Institute for Creative and Cultural Entrepreneurship

Student Number: 33601650

Programme Title: MA Luxury Brand Management

Module Code and Title: IC71141A Luxury Brand Management

Module Tutor: Serena Gossain

Essay Question: MURMURE business plan and brand building

Word Count: 3049

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Business Plan & Brand Building

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Table of Contents
1. Introduction ................................................................................................................ 3

2. Brand Concept ........................................................................................................... 3

2.1 Brand Summary.................................................................................................... 3

2.2 Brand Identity .......................................................................................................... 6

2.2.1 Brand Identity Matrix .................................................................................... 6

2.2.2 Brand Identity Prism...................................................................................... 7

2.3 Brand Strategy ...................................................................................................... 8

3. Brand Positioning .................................................................................................... 10

3.1 Current market analysis ...................................................................................... 10

3.2 Competitor analysis ............................................................................................ 14

3.3 Positioning map .................................................................................................. 15

4. Conclusion ............................................................................................................... 15

References .................................................................................................................... 17

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1. Introduction
MURMURE is a luxury Chinese Fashion brand with Parisian style established in 1960s
by Jin Chang (my grandfather) as a high end ready to wear and leather luxury goods
brand that has been owned by Chang family. For years, the brand has been well-known
its iconic handbags and small leather products. Part of MURMURE’s success lies
heavily in its business model and strategies to differentiate its from others in the global
luxury industry. This business plan aims to clarify the brand concept and brand
positioning to investors so that they can make alternative decisions on working with
MURMURE. Firstly, it will analyse brand concept of MURMURE to make clear what
the brand is. Secondly, it will identify brand positioning to figure out how the brand
gains competitive advantage in the competitive luxury industry.

2. Brand Concept
2.1 Brand Summary
ABOUT MURMURE
MURMURE is a luxury ready to wear brand that has been owned by Chang family for
nearly half a century. It was established in 1960 by Jin Chang. At MURMURE,
exclusive craft products have been central to everything which stand for themselves.
Not only the products of ready to wear, shoes and leather goods, but also that of
accessories are crafted to lead the fashion trend with beautiful and practical functions
consistent with the everyday lives of women to whom the brand is designed. Since its
establishment, MURMURE has committed to focusing on the belief ‘living a dream
life with less’. Rooted in the present, MURMURE has been creating the history of
luxury world. The core of its culture is that every woman deserves a dream and elegant
life with less but excellent. To meet such a goal, MURMURE has devoted itself to
adopting sophisticated materials to produce timeless modernity. So far, the classic
collection has already been excellent iconic bags to bring an elegant life to women.

MISSION STATEMENT
MURMURE aims to bring well-designed Western Art with sophisticated craft to the
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Asian countries and to bring a dream life for every woman in the world.

VISION STATEMENT
MURMURE commits to be the
excellent house of ready to wear
products, pursuing simplicity,
elegant and dream for now and
forever.
VALUE
Specifically, the mission of
MURMURE reflects three important
values, which respectively are to
effectively improve the product
quality, to attempt to do as best as we
can in all and to strengthen our
image of crafted art.

HISTORIACAL REVIEW
The business of MURMURE started in Shanghai in 1960 with the focus on ladies
footwear products. In the 1970s, the brand started to launch women’s ready to wear line.
When it comes to 1982, MURMURE expanded its business into leather goods and the
classic bags became the iconic products. After two years, MURMURE redesigned its
logo as ‘M’ linked in its luxury goods appear to ‘pass secret on quietly’ reflecting the
brand name of MURMURE. From the 1990 to the 2000s, the brand had focused on the
improvement of craft of its leather goods and on leading the tide of ready to wear
fashion. In 2010, the brand invited the then famous designer shifting its attention to the
characteristics of simplicity by highlighting the belief of ‘less but excellent’. Since then,
MURMURE has started to initiate ready to wear collection at the Shanghai Fashion
Week every year.

