Warwick Luxury & Innovation Hub: The Evolution of Luxury

Digital and Experiential Luxury for the New Generation

Professors Qing Wang and Giorgio Riello co-founded the Luxury & Innovation Hub in June 2016. We're delighted to welcome you to the second annual Warwick Luxury & Innovation Hub forum, taking place at Warwick Business School's London base.

Digital technologies, including social media, challenge a number of fundamental premises of luxury consumption and luxury brand management. This conference will explore how consumption and brand communication techniques may evolve in line with new generations and a constantly-changing digital context.

Agenda

09:00 Arrival and Registration
09:30 Welcome (Lawrence Young and Qing Wang)
09:45 Track A: Industry Keynote (Karin Haferkorn and David Mattingly) | Track B: Academic Keynote (Professor Robert Li)
10:20 How Digital can support a Luxury Experience (Gina Traboulsi and Gavin MacLennan)
10:50 Morning Coffee Break
11:20 Track A: Paper Presentations (Mike Bastin, Fabio Duma, Benjamin Berghaus) | Track B: Luxury Consumer Trends in the Digital Age (Panel: Dr Yasmin Sekhon, Chris Donnelly, Dr Wided Batat, Giorgio Riello, Jason Smith)
12:20 Lunch
13:50 The Evolution of the Idea of Luxury: Connecting Real Places to Digital Spaces (Joanne Roberts and John Armitage)
14:25 Track A: Paper Presentations (Julia Wolny, Shaun Borstock, Simone Griesser, Ming Lim) | Track B: Luxury Branding in the Digital Age (Panel: Juliet Guo, Martin Edgerton Gill, Jie Li, Simon Petherick, Joanna Bourke, Qing Wang)
15:25 Afternoon Tea Break
15:55 Industry Keynote (Tom Stone)
16:30 Academic Keynote (Mario Paris)
17:00 Closing Remarks followed by Networking

Please note that for catering and security reasons, you must book your place in advance.

Speaker Biographies

John Armitage - Professor of Media Arts, University of Southampton

John Armitage is Professor of Media Arts at Winchester School of Art, University of Southampton. He is co-director of the Winchester Luxury Research Group and is a member of the editorial board of the academic journal Luxury: History, Culture, Consumption. He is currently writing "Luxury and Visual Culture" and, with Joanne Roberts and Jonathan Faiers, co-editing "The Luxury Reader". John is also the co-editor (with Joanne Roberts), of "Critical Luxury Studies: Art, Design, Media" and "The Spirit of Luxury", a special issue of the academic journal Cultural Politics. His main research interests are in luxury culture and luxurious forms of consumption, luxury and visuality, luxury and art, photography, cinema, television, social media and new media. John’s books and articles have been translated into Dutch, German, Korean, Mandarin, and Spanish.

Wided Batat - Senior Teaching Fellow, University of Southampton

Wided Batat is an Associate Professor of Marketing at the University of Lyon (France), and international expert in customer experience and digital marketing in the luxury sector. She is also the Managing Director of B&C Consulting Group, specialising in disruptive marketing, consumer experience and luxury, youth cultures, digital transformation, customer experience, innovative market research and consumer insights. Dr. Batat’s research has featured in numerous academic journals, and she is a regular reviewer for international peer-reviewed journals. Dr. Batat has authored several books in French and English on customer experience in the luxury sector and consumer behaviour in the digital era.

Joanna Bourke - Business Reporter, Evening Standard

Joanna Bourke is a business reporter at the London Evening Standard, working on the City desk and frequently writing for the home news section too. She specialises in property and luxury goods, covering financial results and trend stories, as well as finding scoops and writing investigations. She has recently written profile interviews with the chief executives of Mulberry and Jimmy Choo.
Prior to joining the newspaper in 2015, London-born Joanna was a senior reporter at Estates Gazette magazine. She has a degree in English Literature from Queen Mary, University of London.

Chris Donnelly - Founder and Managing Director, Verb Brands

Chris Donnelly is the Founder of Verb, an agency based in Shoreditch that specialises in building websites, mobile applications and creating digital marketing strategies for luxury brands. Before starting the company, Chris gained experience in London, Washington DC, and New York, in startups, journalism and venture development. Operating across four main industries (fashion, hospitality, travel and lifestyle), Chris has led large scale digital projects for international brands such as Sunseeker, Daylesford, Bamford and Larsson & Jennings, delivering marketing leading digital propositions. Chris regularly writes, speaks and consults on website optimisation, digital marketing and the evolution of the luxury digital market. Chris graduated from the University of Warwick in 2012 with a degree in Economics and Politics, and has since grown Verb into one of the most recognised luxury digital agencies in the UK.

