In this exclusive conversation led by Alexander Chetchikov, President of the World Luxury Chamber of Commerce, Dr Martina Olbert, Visionary Thinker, Speaker, Luxury Meaning Expert, and Founder and CEO of Meaning Global – A Visionary Strategy Company, shares her expertise in guiding luxury brands to reimagination and new horizons. With a double background in social sciences and humanistic studies, and brand and business strategy, she offers a unique high-low perspective that is both groundbreakingly futuristic and down-to-earth applicable in practical strategies for the luxury industry.
Alexander Chetchikov: In your strategy and advisory career, you have spoken and written extensively about the relationship between meaning and luxury. Can you tell us more about the role of meaning in luxury?
Martina Olbert: I first started writing and speaking about the critical role of meaning in 2013, when the entire global brand industry was still jumping on the bandwagon of purpose. Luckily, we seem to be venturing out of purpose into meaning now, as the world is catching up with our forgotten and neglected humanity, which ‘meaning’ is woven into.
Luxury itself, by default, is all about the excess of symbolic value over the use value of its goods and services. What is the difference between the use value of a handbag that you buy at the street market for $20 and a luxury Hermès bag that, in rare collector auctions, goes up to $500,000 or even the astonishing $10 million for the original Birkin bag? There is none. Both bags are made to hold things we put into them. So, what justifies the enormous inflation of the market price? Its desirability. And what drives its desirability? Meaning. The difference is all meaning. Luxury is all about meaning. In fact, there is no luxury without meaning. And if we invest in luxury brands and goods precisely for their symbolic value, then meaning itself has become the use value of luxury brands. Meaning is what we buy, and not the goods. And so, to maximize luxury value, we must maximize luxury’s meaning.
Ten years ago, I saw in the brand and marketing strategy industry how little inherent value there was in my work for the clients and how much focus was being given disproportionately to the form and aesthetics. I wanted to make a distinction between the innate value of brands, what the customers were actually buying and investing into (their own projected value, needs, wants and desires, which is the meaning of brands) versus the aesthetic side of brands (branding). Hence, I founded Meaning Global to help the industry leaders steer brands more towards the inherent value instead of wrapping their brands in a nice, presentable package. I wanted to make a statement for the utmost necessity of meaning in the industry, and so I chose luxury as a metaphor where I could demonstrate this primary symbolic value and wrote a study called The Luxury Report: Redefining The Future Meaning Of Luxury.
By the twist of fate, however, this has made me a key opinion leader on the future of luxury because I was able to clearly see, articulate, and distill down the key problems in the luxury industry as well as offer the key solutions when the thoughts, feelings, and intuitions were still only floating around. This has accidentally made me one of the leading voices on the future of luxury because there is no future of luxury without symbolic meaning.
AC: What is the next frontier for the luxury industry? We have moved from the luxury product to experience. What lies beyond luxury experiences?
MO: Us. We do. Coming back to our innate humanity, serving those deep intrinsic as well as higher human needs that connect us to our soul and allow us to become more of ourselves, to become alive. What is beyond luxury experiences? Transcendental luxury. The kind of luxury that seamlessly merges the physical world of material luxury with something greater and allows us to feel, sense, and be fully present in the moment to transform and transcend to become more connected to who we truly are.
True luxury is life well-lived. True luxury is symbolic, but in that symbolic value, it provides a transcendental experience that becomes real. This is what lies ahead for the luxury brands – being able to craft proprietary symbolic universes around brands, products, services, spaces, experiences, and innovations that remind us of who we truly are and make us feel alive. Those who can deliver this unique meaning to us will lead the evolution of luxury forward. Those who don’t will soon copy those who do. It’s inevitable.
Luxury, when done to perfection, has the unique ability to transcend space and time and transport people someplace else, not just physically, sensually, but psychologically, emotionally, spiritually, because it is the most abstract of all industries. This is why meaning is the most important for luxury. This is where the value and meaning of luxury come from: its transcendence. Luxury is not shallow, yet it’s not highbrow either; it illuminates humanity. Luxury pairs naturally with beauty and morality through elevated aesthetics and higher values. This is the true heritage of luxury: awakening humanity. Luxury is philosophical, sensual, sensory, and intellectual as much as it is a transactional relationship. It is a very complex symbol that justifies its high price.