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 l 1960 started as a women footwear brand
l 1970s launched women ready to wear line
l 1982 expanded to leather goods and the introduction of iconic classic bags
l 1984 redesigned logo ‘M’
l 1990s-2000s focused on craft
l 2010 shifted to the design of simplicity
l 2010s participated in fashion week

CULTURAL & SOCIAL IMPLICATIONS

Changes happen constantly. Several decades before, opacity had been an important way
for MURMURE to build mystique. But the fact is that younger generation in recent
times expects more from luxury brands to have a high transparency as well as rising
concerns of ethical issues. A report from BBC News reveals that more than thirty percent
of young luxury shoppers considered a brand’s ethical credentials before making buying
decisions (Banks, 2018). It seems that ethical issue is increasingly becoming an great
challenge to affect the development of luxury brand.

To respond to such a changed belief in society, MURMURE adjusts its culture to share
more corporate social responsibility through several aspects. To begin with,
transparency with all the publicity of materials in labels effectively will be an important
belief in MURMURE for production. More importantly, MURMURE has a big vision
that it makes promises to promote business sustainability by promoting luxury resales
on its own official
websites as well as
using unsold stock
and off-cuts in
production. To
reduce the impacts
on environments and
water pollution, the brand will concentrate on making researching on high-tech
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sustainable fibres for our ready to wear products. It believes that sustainability is
creative possibility. In the workplace, MURMURE has made great efforts to promote
workplace diversity and gives equal opportunity to tap everyone’s potentials regardless
of gender, racial or age issues. Based on this, MURMURE aims to be a good global
citizen who makes contributions to a better future.

2.2 Brand Identity

2.2.1 Brand Identity Matrix
Brand as product
MURMURE, a luxury brand in Shanghai, mainly provides various ready to wear
products and leather goods to consumers to allowing them to live an elegant life. Not
only consumers can enjoy functional benefits, but also symbolic benefits when they
purchase and use the MUREMURE’s products.

Brand as organization
MURMURE is a private and family owned organisation with a sophisticated base to
produce ready to wear and leather products labelling with modern, fashion and iconic
features.

Brand as person
MURMURE is a person can be labelled with the core characteristics of creative,
innovative, mysterious, crafted skills, responsible and simplicity.

Brand as symbol
Symbol of MURMURE is closely related to the logo. ‘M’ represents the word
MURMURE in French which can be understood as a secret talking in dream. The logo
is designed to create a mysterious sense to women and to encourage them to live a
dream life. A simple and straight-forward letter ‘M’ alone with MURMURE thus
become the brand name. With such a design, it aims to become a brand with the
recognisable and easy to identify features. Moreover, the logo also has the meaning of
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sophistication and simplicity indicating less but excellent. With the colour of black and
white aims to transmit a natural feeling to strengthen the power of its design greatly.

Brand as product Brand as organisation

Ready to wear/ Leather goods Private, family owned, sophisticated base

Brand as person Brand as symbol

Creative, innovative, mysterious, crafted MURMURE logo, black and white colour
skills, responsible and simplicity

Figure 1. Brand identity matrix of MURMURE

2.2.2 Brand Identity Prism

Brand identity prism of MURMURE incorporates six different parts, which
respectively are:
Physical: less but excellent, sophisticated, chic and fashionable
Personality: mysterious, attractive, elegant and confident
Culture: Parisian luxury fashion
Self-image: unique, confident with a high-end quality look
Reflection: simplicity and succinct
Relationship: loyalty and trustworthy

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 Physical: less but excellent, s ophisticated, chic Personality: mysterious, attractive, elegant
and fashionable and confident

Culture:
Relationship：
Parisian luxury
Loyalty,
fashion
trustworthy

Reflection: simplicity, succinct

Self-image: unique, confident
with a high-end quality look

Figure 2. Brand identity prism of MURMURE

2.3 Brand Strategy

Value proposition
MURMURE is defined by the value of a high-quality luxury
ready to wear and leather goods for female. Being a Parisian
style fashion brand, MURMURE delivers a chic and
mysterious experience to you. The notion of secret talking in
dream allows MURMURE to listen to and reach the client’s
dream by building confidence with simplistic but excellent and
elegant dressing.