Martin Edgerton Gill - Founder, Edgerton Park Gin

Starting his career at an advertising agency, Martin then became Marketing Director at Brooke Bond teas. He persuaded the conservative board that tea bags were the future, and the subsequent launch of PG tips was a huge success, taking the company from 30% to 40% of a static market and increasing profits by 400%. In 1972, Gill began his life as an entrepreneur, growing an almost defunct London Tea & Produce Co globally until it was sold in 1977, making him a millionaire. A succession of innovative luxury businesses followed: The London Perfume Company, The London Herb & Spice Company, The London Gin Company, and Edgerton London Gin. Edgerton London Gin, founded six years ago, has grown 40% in the last year and now sells in over 30 countries. Though in his late seventies, Martin is a director of five companies and still works a sixty hour week, believing that the key to success is delegation and a diverse team. He recognises that luck plays a big part too.

Juliet Guo - Founder, Sandriver

Juliet is a native of the Alashan Plateau, from which 70% of the world’s cashmere originates. Her training in both Chinese and German companies enabled her to become a specialist in cashmere production. In 2002, Juliet founded her company on the outskirts of Shanghai and quickly grew her international luxury client base, including Armani, Calvin Klein, and Max Mara. She founded the Sandriver brand in 2007, which integrates every stage of the production process. Sandriver has expanded at an incredible pace over the past decade and now owns eleven shops worldwide. Juliet's dream is for cashmere producers from her home country, Inner Mongolia, to be proud of the scarves, clothes and accessories she shows and sells to the entire world.

Karin Haferkorn - Regional Marketing and PR Director Middle East, Africa & Latin America, McLaren Automotive Ltd

Karin has over 15 years of experience in the automotive industry. Following two years with Audi in e-business and Sales for China in Germany, Regional Development in Singapore, as well as Sales & Marketing in the United Arab Emirates, she headed up the PR department for Audi in the Middle East for over eight years. She was in charge of Maserati’s PR and Social Media for the Middle East, India & Africa region, as well as South East Asia & Pacific for three years before moving to McLaren. She completed her Warwick MBA in 2015 with a thesis titled “Sustainability in Luxury Markets – The case of Maserati” earning a Distinction overall.

Professor Jie Li - Director of the Luxury Brand Research Centre, Shanghai Jiaotong University

Professor Jie Li was a key member of founding team for two prestigious business schools in China: CEIBS (1995) and CKGSB (2002). In 2010, Professor Li established the Center for Luxury Brand Research Shanghai Jiaotong University, and been serving as Director of Luxury Brand Research Center, Executive Director of Brand Research Center, since. Dr. Jie Li currently serves as co-founder, executive vice chairman and secretary-general of China Association for Consumer Behavior Research, expert member of Shanghai Mayoral Quality Award, Shanghai Municipal Quality Gold Award and Shanghai Government Brand Promotion Center. He is a visiting professor at Columbia Business School, and has given luxury-brand research seminars at many top-tier global business schools. He also serves as a brand-strategy consultant to many household names including Maserati, Siemens, Morgen Stanley Huaxin Funds, Hermès, and Giorgio Armani.

Professor Xiang (Robert) Li - Temple University

Professor Xiang (Robert) Li is Washburn Senior Research Fellow and Director of the US-Asia Center for Tourism and Hospitality Research at Temple University. Prof. Li’s research mainly focuses on destination marketing and tourist behaviour, with special emphasis on international destination branding, customer loyalty, and tourism in Asia. Authoring over 150 scientific publications, Prof. Li is consistently listed among the world’s top 40 most cited tourism scholars with his academic winning a number of awards. His research has also featured in media outlets such as New York Times, Time, and China Daily. Prof. Li's clients include the China National Tourism Administration (CNTA), the United States Travel Association (UST), Walt Disney Parks and Resorts and Universal Studio Hollywood. A native of Nanjing (China), Prof. Li earned his Ph.D. in Recreation, Park, and Tourism Science from Texas A&M University.

