Name: Luxury's New Center of Gravity
Uploaded: 2025-10-29
Duration: 9 min 9 s

The epicenter of luxury is shifting. After years of steady growth, demand is moving away from established centers like the U.S., Europe, and China, and into dynamic emerging hubs such as India and the Middle East. This new customer base is more diverse, sophisticated, and demanding than ever before—pushing brands to evolve. To capture their attention, luxury leaders are leveraging technology to unlock powerful consumer insights and explore high-potential sectors like luxury travel and wellness. Where should brands place their bets, and what strategies will capture this new generation of discerning consumers?

Luxury's New Center of Gravity

Conferences

Hello everybody, and thanks for the warm welcome here on stage. Of course it's a privilege to present Porsche here in the forum in front of you, and I'm thankful for that. And my name is Stefan, Stefan Busche, and I'm the CEO of the Porsche Lifestyle Group. So within the next 8 minutes at Porsche speed, I'd like you to take away mainly 3 things. The first thing is why there's actually no substitute for Porsche. The second thing is the explanation of why Porsche ticks differently, if you like, what we are doing differently at Porsche and Porsche design. And the third thing is I brought along a very practical example of what we did in the nearest future, what we plan in the nearest future on our branded real estate site. So let's start all about brand. Design, people and passion, family and communities mixed with technology like AI that's the right recipe to overcome any crisis. So, let's start with a little story. Behind me you see a picture of a Le Mo race start in the 50s. Why is it so important? You know that Porsche raced at Le Mo very successfully with over 20 victories over time. But this picture shows an example also of our mindset, something really to take away, which forms our DNA. We call it the ignition key to the left. Some of you might know what the meaning of this is, why this is a mindset at Porsche. I look around. Maybe there's a hand raiser. If you know, you know. What is the reason behind that? The Porsche engineers at a 24 hour race came up with the idea you could save time at the start when you have your key to the left, get into the car, and at the same time get into gear. All the other cars had the key, put in to the ignition, and get into gears, you know, that is kind of crazy, isn't it? But it really explains that every split second of engineering is important. Well that is mindset that Porsche. I'm representing the Porsche Lifestyle Group. It's a 100% subsidiary of the Porsche AG, fully integrated. It encompasses all our legendary Porsche lifestyle world, the Porsche design brand with our icons like our watches, eyewear, and our traveling accessories, and also our design services in the studio operations which you can hire from the outside. So our mission is of course very, very simple, to take the fascination and myth of Porsche beyond automotive. Kind of easy, but I tell you one of the best jobs in the world you can get. So it all started, as I said, with a family story. The person you see here is Ferdinand Alexander Porsche, the son of Ferry, the founder of the Porsche AG. He is the famous designer of the 9/11 on the one side and also the father of all the studio operations on the other side. Having designed the 9/11 and the famous all black number one watch out of one design process is one thing, one design principle made in titanium, used in Top Gun by Tom Cruise, which makes us very proud in '86 and also in 22. Again, an example of if you know, you know. And if you look at a family picture like this, you might ask yourself with this kind of design, how do they do it? We call it the tool of brand design principles, brand design criteria if you like. What is the idea behind? The idea behind is a filter working with archetypes. Porsche has always been and will be a creative brand, but not any kind of creativity. It's the ignition key to the left mentality, the DNA, which drives our creativity. It's a little bit of Germanish as well, maybe even Swabian south of Germany, but it's very typical for what we do. And Porsche has always been and will be rebellish like the ignition key to the left, doing things differently against the grain, stand up for your rights, for your values, and be Portia, be different. And the third thing is we are also trying to be heroic gentleman driver like Steve McQueen, you see here on the picture. So the characteristics of these archetypes form the filter in everything we do from a key ring to a car to a branded real estate project. Here are some examples of our branded real estate world. The first one we did was a project delivered in Miami in 2017. What's so special about it? Together with our developer in Miami, the wish was to design an elevator which brings our luxurious customers from ground floor directly into the suite without leaving the car. So we invented the special car elevator. It's still in operation in 20 2017 today, and of course it's patented. So a very luxurious item to drive into your own suite with your car. Why is this important? Because it keeps privacy. Important thing for Miami. The second project is the Porsche design tower we did in Stuttgart in our hometown, Completely different. It's a business building. It has a fully fledged Porsche dealership on the ground floor, our testing ground for everything we do, by the way, and on top of that, there are office spaces for our partners of Porsche Consulting. Their headquarters is there and a hotel in full operation. And by the way, it's the highest building in Stuttgart overarching other automotive competitors. Now that's the fun part of it. Now leading us to the project that we have here, first time in Asia, our ports and Tower Bangkok again, a completely different animal, a completely different thing. Here together with the Ananda group we developed something very, very special 22, let's say luxury yachts on the ground, so we're on solid ground. And it of course features a lot of ignition key to the left elements. Let's only look at let's say 3 or 4, which you can see on the outside. First off, we are talking about the crown when the building will be overarched by the red signature light of the tower, which is Porsche renowned for also with our vehicles. A second one, we invented a kinetic fold mechanism to open and close luxury suite, of course, in full operation with like the tiger roof which we have for our cars, so a principle which has been transferred in a completely different area and engineered to the perfection. The third one you can really see on this picture, the solidity the building expresses, and this idea was taken from our Mission R sports car, the first electrical sports car which we built, and of course you see the roof structure again. We call it the exoskeleton, the same exoskeleton you can also see transferred as an idea to the building. Actually coming to one of the most favorite sites, we of course have a passion garage. We call it passion space for every owner of the suite. Up to 18 cars can be parked there. I think it's more like a living room and of course a passion space for the owners, and it's great fun to be there. And of course, as you can imagine, I could go through more examples step by step by step of that building project. Not to do so because my time is running out. We have a little exposition outside of the ballroom. We invite you just to visit also the interior ideas which are just explaining how this idea of an ignition key to the left is transferred into other areas. So together with our customers, with our club organizations, with our friends and licensed partners, each and every time we can build something very, very special. And of course at the end of the day we invite everybody to join and share the ideas on your side with ours and build something very unique for the future. To the 2nd, 8 minutes are over. Thank you for your attention and talk to you soon. Thank you very much.