Brand Unique
MURMURE style is with a strong integration between feminist and modern fashion.
Not only products look simply, but also with innovative and fashionable features. The
core of brand concept is ‘less but excellent’ making minimalism a possible to achieve.
Brand Belief System
MURMURE’S belief system is built upon a sophisticated base with a high-end quality
luxury product. By cleaning up all the complex design, MURMURE aims to return to
the essence of fashionable product to build a confident life to females to fight for their
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dreams and live for themselves.

Brand Ritual
MURMURE has offered opportunities to private appointments for new collection. It
also holds exhibition in Shanghai every year during the fashion week, which gives
opportunities for audiences to learn about the latest designs.

Brand Credibility
MURMURE commits to continuously provide high-end quality ready to wear and
leather goods to consumers enabling females to live for themselves, to constantly make
innovations on products so as to build a sustainable future and to consistently respect,
support and sustain employees.

Customer Relationship
MURMURE has devoted itself to improving customer loyalty and trustworthy by
various programmes. Private appointments for visiting the production process are
accepted in MURMURE, which gives clients opportunities to guarantee the materials
used by MURMURE.

Brand Distinctive
MURMURE’ logo ‘MURMURE’ is used to be distinctive symbol of the brand, which
is attached in product labels as well as the product itself which is shown in the following
figure 3.

Figure 3. Brand logo of MURMURE

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3. Brand Positioning
Industrial and competitor analysis helps MURMURE to identify its position in the
current global luxury market and then adjust the business strategies to achieve a
competitive edge.

3.1 Current market analysis

Global luxury market size & market share
Generally, the global luxury goods industry includes the goods of cars, drinks, fashion,
cosmetics, fragrances, watches, jewellery, luggage and handbags. For the past few years,
the global luxury market has continued to grow at a stable level. A report from Deloitte
in 2019 finds that the world top 100 luxury brands produced aggregated revenues of
US$247 billion in the year of 2017 indicating a growth of 10.8%. The performance of
luxury sales by regions are as follows.

Figure 4. Global luxury market performance

(Source: Deloitte 2019)
In 2018, the global luxury market witnessed a growth of 5% reaching a total profit of
€1.2 trillion across most segments (D’Arpizio et al., 2019). Considering the market for
personal luxury goods, it reached a record high of €260 billion showing a 6% growth
in 2018 (D’Arpizio et al., 2019). The personal luxury goods market experienced a great
growth in most regions at the global level. Among all the growth, the most remarkable
one is shoes and jewellery, which gained 7% of each sector followed tightly by
handbags and beauty (D’Arpizio et al., 2019). The report from Statista shows that since
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2012, the global luxury goods have experienced a strong growth from US$ 227,880
million in 2012 to US$318,797 million in 2019, which is shown in the following figure
5.

Figure 5. Global Luxury Goods by Categories

(Source: Statista, 2019)

The global luxury market in the following years is also expected to experience a
consistent growth. According to the report of Bain, this market will experience a
continuous grow at an annual rate of 3% to 5% through 2025 and the personal luxury
goods market will reach €320 billion to €365 billion (D’Arpizio, 2019). The stable
growth indicates a bright future for MURMURE with increased consumers and profits
as both fashion segment and leather goods segment are experiencing a strong growth in
the following years future.

Growth trends of global luxury market

What should be clear is that over the past few years, the global luxury industry has
experienced a great change resulting from a change of macro environments at the global
level. It is estimated that there are three key drivers to lead the future of global luxury
industry, which are respectively online sales and social media campaign,
personalisation and sustainability.