Gavin MacLennan - General Manager, Lateral City Apartments

With over 22 years’ hospitality experience, Gavin started his career working through an enviable list of Scotland’s leading five-star hotels including, Turnberry, Gleneagles and The Balmoral. He went on to spend 12 years in senior positions at Starwood Hotels & Resorts as Associate Director for Le Méridien and W Hotels in EAME, and as Global Brand Director for Le Méridien and Westin, based in New York. In 2015 Gavin returned to Edinburgh to join Lateral City Apartments as General Manager across two high-end properties. These multi-award winning serviced apartments offer bespoke design, luxury surroundings and an individual portfolio of accommodation, ranging from bijoux studios to stunning 3-bedroom penthouses.

David Mattingly - Global Digital Manager, McLaren Automotive Ltd

David has over ten years' experience in the leadership of digital channels. He started his career in a start-up, building the UK’s first comparison website for wine and Champagne, growing the business to over 1 million visitors a month. His next move was to Vertu as Global Head of Digital, overseeing the rollout of ecommerce in 27 countries - including China - and winning a W3 Gold Award in the process. David is now Global Digital Manager for McLaren where he drives digital strategy and adoption of new technologies across the luxury automotive customer journey.

Professor Mario Paris - Architect and Urban Planner, Politecnico di Milano

Mario is a Professor and Architect at Politecnico di Milano, and holds a PhD in Urban and Regional Planning from the Universidad de Valladolid. He has worked with Laboratorio Urb&Com as researcher and consultant since 2006, collaborating with colleagues internationally. Mario is editor of ‘Making Prestigious Places: how luxury influences the transformation of cities’ and authored ‘Urbanistica dei superluoghi’. He is member of the Scientific Board of the scientific journal Ciudades (published in Spanish), and has held the PoliMI International Fellowship in DAStU since 2016. Mario studies the impacts of the presence of clusters of central functions (and/or superplaces) at urban and regional scale, and the reaction of post-metropolitan territories. Through the production of a specific spatial knowledge, he points out the role of retail and tertiary in contemporary territorial patterns.

Simon Petherick - Managing Director, House of Britannia

Simon read Modern History at Merton College, Oxford. Following a period working in the Government’s Central Office of Information on national and international campaigns, he formed his own marketing company in 1994. Simon went on to win a five-year marketing contract with the Royal Parks Agency, managing all revenue-generating activities in Hyde Park and other London Royal Parks. In 2001, his company acquired Her Majesty the Queen’s dressmaker, Hardy Amies Limited, and Simon became Managing Director in the Savile Row house. Mr Petherick has extensive first-hand experience and knowledge of the British luxury goods sector, and a strong track record in the negotiation of acquisitions.

Giorgio Riello - Professor of History and Culture, University of Warwick

Giorgio is the author of A Foot in the Past (OUP 2006) and Cotton: The Fabric that Made the Modern World (CUP 2013). In 2011 he was awarded the prestigious Philip Leverhulme Prize. He has been a visiting fellow at Stanford University, and The National University of Australia, and a visiting professor at The European University Institute, and Columbia University. Prof Riello's recent book Luxury: A Rich History (co-authored with Peter McNeil) was published by Oxford University Press in 2016.

Joanne Roberts - Professor in Arts and Cultural Management, University of Southampton

Joanne Roberts is Professor in Arts and Cultural Management and Director of the Winchester Luxury Research Group at Winchester School of Art, University of Southampton. Her research interests include innovation, creativity and luxury. Joanne has published articles in a wide range of international journals, and she has authored and edited a number of books. Her latest solo-authored book is A Very Short, Fairly Interesting and Reasonably Cheap Book about Knowledge Management (Sage, 2015). Additionally, she is the co-editor (with John Armitage) of "Critical Luxury Studies: Art, Design, Media" and "The Spirit of Luxury", a special issue of the journal Cultural Politics . Joanne is a member of the editorial board of the journal Luxury: History, Culture, Consumption.

Yasmin Sekhon - Associate Professor, University of Southampton

Dr Yasmin Sekhon Dhillon is an Associate Professor at Winchester School of Art at the University of Southampton. Currently Yasmin is the Director of PG Programmes for the school, overseeing the management of the masters courses offered across the school. Yasmin is also an active researcher focusing on luxury consumption, culture and identity. Her most recent work explores the meaning of luxury to children, having successfully won a bid to explore consumption, luxury and children from a cross cultural perspective, Yasmin undertook this research in a cross cultural context to fully understand consumption decisions made by children across different cultures in relation to well-being and happiness. In addition she also focuses on consumption and identity amongst immigrant communities.

