[GENESIS X SEMAFOR PERSPECTIVES] THE NEW SCARCITY: WHY EXPERIENCES STILL DEPEND ON THE PRODUCT

Part one explored how luxury is shifting from ownership toward experience. The executives who build luxury products see an important caveat.

If experience has become the new currency of luxury, the obvious question is what role the product still plays.

At Semafor's Business on Luxury, hosted at Genesis House in New York, several speakers pushed back on the idea that products have become secondary.

Lisa Sequino runs the global makeup brands at The Estée Lauder Companies. Jenna Lyons spent twenty-seven years at J.Crew and now serves as executive creative director at FundamentalCo.

Their argument was not that experiences are overrated. It was that experiences only work when something meaningful sits underneath them.

The Product Still Has to Matter

To that point, Sequino shared her views with a list of physical qualities.

"I think any luxury consumer wants certain things," she said. "You want products that feel amazing, whether it's product performance; they look amazing; the package you're proud to take out of your handbag or put on your vanity; something that you can connect to that goes beyond the physical product."

Her next point matters because it shifts the discussion away from price.

"You don't have to do that with a $100 lipstick," Sequino said. "You can do that with scent. You can do that with taste. You can do that through color expression on the package. But it is very much a five-sense way of designing."

Asked directly why anyone should care how a lipstick smells or tastes, she gave the most personal answer of the evening.

"Because maybe that swipe of lipstick was the best part of your day, after missing a cab or a subway, or a child falling, or having a bad day at work."

She attributed the principle to Leonard Lauder, with whom she worked for much of her career.

"He would always say, when the economy went down, lipstick always went up — because people still want to be happy and still have a piece of luxury that may not cost them $100, but that $25 is an investment that can keep them in a positive mindset."

She then described the standard she uses with her teams.

"I always say to the team, if you can't put a brand name on it, then it's not discernible enough."

It means a product should still be recognizable without the logo. That is harder than creating something that simply photographs well.

Sequino applies the same discipline to the challenge of distribution. Brands no longer decide who talks about them. The product has to survive being described by people who have no connection to the company.

"If someone off the street can describe the beauty of this product," she said, "you did your job."

What People See Through

Lyons approached the issue from the opposite direction. Rather than asking what makes a product good, she focused on what makes people stop believing.

"I think when I think about brands that have staying power in the luxury space, oftentimes it is about heritage," she said. "It is about craft; it is about something that you can believe in. It's something that you know will stand the test of time. It's something that has a core being that actually you can believe in; there's integrity there."

And then the warning.

"I do think, when it's manufactured, people see right through it."

Asked where quality comes from, Lyons rejected the idea that there is a single answer.

"It's a different answer depending on what you're buying, so it's not a one-size-fits-all," she said.

For something simple, such as a button-down shirt, the fabric is the story. For a tailored garment, it is not.

She applies the same thinking to hospitality.

Traveling for J.Crew, Lyons regularly stayed at some of the most luxurious properties in the world. What struck her was how often the experience felt disconnected from the place itself.

"If I go to Singapore for the first time, staying in the most luxurious places isn't necessarily giving me a sign of what that place is about," she said. "I'm not necessarily seeing the people who live there. I'm seeing people who are having the same experience I am."

What she values instead is the local, human element.

"I want to meet the chef on the corner whose whole family works there, and they've been making the same thing for years, and this is their special dish."

Knowing Your Limits

The clearest example of this principle came from a company that experimented, learned from the result, and adjusted accordingly.

Nespresso operates around 45 boutiques in the United States. They function as tasting environments, with trained coffee specialists guiding customers through origin and terroir. In some larger locations, including Beverly Hills, the brand expanded the concept and operated full cafés.

Jessica Padula, Vice President of Marketing and Head of Sustainability at Nespresso USA, explained why that changed.

"We are not restaurateurs," she said. "We're a coffee business first and foremost; we're not even operators in the sense of a coffee shop."

The lesson was simpler than the original ambition.

"We've learned that we're really good at the to-go element," Padula said. "But we're not a restaurant, and so let's stay away from that. Let's really scale and focus on what we're good at, and allow our coffee to be the basis of maybe an experience that somebody else wants to create in those environments."

The decision clarified the role Nespresso wanted to play.

