Lane Crawford in global push

The Hong Kong-based luxury retailer has also unveiled its first international advertising campaign, ‘Transitions’.

Created by boutique agency Partner and Partner in London, with media planning and buying handled by MindShare, the photographic campaign featuring six Chinese stars will run over 12 pages in the US edition of Vogue,

as well as in key fashion publications in Hong Kong and Beijing.

The campaign includes an online video showing the making of the campaign.

Joanna Gunn, VP of marketing communications at Lane Crawford, said that US exposure in Vogue would serve to generate awareness of the brand’s launch in China among the fashion community and potential tourists.

While something of a Hong Kong institution, Lane Crawford was forced to close initial ventures in Singapore, Shanghai, Hangzhou and Harbin due to sluggish sales.

Observers have attributed the brand’s lack of past success to inadequate localisation and an unclear proposition. “The size and décor of the Shanghai store did not offer a contemporary shopping experience,” said one source, explaining that the mainland stores were not run directly under Lane Crawford but operated as a franchise. “It was stuck in the middle. It wasn’t luxurious enough to attract high-end consumers, but was too expensive to attract everyday consumers.”

The source suggested that the location of the new store, in an up-market shopping mall a 30-minute taxi ride from the fashionable shopping district, could present a hurdle. But Charley Kan, national CD for MEC China, maintained that the store would become a “destination”, having overhauled its offering and repositioned itself as unequivocally a luxury brand. However, Debora Chatwin, MD of The Brand Union, cautioned that while China was ripe for expansion, Lane Crawford would face a sizeable challenge elsewhere, as Asia was potentially “about to go into an economic slowdown”.

“It will face competition the likes of which it hasn’t faced before,” Chatwin said, citing Japanese retailer Isetan Mitsukoshi and Barneys as potential rivals, noting that Lane Crawford had a similar multi-brand proposition.

“There is nothing terribly Asian about it,” she said. “But its understanding of Asian clients could give it the upper hand at the outset. It offers the best in terms of lifestyle brands. It could compete with Barneys in China as long as it gets in there now, and as long as the economy holds up.”