Jason Smith - Director for Western Europe, Exponea

Jason Smith is a Strategic Director with over 20 years’ experience, having worked for some of the world’s leading companies (Facebook, Google, Groupon etc.) and new disruptive data technology start-ups both in Europe & the United States. Jason has a proven track record in turnarounds, in both small private companies and divisions of larger companies, and has created major growth strategies using new market penetration, M&A, and industry roll-ups. His current focus is on how data technologies will revolutionise digital markets in Fashion, Luxury and Travel.

Tom Stone - Brand Business Leader, L’Oréal Men Expert + Sublime Bronze

Tom is an award-winning marketeer currently managing the team responsible for the master brand portfolio of L'Oreal Men Expert (shower, deodorants, gifting and skin) in the UK & Ireland. In his client-side experience, Tom has worked in both global and local marketing brand roles across FMCG categories, managing multiple NPD projects to market by inspiring teams to deliver outstanding business results. Agency-side, he worked with Unilever, Arla Foods and Reckitt Benckiser, as well as telecommunication giants O2, and their start-up sister firm giffgaff. He now runs a Marketing consultancy for start-ups and SMEs called Re:Act Marketing. In more recent years, he has both lectured and spoken to a variety of audiences on a wide range of Marketing topics and chaired the last Beauty Conference.

Gina Traboulsi - Director, FlamingoRose

A Warwick graduate who started her career working for Christie’s auction house, Gina’s art world experience was invaluable in co-founding creative agency, FlamingoRose, in 2010. With luxury at its core, FlamingoRose offers a complementary portfolio of services, from marketing strategy and content creation to event production and copywriting, each styled around a client’s unique demands. With significant experience across a broad range of sectors, including travel where clients range from global hotel brands including Sheraton, St. Regis and The Luxury Collection, to independent companies such as, Small Luxury Hotels of the World and Oostwegel Collection.

Qing Wang - Professor of Marketing and Innovation, University of Warwick

Qing has held visiting professor positions at Duke University, Tsinghua University, INSEAD and Sun Yat-Sen University. She was awarded a higher doctorate (DSc.) by the University of Warwick in 2014 for her outstanding contribution to social sciences research. Prof Wang has consulted for companies in the UK, US and China, and acts as an expert advisor and board member for several technology and luxury companies. She was a finalist in the Asia Professional Awards in the UK in 2015, and holds the position of Associate Editor for Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing.

Professor Lawrence Young - Academic Vice-President, University of Warwick

Lawrence Young is internationally recognised for his work on the role of virus infection, and has published over 230 research papers in scientific journals. He is listed amongst the World’s most cited scientists according to the ISI, holds an adjunct Professorship at Monash University and a Visiting Professorship at Sun Yat-sen University (China). Lawrence was appointed as a Pro-Vice Chancellor at the University of Warwick in January 2013, with responsibility for strategic planning and resources. He recently became Vice-President, encompassing his existing responsibilities while highlighting his leadership in the University’s engagement activity in China and Hong Kong.

Professor Mingyang Yu - Secretary General, Antai Collage of SJTU

Professor Mingyang Yu is Secretary General of Antai College of Economics & Management, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Dean of China Enterprise Development Research Institute, Executive Vice President and Academic Committee Director of China Public Relations Association, Chairman of Shanghai Institute of Behavioral Science. Prof Yu has conducted research work for more than 30 years since his first published paper on public relations in 1985. He is one of the first generation scholars who studied publish relations and published paper in leading journals including Public Relations Review. He has published over 100 papers and over 30 monographs and textbooks.

The following guest speakers will be presenting papers at this conference:

Mike Bastin - Senior Teaching Fellow, University of Southampton

Benjamin Berghaus - Head of the Competence Center for Luxury Management, University of St. Gallen

Shaun Borstock - Associate Dean & Head Of Design And Innovation School of Creative Arts, University of Hertfordshire

Fabio Duma - Head Luxury & Reputation Management, School of Management and Law, Zurich University of Applied Sciences

Simone Griesser - Doctoral Candidate, Warwick Business School, University of Warwick

Ming Lim - Associate Professor, Management School, University of Liverpool

Julia Wolny - Principal Fellow in Marketing and Experience Design, University of Southampton

For any questions about this event, please contact events@wbs.ac.uk

Please note that this event is fully booked and we can no longer accommodate any requests for places. You'll be able to follow the conference via the hashtag #LiH2017 or via the live blog here.