Online sales and social media campaign

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Online sales are increasingly becoming a significant channel for the luxury brand to sell
its products. Since 2017, online sale has started to be a great channel for luxury brands
to sell its products. The data from Statista reveals that in 2017 the online sale accounted
for 8% of the overall sales and when it comes to 2019, it was increased to 10%
indicating a stable growth of 1% annual. It reflects that the fact that the traditional way
for luxury sells will be more diverse in the future. It is also expected that by 2025, the
online sales will be grown to 25% which is far from it is today (D’Arpizio, 2019).

Figure 6. Sales channels for luxury goods

(Source: Statista, 2019)
On the other side, social media campaign is increasingly becoming an important
promotional tool for the luxury brands to communicate with the target audiences. The
integration of social media into the tools of promotion is driven by Millennials and Gen
Z who engaged in more in social media will be the major force for luxury goods in the
following years (Deloitte, 2019). It indicates that luxury brands begin to use social
media platform to interact with the younger consumers and to deliver its brand values
greatly. Among all the brands, Chanel was named as the most influential luxury brand
on social media in 2017. The brand employed various sections of advertising materials
to stimulate the interests of young consumers on Instagram and directly posted the
entire advertisement on YouTube and Facebook (Deloitte, 2019). In this sense, online
advertising is expected to be a major trend to affect the growth of MURMURE.

Personalisation
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For years, luxury brands have been labelled with personalised products. It indicates that
the existence of luxury products not just lies in its functional benefits to consumers, but
rather cultural, social as well as psychological factors behind the product itself. In recent
years, personalisation has been largely spurred growth for digitalisation, which guides
a trend of individualised, seamless brand relationship and personalised services
demands (Chatikavanij, 2019). To respond to such as trend, the luxury brand needs to
shift its old belief from high prices to the value of brand heritage and history (Deloitte,
2019). Moreover, luxury brand needs to become highly personalised to meet the
different demands of individuals.

Sustainability
The change of ecological environments over the past decades has increased the
concerns of new generations to environmental protection. The report from Deloitte
indicates that sustainability will be the key to win new generation’s attention.
Traditionally, the luxury brand has been driven by the concept of excessive
consumerism with high costs, elitism or guilty pleasures. But in the current time, this
concept no longer to be attractive to new generations. As ethics and values are
increasingly becoming an important factor to affect new generations’ buying decisions,
the luxury brand needs to meet their expectations correspondingly (Deloitte, 2019).
Specifically, environment, sustainability, animal welfare, production and labour
practices are also becoming important integral parts for the luxury brand to consider in
the current market (Navdeep and Victoria, 2019). The future of MURTURE is not only
driven by economic growth, but also by the behaviours to deal with ethical issues.

The above analysis of the global luxury market indicates that the global market size of
this market is at a favourable level with a stable growth in the following years. However,
there are also lots of changes, which indicates that the future of MURMURE should
pay more attention to online sales, social media advertising, sustainability and
personalised services and experiences.

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3.2 Competitor analysis
When overviewing the competitive landscape of MURMURE, it finds that the brand
has been in the face of fierce competition globally. Major competitors include several
brands under LVMH such as Louis Vuitton, Dior, Celine, Hermes, Channel, and Prada.
Different brands have their unique features to be differentiated from others regardless
of high prices.

Louis Vuitton who originally started business from the travel bag has a long history and
has already owned their heritage (Nicoletti, 2018). Moreover, the brand has
continuously paid attention to innovation making it a creative feature with unique
designs and materials of its handbags.

Celine has the same product line with MURMURE. Compared to MURMURE, the
ready to wear line of Celine has a longer history. The product features of Celine have
labelled with timeless modernity and contemporary, which has attracted various
audiences around the world (Deloitte, 2018).

Dior’s uniqueness is quite different from previous two brands. Founded in 1940s, Dior
has been famous for the classic staples in women’s wardrobes and kept focus on
innovation on every season (Deloitte, 2018).