One in four Nespresso customers, Padula noted, first encountered the brand in a hotel room. In those environments, Nespresso controls the coffee but not the setting.

Its focus is on the details.

"We're additive and complementary," she said.

The emphasis is on how the product appears and functions in the moment.

"Are they capsules? How are they displayed? Does it look like a jewelry box, to continue this feeling of luxury?"

Padula applies the same discipline to partnerships.

Discussing the brand's Espresso Martini scented candle collaboration with Hotel Lobby Candle, she spoke about the importance of knowing where extension should end.

"Thinking about what equity is yours and yours alone in the brand, and where you are going to borrow or extend your equity into partnerships," she said. "Otherwise you will stand for everything and stand for nothing."

The Common Thread

That brings the discussion back to Bauer.

In part one, he argued that abundance has changed what is rare. Here is the full version:

"The premium increasingly belongs to brands with the judgment to decide what should be allowed to exist," he said. "There's so much of everything; everyone can now have access to everything, and brands can make just about anything. I think the judgment layer that sits on top of that, around what should even be allowed to exist, is going to define it."

The examples had been there all evening.

Sequino deciding MAC Cosmetics would enter Sephora with lip rather than a full assortment, and getting it done in nine months, a timeline she called unheard of for a company that size. Padula deciding Nespresso would not operate cafés. Lyons deciding craft is the filter through which everything else is assessed.

Bauer argued that these choices are increasingly where brands compete.

Bauer's own framework is a three-part test he puts to chief executives and investors. He abbreviates it as SPA: species, purpose, advantages.

What kind of company are we, and what could we become? What is it that only we do? And do we have what we need to live up to those claims?

Bauer argues that aligning those answers serves an important purpose.

It helps prevent a series of small decisions from gradually weakening a brand. Everyone using the same words to describe the same ideas, he said, "stops you from making decisions that dilute the potency."

He pointed to Aesop as an example of that discipline in practice. A designer spends two years at the company before touching packaging. Even a bouquet of flowers in a store is approved by head office from a photograph.

His conclusion for investors applies equally to operators: this is "brand as principle, rather than brand as a template."

Where Genesis Stands

Experiences do not stand apart from products. They depend on them.

Development of the GV90 began with a question about the passenger experience: how people enter, exit, and use the cabin.

Answering that question meant rethinking a feature long treated as standard.

The B-pillar, the structural post between the front and rear doors, supports the roof and helps protect occupants in a crash. As Amy Marentic, Chief Marketing Officer of Genesis Motor America, put it, B-pillars "have been in vehicles since I was a young engineer 30 years ago."

"Many manufacturers have tried for years to remove the B-pillar, and it hasn't been possible," she said.

On the GV90, it is concealed within the doors and, according to Marentic, the vehicle is safer than a conventional equivalent.

At Genesis, hospitality is often discussed through the Korean concept of “son-nim,” or honored guest. The idea is straightforward: consider a guest's comfort at every step of the experience.

That principle shaped the thinking behind the GV90. The pillarless coach doors create a wider opening and a more welcoming entry point, especially when passengers get in and out.

Delivering that experience required overcoming a longstanding engineering challenge. The mindset behind that effort is closely aligned with “ha-myeon-dwen-da (하면 된다),” the philosophy associated with Hyundai Group founder Chung Ju-yung.

Marentic translated it simply as: "anything is possible."

For Genesis, experiences are not treated as something separate from the product. They are built into the product itself. Every design decision, engineering solution, and customer touchpoint is expected to contribute to the experience of being welcomed and cared for.

The product has to earn the promise.

The New Scarcity

Across four conversations, four executives identified a different form of scarcity.

Bauer pointed to the importance of making the right judgment. Marentic pointed to time. Sequino pointed to discernibility, the ability to recognize a product without its logo. Lyons pointed to craft and integrity.

The answers differed, but they pointed in a similar direction.

When products are easier to make, easier to distribute, and easier to compare, decisions begin to matter more.

In part one, that scarcity appeared as time and meaningful experiences. In part two, it appeared as craft, discernibility and judgment. Together, they point to the same challenge: knowing what is worth creating in the first place.

It's not about what can be made, but what should be made.

Reporting drawn from Semafor's Business on Luxury, hosted at Genesis House, New York. Market data from the Bain & Company–Altagamma Luxury Goods Worldwide Market Study, spring 2026 update.

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