Let them eat cake

Would you want your brand to be associated with an icon, who, for centuries, has been associated with unearned privilege, wanton indulgence, promiscuity, and the furious hatred of the common people? Apparently, yes, if you are in the luxury goods business.

The exquisite pink marble Trianon palaces in Versailles, from where Marie Antoinette reigned, are being restored to their former glory. This worthy effort is being sponsored by Breguet watches. I noticed the Breguet logo is discreetly but clearly displayed all around the complex on a recent visit.

This is not common or garden corporate philanthropy, it is considered brand-building. Breguet’s advertising boasts that Marie Antoinette wore a watch crafted by the original Mr. Breguet. Breguet bought wood from an oak tree that was being felled near the Petit Trianon palace, under which Marie Antoinette “liked to day dream”, to build a special presentation case for the Marie Antoinette watch. The brand is clearly working hard to enhance this association. Their customers, people who pay ~$25,000 for a wrist watch, are probably telling them that they like the Bourbon heritage.

Will that change? My bet is, it will.

My reflexive associations with Marie Antoinette are negative, probably because I first learnt about her in my middle school history text books. In that austere world of Indira Gandhi’s socialist India, Marie Antoinette’s opulence felt obscene. Breguet chose to invest in the Marie Antoinette association in a different context, in an age of plenty. This was a zeitgiest in which a Labour minister could say that he is “intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich”, and be better regarded for that attitude. If one is intensely relaxed about the filthy rich being filthy rich, it becomes a lot easier to see Marie Antoinette as a glamourous, gracious but misunderstood heroine.

For better or worse, that age of plenty has come to an end. Whatever comes next, for a few years at least, frugality, conspicuous frugality, is going to matter. History's verdict on Marie Antoinette will continue to shift shape.