDSON GOSLINE : FAKES CAN BE GOOD FOR THE LUXURY INDUSTRY

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Fake: Chloe Heloise tote

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Louis Vuitton Moscow

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Louis Vuitton replica bag for sale through Ebay

Last month, a court in Paris ruled that eBay had harmed LVMH’s trademark by selling fakes; the onlinemarketplace was ordered to pay €200k in damages and €30k in legal costs.

The case sums up a luxury industry truism: fakes are the industry’s worst enemy and they should be hunted downand hounded out of existence. LVMH’s senior executive vice-president Pierre Godé described his company’sattitude in a recent interview with the Financial Times. ‘We have invested so much money to enhance and protectour brands and our brand experience that it is impossible to accept a scenario where someone else who has nounderstanding of this or interest in it would sell our brands and destroy that value,’ said Godé.

And yet Renée Richardson Gosline of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) believes that fakes can begood for the luxury industry, as does LS:N Global.

‘That Gucci handbag looks so good on you,’ exclaims a woman in a living room in Massachusetts, US, as shepicks one up too.

‘That Louis Vuitton bag is so pretty,’ her friend replies.

At first sight, this scene is every girl’s dream. Next to bottles of Chardonnay and plates of canapés sits a pile ofglamorous handbags, available at affordable prices. But this purse party is not as luxurious as it seems. All thebags are fake. The logo on what is supposed to be a LV ‘Damier Duomo’ is slightly different to the original. The bagbeing touted as a Prada ‘Vitello Daino Life Leather’ tote is in fact a plastic replica.

Despite the fact that the bags were fake, all of the women who went to the party made a purchase – except one.Richardson Gosline, an assistant professor of marketing at MIT’s Sloan School of Management, was there to workout why these women wanted to buy counterfeits. ‘These were upper-middle-class women, very responsible andrespectful women,’ she says. ‘These women could afford the real thing, so I found it bizarre that they would buy thefakes.’

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It’s a question which has been vexing Richardson Gosline for some time and which has resulted in a two-and-a-halfyear study and a paper, ‘Rethinking Brand Contamination: How Consumers Maintain Distinction When SymbolicBoundaries Are Breached’. In her study, Richardson Gosline investigated whether imitations validate or contaminatea brand. At the start of her research, she took a similar stance to Godé at LVMH and assumed that the fakeswould have a negative effect. She also assumed that fakes are considered a substitute for the real thing.

Interviewing consumers, however, she soon realised that might not be the case. She was surprised to find thatpeople who bought the fakes soon converted to the authentic bags.

‘In a strange way, fakes helped to educate consumers about how inferior they are to the real thing,’ she tells LS:NGlobal. ‘At first, people say ‘Why should I buy the real thing? Fake is just as good.’ But they soon realise that’snot true, that the fakes are of lower quality and not the latest styles. Most importantly, when you use the fakes youare a fake person yourself.’

This suggests that fakes are a positive part of an educational process that shows the value of the genuine article.‘Fakes made the brand more relevant to [consumers],’ says Richardson Gosline.

Once the buyers of counterfeit bags begin to question how owning a fake item influences how they view themselvesand how others view them, they start to pay attention to the real thing. In other words, a false start turns womeninto luxury consumers – suggesting that, however counterintuitive it seems, fakes could ultimately benefit theluxury industry.

‘The women at that fake purse party in Massachusetts ended up in Gucci and Prada stores,’ says RichardsonGosline.

Our top five take-outs:

1. People consume in a social context. ‘When people buy fakes they feel they have to admit this to others, so theywill start to feel bad about themselves,’ says Richardson Gosline. Brands should tap into this social aspect ofconsumption.

2. Focus on craft and quality rather than logo and image. In a world where it is easy to copy a look, quality is ahard-to-replicate differentiator.

3. Educate consumers about that quality; luxury houses such as Fendi and Hermès, for example, teach theircustomers about their products’ manufacturing processes.

4. Since, as Richardson Gosline says, ‘consumers now, more than ever, want to understand how the money thatthey spend is impacting the world around them’, luxury brands should differentiate themselves through the positiveway they engage with the world.

5. Separate your real fans from your fake friends; give your real fans more and help them stand out. RichardsonGosline suggests brands hold events specifically for genuine consumers. ‘People with fakes would know that theywouldn’t be able to attend,’ she says.

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