The Sage Handbook of Luxury Brand Management and Marketing
By, Kerry Ruffle
- Title: The Sage Handbook of Luxury Brand Management and Marketing
- Edited by: Klaus Heine, Professor of Luxury Marketing, emlyon business school, alongside Michel Phan, emlyon business school, Ian Phau, Curtin University, Marie-Cecile Cervellon, EDHEC business school and Eunju Ko, Yonsei University
- Published by: Sage, London – May 2026
- Where to find it: https://uk.sagepub.com/en-gb/asi/the-sage-handbook-of-luxury-brand-management-and-marketing/book289100
“People don’t buy luxury for its practical function, but for what it means – for status, identity, belonging, the dream. That is why luxury so often breaks the usual marketing rules,” shares Professor Klaus Heine – and he should know. For nearly 20 years, the Professor of Luxury Marketing at emlyon business school has centred his work on giving brands identity and meaning, in order to build high-end brands with a higher purpose, working on projects with companies like Dior, Hermès, and Mercedes-Benz.
He also notes that, by its very nature, the sector is both incredibly fast-paced, and highly volatile. This places constant pressure on organisations operating within it to stay one step ahead – something which is increasingly difficult to accomplish with external pressures such as sustainability, and the advancements of tech and AI to also overcome.
To navigate such swift evolution, The Sage Handbook of Luxury Brand Management and Marketing offers itself as a “definitive reference for understanding the evolving world of luxury branding”. To back up such a claim, it’s pages cover every aspect of luxury brand management evolution. Tracing the history of the sector, from the psychology of luxury consumption and international branding strategies to digital transformation, sustainability, and cultural innovation the book offers .
It also tackles more contemporary issues such as ethical sourcing, second-hand markets, the growing influence of AI and much more, offering both a theoretical depth and practical insight, making it an essential resource for scholars, postgraduate students, and professionals.
Such analysis is provided by the collective expertise of no fewer than 76 authors – leading scholars and industry experts – from 19 countries across five continents.
Adding to this plethora of knowledge is the editorial team behind the books production, headed by Professor Heine, who is also a contributor to its pages. Not only does he hold a significant level of industry experience to back up his academic explorations. In his role at emlyon, he has also created and today directs the school’s MSc in Branding & Communication, meaning his work covers research, industry practice and education.
The book is designed to explore how the function of luxury marketing has evolved in a rapidly changing global landscape – exploring its foundations, the innovations that have driven progress to date and exploring what may be on the horizon for future growth in the years to come.
We sat down with Klaus to find out more…
Can you tell us about the inspiration behind your new business book? What motivated you to write it?
Relevant publications about luxury date back a long time, but the birth of the specific field of luxury marketing research can be traced back to 1986. Since then, the number of publications has increased sharply, even exploded, peaking at 958 luxury-related articles in the Web of Science Core Collection in 2021.
Although the curve flattens slightly after that peak, it still amounts to an average annual growth rate of about 18 percent, which closely mirrors and even outperforms the dynamic growth of the global luxury market, estimated at nearly 10 percent over recent decades. And the field is still young: half of all luxury articles have been published since 2017.
This made one thing clear: it was time for a Handbook that offers a comprehensive overview of the broad field of luxury brand management and marketing. And so the book launches at a symbolic moment in 2026 – the 40th anniversary of the luxury marketing research domain.
What are the key takeaways or main ideas that readers can expect to find in your book?
This Handbook is the result of a truly collective effort: No fewer than 76 authors from 19 countries across five continents have contributed their expertise. We managed to bring together the leading luxury scholars and industry experts from around the globe, including Ian Phau from Australia, Eunju Ko from South Korea, David Dubois from Singapore, and Jean-Noël Kapferer and Pierre Valette-Florence from France.
If there is one idea that runs through the whole book, it is that luxury works differently from ordinary marketing. People don’t buy luxury for its practical function, but for what it means – for status, identity, belonging, the dream. That is why luxury so often breaks the usual marketing rules, and the chapters approach this basic principle of luxury strategy from many different angles.
Who is the target audience for your book, and how do you believe it will benefit them?
