Rattibha

Zara is an affordable non-luxury brand,
but it positions its stores next to luxury brands like Gucci, Armani, and Louis Vuitton.
WHY? To disguise itself as one of them by using a psychological trick.
THREAD: How Zara tricks you into thinking that it’s a luxury clothing brand🧵

Zara does not spend a dime on conventional advertising.
Instead, it pays very high rent to position its stores next to iconic luxury brands and takes advantage of their popularity to create a halo effect.

The halo effect uses our collective biases as data points to create an illusion.
What BIASES & what ILLUSION are we talking about?

Well, let’s say you buy a house in a posh locality.
People who will pass by that property will assume that
— you must be well-educated, rich, and doing something right in your life.

The biases are the assumptions we create around a certain brand, person, or celebrity based on one trait and the illusion is the overall impression we have
— leading to a high or low perceived value.

For example, if you like an actor,
you might unconsciously assume they are also kind, intelligent and good-hearted,
even though you might not have a direct experience with any of those traits.

In the case of Zara, when you see their store next to a luxury brand, you are made to feel that Zara also maintains that exclusivity.
They make a lot of effort to build that persona through their store design.
And thus, invest heavily in the stores around the globe, like Apple.

But the question still remains half answered
— if ZARA is just a cheap imitation of luxurious brands, then why do people perceive ZARA to be expensive?
It’s because your level of perception defines what you find expensive and premium.

In comparison to what is actually expensive and premium.
See, a lot of people believe that Team India loses ICC tournaments because the players don’t care much as they are multimillionaires.

That’s because most people work for money and, while there’s nothing wrong with that, from their perception, even the cricketers have the same drive.
When in reality, a cricketer’s currency is performance.

For people who can’t afford a 3,000 rupee shirt, it is expensive and screams luxury,
but the actual luxury is beyond perception.
Even iPhone is perceived as a luxury because it’s out of reach, but the thing is — it’s not out of sight.

You can easily buy it after stretching a little, if that’s what you want.
But, again, the actual luxury is out of sight for most people.
Luxury cars are so expensive that:

When real luxury is out of reach, lower perceived items are also made into status symbols.
Fortuner is a very normal 40 lakh car. It’s expensive for most people, but it’s not luxury.
Audi is also premium, but not luxury. Luxury cars would be Rolls-Royce, Lamborghini, etc.

Maybe you own a car worth 12 lakh and want to upgrade.
But how many of you can directly upgrade to Rolls-Royce?
Similarly, ZARA is the Fortuner of clothing brands. In clothing, most people don’t even know what real luxury brands are.

ZARA mass produces cheap imitations of high value & high standard.
It is an extremely intelligent affordable brand that has nailed the game of making itself be perceived as a luxury brand with,
— latest designs, decent quality, and affordable pricing.