Hermes’s business model is the same as MURMURE that both of them is a family
owned luxury brand. Established in 1837, the brand has already developed a remarkable
reputation for its leather goods. It is said that the core advantage of Hermes lies in the
love of craftsmanship (Deloitte, 2018).

Chanel not only focused on personalised experiences, but also paid great attention to
online platform to promote its products, which helps the brand build a good relationship
with new generation consumers (Deloitte, 2019).

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Prada has conducted a great job in promoting business sustainability. As the first luxury
brand to establish ethics of codes, Prada has built a good image to attract the younger
consumers’ attention (Deloitte, 2019).

3.3 Positioning map

Given the fact that MURMURE has been in the face of the fierce competition in the
global luxury industry and the changed environments, the brand will create values
through two aspects, respectively focus on the crafted design of brands and on
sustainability. It indicates that MURMURE will be positioned in the dimensions of
minimalism and craftsmanship to compete with others.

High Minimalism

Low High
Craftsmanship Craftsmanship

Low Minimalism

Figure 7. Positioning Map of MURMURE

In the following years, MURMURE will continue to produce a high-quality product

based on the belief of less with excellent with great focus on craftsmanship. It indicates
that the brand aims to build an image of minimalism and craftsmanship in the global
luxury market.

4. Conclusion
In conclusion, the global luxury industry has changed a lot over the past few decades.
The new generations now shifted the traditional value of excessive consumption in the
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luxury brand to the sustainable development. MURMURE founded in 1960 is a family
owned business to provide ready to wear and leather products. For years, the brand
devoted itself to providing high-end-quality products with sophisticated crafts and core
belief is less but excellent. It indicates that the brand aims to position itself as a luxury
brand that positively take social responsibilities by reducing unnecessary consumption
and pursue sustainable development. By focusing on minimalism, MURMURE
believes that every little effort will make contribution to a better future and every little
product will make contribution to leading females to build their confidence to fight for
their dreams and live for themselves.

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References
Banks, L. (2018) What does luxury mean now? Available at:
http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20181210-what-does-luxury-mean-now [Accessed
31 December 2019]

Chatikavanij, K. (2019) The luxury brands taking personalisation to a new level.

Available at:
https://www.lifestyleasia.com/bk/style/fashion/the-luxury-brands-taking-
personalisation-to-a-new-level/[Accessed 31 December 2019]

D’Arpizio, C., Levato, F., Prete, F., Fabbro, E.D. and De Montgofier, J. (2019)
The Future of Luxury: A Look into Tomorrow to Understand Today. Available at:
https://www.bain.com/insights/luxury-goods-worldwide-market-study-fall-winter-
2018/[Accessed 31 December 2019]

Deloitte. (2018) Global Powers of Luxury Goods 2018.Available at:

https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/mx/Documents/consumer-
business/2018/Global-Power-of-Luxury-Goods-2018.pdf[Accessed 31 December
2019]

Deloitte. (2019) Global Powers of Luxury Goods 2019. Available at:

https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/ar/Documents/Consumer_and_Indust
rial_Products/Global-Powers-of-Luxury-Goods-abril-2019.pdf[Accessed 31
December 2019]

Navdeep, A. and Victoria,W. (2019) ‘Sustainable Luxury Marketing: A synthesis and

research agenda’, International Journal of Management Reviews, pp. 1-22

Nicoletti, S. (2018). Louis Vuitton: The Art of Top Luxury Brand Maintenance (And
Success). Available at:
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https://www.luxurysociety.com/en/articles/2018/05/louis-vuitton-art-top-luxury-
brand-maintenance-and-success/[Accessed 31 December 2019]

Statista. (2019). Luxury Goods. Available at:

https://www.statista.com/outlook/21000000/100/luxury-goods/worldwide#market-
revenue[Accessed 31 December 2019]

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