This article was originally published on CB News as "Cécile Berger (dentsu): “For Luxury, Culture Has Become a New Form of Capital”.
In 2025, luxury advertising is being reshaped by cultural relevance, media innovation, and immersive brand experiences, as Cécile Berger, Global Client President, dentsu, sits down with CB News to explain how leading luxury brands are using premium environments, advanced targeting, and experiential storytelling to drive long-term brand value in the algorithmic era.
CB News: What criteria guide luxury brands in their media choices today? Are they different from those of other advertisers?
Cécile Berger:
The absolute priority for luxury brands remains brand safety. This isn’t new, but it is fundamental: these brands must operate in controlled, premium, aspirational environments. More than in any other sector, context contributes directly to value.
The second challenge is desirability. Major luxury houses don’t really struggle with awareness—they seek instead to nurture their image, their attractiveness, what I call “brand heat.” They are drawn to anything that can increase enhance the symbolic value of the brand.
Today, that also means the ability to connect with new audiences, which are increasingly organized around communities. We live in an algorithmic era where cultural relevance is as important as visibility. For luxury, culture has become a new form of capital: the new share of voice is the share of culture. Identifying the right cultural touchpoints is essential. Our analyses using Global Web Index show that culturally and community-inspired communications generate more than a 10% uplift in advertising preference among high-value customers.
Finally, luxury houses seek to deliver true brand experiences—IRL, through event-based outdoor formats, digital out-of-home, and more immersive video formats. Luxury is never satisfied with just Maisons consistently aim for more than visibility: it must create emotion through exceptional experiences.
CB News: Which evolutions or innovations in outdoor advertising seem the most interesting to you?
Cécile Berger:
Out-of-home is probably the medium that has transformed the most. It now goes far beyond simple visibility to deliver engagement, memorability, and immersive experiences—sometimes even multisensory ones, using scent (highly relevant for beauty and spirits) or texture.
Augmented reality, interactive displays, and immersive technologies significantly boost attention, a key metric for luxury. We see more than a 15% increase in memorization compared to classic static formats.
Brands are also investing in pop-up stores, ephemeral exhibitions, and takeovers of iconic venues. These not only create unique experiences but also feed PR and community building.
And the battle of very large-format canvases—event-scale installations—is intensifying. These executions showcase status, brand power, aesthetic impact, and exclusivity. Within the luxury ecosystem, airports and travel retail also remain strategically vital.
CB News: And what about print?
Cécile Berger:
Print The press remains a natural refined showcase for luxury houses—both in print and digital formats. High-value audiences continue to be heavy consumers of press. We do not foresee a significant decline in investment in this medium, at least through the end of in 2025.
Innovation is also very present here: takeovers, full-page and full-title wraps, hybrid creative formats blending editorial and advertising, premium editorial objects… The press is reinventing its formats to remain a sophisticated territory of expression.
CB News: What evolutions are you seeing in television?
Cécile Berger:
Today we speak less about “television” and more about a global video strategy, but linear TV still plays a key role during major key moments—launches, holidays, gifting periods, cultural or major sporting events. Luxury brands are increasingly aligning themselves with these events.
The most significant shift is micro-targeting through segmented TV. For brands seeking to minimize waste and reach high-value audiences, it’s a crucial lever. And with AI, we’re entering a new era—emotional and contextual targeting, fully aligned with luxury’s DNA.
Luxury brands are also exploring new narrative formats: documentaries, deep integrations into series and films—from Barbie to Emily in Paris—or narrative extensions built in collaboration with studios. Video is becoming a space for immersive storytelling.
CB News: In digital, which formats are currently gaining traction?
Cécile Berger:
First, there’s an underestimated revolution: search is no longer just a performance tool; it now enables a true brand experience. With social commerce, social search, and retail search, the purchase journey is no longer linear—it is continuous and circular, fed by constant interactions across platforms.
With AI, search becomes conversational—and therefore more emotional. Luxury houses are beginning to use it to tell their story, highlight their craftsmanship, and express their heritage. It’s a space for storytelling, not just conversion.
Social search—especially on TikTok and Instagram—strongly influences Gen Z. It is becoming a major driver of desirability. Commerce is no longer the end of the journey: it is everywhere. Social commerce becomes a cultural stage where desirability, exclusivity, inspiration, and conversion converge.
The new generation of video formats combines interactivity, personalization (often AI-powered), shoppability, and immersion—always mobile-first and aligned with algorithmic logic. These formats allow brands to merge creative craft, aesthetic excellence, and immersive technologies: virtual AR try-ons, VIP live shopping… Video becomes both a branding and sales lever.
CB News: Has luxury brand targeting evolved?
Cécile Berger:
Yes, profoundly. Historically focused on demographic criteria and premium environments, luxury targeting has been reshaped by privacy regulations and technological evolution.
The biggest shift is toward sophisticated contextual targeting—thanks to semantic analysis and AI, which can understand tone, meaning, and nuance. This ensures both relevance and brand safety.
Another key lever is integrating CRM data, especially effective in paid social, enabling fine personalization without diluting exclusivity.
CB News: And what about Retail Data?
Cécile Berger:
Retail data—based on signals of purchase and intent—is very useful for identifying key customer moments. But it cannot be used in isolation: it must be cross-referenced with search signals and social signals to create a complete view.
The goal is to power a fluid omnichannel experience, balancing premium recommendations, storytelling, and relational relevance. Everything is converging toward the paradigm of “infinite content, infinite social, infinite commerce.” Content is everywhere, commerce is everywhere, and everything becomes possible.
