Experience without meaning: Is it worth brands losing their soul?

Luxury now splits into two markets: experiences built around products, and experiences that are the product itself. The latter is booming — hospitality and travel capture the imagination and drive desire. But the former has weakened. Too often, experiences are staged around products that have lost their excellence in craftsmanship and quality. What was once the soul of luxury risks being replaced by widely accessible experiences, leaving behind a hollow shell of brand equity and diluting the very aura that made these brands desirable. Beauty once served as the natural entryway into luxury. For decades, a $35 lipstick was the first step into this world. A perfume at $40 or $50 could be both a ritual and a decorative object in the home, a small piece of a maison you could carry with you, or a gift. These were powerful gestures. They felt meaningful. They created desire. Now, this entry point has shifted. Instead of lipstick, it is often a cappuccino with a logo foamed on top — a branded coffee shop promising access for the price of branded coffee or cake. When Dior first opened Dior des Lices in Saint-Tropez in 2010, it felt rare and magical. But now, when every pop-up has a café and every café has a logo, the magic fades. It raises the question, is this truly the right way to welcome someone into the world of luxury? The technology parallel When I was head of innovation at Chanel in 2020, the obsession was technology for technology’s sake. One of the clearest examples was the rollout of customer relationship management (CRM) and client communication apps inside boutiques. The theory was that clients would adopt these branded apps to communicate with their fashion advisors, revolutionizing service and centralizing all data. The reality was very different. As one fashion advisor told me, “My client calls me at 11:30 p.m. to ask what to wear tomorrow. Do you think I’ll tell her to download an app she doesn’t even have?” It was the perfect illustration of technology adding friction instead of intimacy. Advisors were held accountable to KPIs on platforms that no client used. The apps did nothing to improve the boutique experience or strengthen relationships. Today, we are seeing the same phenomenon with experiences. The replication problem For decades, luxury was defined by inaccessibility. It was not just essence; it was logistics. Before Henry Racamier took the reins at Louis Vuitton in 1977, Vuitton had only two stores, in Paris and Nice. In less than 50 years, the maison exploded across the globe, built international retail footprints, and mastered control over distribution and image. Luxury expanded, but the aura of inaccessibility remained intact. This created a challenge: how to break the ice with aspirational audiences, especially younger ones. The first response was classic marketing — broader ranges, more accessible entry price points, impulse products, perfumes, and beauty lines. Beauty became the bridge. Lipstick and perfume were legitimate ways in, gestures that carried meaning. Then came activations. Comme des Garçons opened its Guerrilla Store in Berlin in 2004. Chanel launched the Mobile Art Pavilion in Hong Kong in 2008, designed by Zaha Hadid to celebrate the 2.55 handbag. Louis Vuitton redesigned the interior of its Omotesando Chapter store in Japan in 2009, centered on its capsule collection with Takashi Murakami. Each of these projects was rare, ambitious, and deeply rooted in the DNA of the maison. More than marketing stunts, they were cultural statements. The next turning point came when Dior launched its Dioriviera beach collection with pop-ups starting in 2018. A private beach, fully decorated with Dior codes, became the stage for a dedicated summer capsule. For the first time, lifestyle experience became a true 360-degree activation. The capsule aligned, the clientele aligned, and the brand codes were alive in space. The link made sense. But success attracts imitation. And imitation dilutes. Soon, other brands raced to follow their clients to holiday spots. Agencies moved in, pre-negotiating “exclusive” rights with fashionable venues across Saint-Tropez, Cannes, and Monaco. Then they sent the same deck to a long list of brands. Whoever signed would see their logos applied to towels, parasols, and menus. The agency charged production and development fees. Risk was low. Margins were high. After Covid-19, replication turned into an avalanche. Revenge spending boosted appetite. Premium brands tried to elevate themselves by copying luxury codes. Some agencies industrialized the model, and suddenly, every beach and bar could become a branded venue. Three drivers fueled this: brands chasing Gen Z with experiences; a boom in “elevation strategies” after Covid-19, where brands borrowed luxury signals to move upmarket; and agencies seizing low-hanging fruit by standardizing experiences into ready-to-sell packages. This is where experience for experience’s sake began to eat away at meaning, and the ritual became hollow. The meaning filter Experience without meaning harms the brand. Clients eager to “join the club” may not resemble the core clientele at all. The aspirational atmosphere collapses when the wrong crowd dominates the venue. Service often falls below expectations because hospitality is a craft that requires full-time care. A logo on a cappuccino is not enough to spark awe. Compare that with experiences filtered through meaning: Hermès setting up Le Monde d'Hermès kiosks in Côte d’Azur cities, inviting discovery through playful games and DIY tied back to its magazine; Chanel’s Monaco exhibition, coinciding with the reopening of La Pausa, Mademoiselle’s villa; and Ralph Lauren expanding the Teddy Bear universe, where cafés and homeware feel like organic extensions of a lifestyle. These activations carry coherence, artistry, and intention. They surprise. They last. Experience is not the goal — meaning is. Experiences must begin with the product, be anchored in the brand’s DNA, and provoke genuine awe. Without that, they create fatigue, not desire. How to build meaningful experiences The temptation to create experiences is everywhere. They generate buzz, content, and short-term hype. But brands need to ask: at what cost? The danger is that the pursuit of immediate relevance undermines long-term equity. Experience for experience’s sake may look like success in the moment, but it creates erosion over time. Decision-makers need a new filter. Call it the meaning filter. Before green-lighting an activation, ask yourself: Does this begin with the product? No activation can cover for a weak product. Experiences should extend the product story, not distract from it. Is it rooted in DNA? Does it express craftsmanship, artistry, history, muses, or passion points connected to the maison? Or is it just decoration? Who does it bring in? Is this attracting true aspirational clients or just generating crowds and photos with no loyalty? Not every person on a branded sunbed is a future client. Does it provoke awe? In an era of AI and standardized strategies, clients crave surprise. Not Instagrammable backdrops, but moments of visceral wonder that cut through and stay with you. Emotional reality increasingly outweighs empirical reality. Experiences with resonance can reshape how a client perceives reality itself. That is the level of impact worth aiming for. And even if an activation does attract the right client, the work does not stop there. Are there details in place to retain that client? Is their data captured and built into the CRM system? Too often I see activations where executives were swept up in excitement, signed off on an idea, and forgot about the crucial step of building the infrastructure behind it. The meaning filter is essential. It guarantees relevance, but it must live inside an ecosystem where insights and data are captured, organized, and measured. That means starting with a clear brief. Without one, even the most beautiful activation risks becoming nothing more than a costly moment that vanishes after the Instagram posts fade. Luxury is going through a turbulent period. The industry is under pressure, and brands are uncertain about how to appeal to audiences whose expectations are evolving rapidly. When those expectations are not met, clients simply move on. This raises a crucial question: is experience for your brand a lever that builds equity and loyalty, or is it merely a cost? Because in the end, experience for experience’s sake is not strategy. Experience with meaning is. And the difference will decide who thrives and who fades in this next chapter of luxury. Carlotta Rodben is a luxury innovation specialist and author of “Beyond Luxury: The Promise of Emotion.” She previously led innovation at Chanel and now advises luxury brands on strategy and transformation.

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Experience without meaning: Is it worth brands losing their soul?