The primary audience for this handbook consists of academic readers, including graduate and post-graduate students, lecturers, and professors specializing in luxury marketing.
It will also benefit specialized industry experts, such as consultants and brand managers. Think of it as a map of the field. Rather than drilling into a single narrow question, it lays out the whole territory and divides it into its most important sub-areas with dedicated chapters. What ties these chapters together is our belief in frameworks and models: tools that let readers grasp a whole sub-domain at a glance, brought to life through practical examples and case studies that show how to apply them.
This is what makes the book so well suited as course material. A lecturer can build an entire syllabus around it, and students can easily follow up on individual areas in greater depth – from luxury consumer psychology to digital luxury marketing or luxury brand management and growth. In short, the handbook works as both a map of the territory and a teaching companion that guides the reader through it.
What do you think makes this topic particularly relevant or timely in today’s business world, or for the years ahead?
There’s never been a more interesting moment to study luxury. After years of tremendous growth, the market just had its toughest phase since the financial crisis – with millions of aspirational shoppers stepping back, while the very top clients now account for about half of all sales. In other words, growth is no longer a given, and that is exactly when understanding the fundamentals matters most.
Meanwhile, the field is changing on several fronts: sustainability and circular models are redefining what luxury is, generative AI is moving into the creative studio, and consumers are shifting from owning status to seeking experiences and meaning. Growth used to be comparatively easy; now luxury brands need a map of the whole territory – and that’s what the Handbook offers.
Can you discuss any specific case studies or real-world examples from your book that illustrate its principles in action?
For instance, in one chapter we introduce my framework, the Brand-Building Canvas, and show how to use it to analyse or develop the identity and symbolic universe of a luxury brand. Along the way, readers get an overview of the core components of brand identity and how to apply them to luxury, such as prototypical user, brand culture, or personality. This framework helps to capture the essential symbolic meaning of a luxury brand – the code of luxury.
For more academic use, the model also serves to showcase recent academic perspectives and theories associated with each element of luxury brand identity.
A key lesson learned is that each element of the Brand-Building Canvas is like an option or strategic tool for a brand manager, like a colour on an artist’s palette, to create distinctive symbolic consumer benefits. For example, the unlikely success of the champagne start-up Carbon relies mainly on its emphasis on Brand Culture, by aligning with the motorsport subculture and becoming the must-have champagne in that field.
How does your book add to/expand existing discussions on this topic?
The first part of the book, with seven chapters, is really about all the new hot topics that will shape the future discussion in the luxury domain, such as the Green Revolution and new labelling laws, ethical luxury, and new business models for upcycling, second-hand, and rental. For instance, Felicitas Morhart and Julia Riedmeier show what the most recent luxury tensions are, such as Materialism versus Experientialism, and how to resolve them.
Can you provide some practical tips or strategies from your book that readers can immediately apply to improve their business or career?
One immediately useful rule comes from David Dubois and Allison Hess’s chapter on brand extensions. If you want to grow a luxury brand into a lower price point or a new category, don’t simply put the master brand name on it. Their review shows that launching it as a sub-brand, rather than directly under the main name, drives growth while protecting the prestige of the parent brand. Direct branding raises the risk of dilution, especially when the fit is weak. It’s a clear decision rule any brand manager can apply the next time they plan a new line.
The chapter on emotional branding by Francine Petersen and Adeepan Chakraborty also offers a tip managers can apply right away: stop optimizing only the moment of sale, and map the customer’s emotions across the entire journey – before, during, and after the purchase. For example, a small sustainability cue at the point of sale can ease the guilt customers feel about spending a lot on luxury for themselves – and help unlock a purchase. Managing emotion stage by stage is more effective than focusing on the transaction alone.
Finally, what book written by another author would you consider essential reading for your audience and why?
I would recommend Veblen’s The Theory of the Leisure Class from 1899, because you read about why people consumed luxury more than 100 years ago and think: wow, people are still exactly the same. The field of (luxury) consumer psychology is a timeless evergreen.
Kerry Ruffle
Kerry Ruffle covers business and higher education, careers and the changing world of work, as well as academic research and its impact upon the world we live in.
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