Luxury is moving from the tangible to the intangible, and I’ll explain more to your members about how this dynamic works and how luxury brand owners and operators can achieve this transcendence in our planned boutique event on November 5, 2025.
AC: In your latest fascinating in-depth study on the future of brands, business, capitalism, the global consumer landscape, and how the dynamic of the brand-consumer relationship is changing, you explored the new realm of Humanistic Capitalism. Can you explain what drives it and what this means for luxury?
MO: It was an interesting coincidence because around the same time when I published Reimagining Consumerism As A Force For Good, I saw that Brunello Cuccinelli published his manifesto on Humanistic Capitalism. So, this need for a new paradigm of value based on essence and humanity has been percolating in our public discourse since 2021. The basic premise is that we need to move from consumerist capitalism towards humanistic capitalism, where what we produce and how we produce it serves people and elevates their humanity and well-being, and not exploits them and uses them as consumers to serve the corporate needs while their own lives deteriorate. Consumption, for it to be meaningful, must serve and elevate human well-being; otherwise, it’s not only unsustainable but immoral.
Luxury itself is about sustainability, both because of its artisan craftsmanship, which is made to last, and its higher aesthetic values, which make it timeless, effortless, elegant, and therefore increase its longevity. What we aspire to now is shifting from brand aspiration – reaching for an unsustainable lifestyle based on a dream that was sold to us to desire, to human well-being – what is real and achievable to us that makes us feel more centered, connected, and satisfied. We are experiencing a 180° shift from brands to people, which is a macro trend in the very foundational principle of our global economy that will redefine the entire consumer and capitalism landscape of the 21st century.
AC: You’ve also written about the future of value, the meaning economy, and the new luxury. Can you tell us about the new luxury and what it is?
MO: Of course, the New Luxury isn’t just new and different things that we now call luxury; it is a new paradigm altogether. A different level of human consciousness. It’s a paradigm where the true value of luxury is about us and not it. It is about reconnecting us with our innate humanity, sensuality, beauty, spirit, the feeling of aliveness, rather than acquiring material goods that we desire and make us feel something in the moment, but the feeling quickly evaporates. Or we need a mediator for our feelings to make it last – someone to impress, who will validate us or envy us, see us as esteemed, in a better light, instead of feeling that way about ourselves without needing another to facilitate that feeling for us. In such a relationship with luxury, we are only borrowing meaning from another’s perception of us, instead of feeling it on the inside. That is unsustainable. The new luxury is about humanity, and it brings us back to ourselves.
The meaning economy is redefining what people value. We are moving from ownership to freedom and experiences, from status to innate meaning, from flashy opulence to the quieter forms of inner satisfaction and fulfillment, from consumption to creation, from buying to being conscious and present with ourselves, one another, and the world. This fundamental human awakening that we are in the midst of right now is powerfully transforming what we value, and therefore, what luxury is and what we see as luxury to us today.
Time, space, freedom, peace, serenity, sensuality, belonging, human touch, deep meaningful experiences, spirituality and transcendence, reconnecting to who we truly are – that is the New Luxury. And ultimately – feeling alive – the best and biggest luxury experience of all. Which, undoubtedly, should not be a luxury; it should be the norm. But unfortunately, in a society we’ve created around alienating humans to their very senses, their souls, and their meaning, what should be normal is luxury. And what should be luxury is normal. It is the other way around because we’ve created a society that goes against our humanity. And so, we need to come back to what the true luxury is, what gives our lives meaning to live full, rich, fully expressed human lives.
Luckily, brands have a powerful role to play in that as facilitators of this change, helping us venture back to ourselves. To elevate our lives, to make them more enjoyable, more connected, more filled with beauty, with wonder, with passion, with desire, with life. This is the role of luxury brands – to help us come back to our own inner luxury. It might seem that it is subjective, but it’s universal because it’s human. This gives luxury brands a solid ground to build their strategies on universally across global markets.
AC: As you say, if the true luxury is on the inside, how did we get into a situation where we face a crisis of meaning in the luxury industry today?
MO: Luxury, due to an unfortunate turn of events, and mostly with the influx of disposable cash into the economy and mainstream society in the 1980s due to the deregulation of the financial sector, the sudden mass use of credit cards, and the rise of the work culture, has become synonymous with transactional value and status mimicry and also known as cynical luxury – luxury used pragmatically as a vehicle of social mobility to look rich and exude status through the symbolic codes of luxury to acquire even more wealth and social prestige. But that was never the role or even the value of luxury!
