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Luxury brands and the counterfeit market

The shocking news that two-thirds of British consumers are happy to purchase fake designer goods was announced in a new study on Monday. Shopping for phoney handbags and watches has become socially acceptable.

The luxury brand market is predictably up in arms that we have become so comfortable purchasing counterfeits of their products. But this phenomenon is no revelation to upscale design houses. In fact, any brand worth its salt carries a diffusion range that caters for this very market. They are known in the industry as “entry point” products — cheaply produced sunglasses, belts, key rings and perfumes that command high premiums by virtue of the brand that is attached.

One can find these goods in airport lounges, department stores, and any number of retail destinations where the aspirational poor are known to take their credit cards. Minus the brand, these products are of little material worth. But the attached logos add value by way of an affordable step up the ladder of social mobility. So much of our personal identity has been invested in branding that the owning of status symbols, authentic or not, is paramount to the authenticity of their origin.

A glance around any holiday destination proves how popular this market has become.If the British public is increasingly turning to fakes, it is because we have finally woken up to the extent of this con. Better, then, to buy four for the price of one if the fakes look any good.

Company branding originally existed to indicate the quality and origin of a product. Today’s superbrands continue to trade upon this promise, but the product’s actual authenticity is increasingly far from that portrayed in the adverts. The purpose of today’s luxury brand, then, is to build perceptions of value within the mind of the consumer, when there is little or none.

Monday’s report may have sought to underline the casual criminality occurring at the local market stall. But a closer inspection reveals the luxury branding market for the house of cards it really is. Asked to choose between two handbags with identical design and quality but with price tags hundreds of pounds apart, the only rational choice is to take the cheaper option. They’re only bits of canvas and leather, after all. —

(Neil Boorman’s book, Bonfire of the Brands, will be published in September by Canongate.)

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