It wasn’t long ago that the eloquent oratory behind most luxury brands and their potential for positioning themselves online distinctly resembled Slick Willie’s advice on fidelity – loads of rhetoric and a great deal of posturing with debatable substance when pushed to deliver.
How times have changed. Now it would seem that luxury brand owners are leaping like lemmings into the great void of cyberspace with only their reputations to cover their dignity.
A good example of such technological temerity is Givenchy, whose stylish and interactive website is patently avant-garde and almost sure to put the wind up its peers.
From the very first click the viewer is regaled with images of sophisticated fragrances and fashion that gently glide across the monitor like a perfectly choreographed ballet, underpinning the brand’s emotional qualities of elegance, poise and grace. There’s plenty of functionality too, with Givenchy providing access to consumer information through such key site areas as Collections, which deals with what’s hot off the press in terms of high society de-rigueur and History, which outlines the company’s background from 1952 to the present day.
If it’s shopping you’re after then you could be in luck, as Givenchy have provided an interactive map so that you can locate the nearest boutique of your choice. Residents of the US can also order products online via a link to eluxury.com, Givenchy’s preferred distribution channel for trading on the web.
Perhaps a flaw to look out for is the Parfums section, which looks every bit as good as it sounds and is greatly enhanced with animation and audio. Unfortunately however it’s all written in French and unless you’re quite fluent in Givenchy’s mother tongue, you may well find yourself frustrated at the lack of translated material.
Ian Cocoran is an Operations Director with one of the world's largest chemical distributors. He has an MBA in Marketing from the Buckinghamshire Business School and lives in Glasgow, Scotland, with his wife Kate and daughter Lucy.
*Due to the constantly changing environment of websites, some reviews may no longer reflect the current website for this brand.