Luxury in the past was deeply embedded in the culture itself, in the lifestyle, in the customs, values, and behaviors. It was deeply contextual. But the mainstream society has stripped it of its historical context and repackaged it as instant status. Which luxury is not? If it is accessed and presented this way – from an aesthetic point only – it quickly loses its value, which is why we are now in this industry-wide crisis of luxury meaning. It was narrated wrong and seen and framed from the wrong perspective, which made it lose its value.
We need to come back to what luxury is and that it’s not in the form, but in the essence. Then the form and how it’s presented only highlight and bring to light the very essence of what luxury is to make it more meaningful, and therefore valuable, and therefore profitable. But luxury is on the inside, not outside. The outside only facilitates the feeling of inner transformation. And that is what people pay for, especially in the luxury hospitality sector.
AC: You have recently pivoted and shifted your focus from brand meaning to helping brand and business leaders build a new and better human future. Is this the next frontier for brands? And how can brands, and especially luxury brands, create new strategies to elevate humanity?
MO: After the global COVID pandemic, when everyone on this planet was contemplating their own lives, when the time stopped and there was no other place to go than inward, I started seeing two things.
First, that the world as we knew it will cease to exist because we will emerge fundamentally different from this global pandemic, which served as a powerful reset of our global consciousness. What we will want after it ends will be different than what we wanted before. The blindfolds dropped, and we started awakening to our neglected and forgotten or even suppressed humanity, running on autopilot in the consumer society designed around choices that do not fundamentally contribute to or elevate our own human lives and well-being. So, this was the first moment of reckoning.
The second insight that emerged was that this innate change will then drive a fundamentally altered relationship between people and brands, and will transform the relationship from brand aspiration (us wanting to be more like brands because we don’t know who we are) to human well-being (wanting brands to be more like us and serve our needs to drive real value that is relevant and useful because we now know who we are and what we desire is to be more of ourselves).
The collective illusion that brands were a part of is falling now; only the real will suffice. And brands that will be able to create real, sustainable strategies centered around this human meaning – and our deeper as well as higher human needs – and deliver this new meaning to us in new, imaginative, and creative ways will reemerge from this transition as the leaders of the future of luxury. I am here to serve them to chart this new path and envision what new value can be created that ties into their already existing heritage, luxury value, and equity. It is a win-win strategy, plus you’re helping people become more of who they are, awaken their senses, feel, self-actualize, and become truly alive. Luxury strategy at its finest is a deeply spiritual exercise.
My whole focus with Meaning Global now is to help brand and business leaders across sectors create the missing foundational pillars of human value in society and create a better human future through business itself. I am a firm believer that business, when used to its full potential – as a creative power of change – can help transform societies and create social good. There are many missing pillars in society that business could provide if it shifts focus from itself to the people it serves, such as health and human well-being, sustainability and self-sufficiency, freedom and creative self-expression, wealth creation and stability, and, of course, the transformative value of beauty and lifestyle experience on the human soul. Luxury falls into the latter category. But the work ahead of us – to rebuild how we do business and what value we create – is immense. I, for one, am looking forward to it because I know where I’m going.
For more about my strategic approach and the themes I explore in my keynote speeches, I invite you to visit my website www.meaning.global.
For bookings and speaker topics, you can also visit my Chartwell Speakers profile: https://www.chartwellspeakers.com/speaker/martina-olbert/
Thank you, Martina!
Dr. Martina Olbert’s perspective is a masterclass in meaningful and visionary luxury strategy, rooted in the human context of our deeper and higher human needs and how these can be translated into business to maximize luxury value while elevating humanity. As her insights reveal, the luxury industry needs to move beyond tangible luxury into the intangible, symbolic sphere to craft proprietary experiences that help luxury brands stay relevant and valuable in the new world. For brands willing to embrace this approach, it opens a whole new and previously unseen world of possibilities to tap into.
To follow Martina’s journey, head to https://www.linkedin.com/in/martinaolbert/
Want to read more exclusives? Check out our news and insights: https://worldluxurychamber.com/insights-news/ & sign up for our newsletter here: https://worldluxurychamber.com/wlcc-community/
