Luxury brands sporadically use black-and-white print advertisements and the contrast when flipping through the latest issue of a magazine can stop a reader in her tracks. But there actually may be a strategy behind black-and-white ads.

One of the fastest-growing social networks right now is Google+. Some luxury brands such as Audi, Bergdorf Goodman, Burberry, Gucci and Mercedes-Benz have started to use the platform, but others may need a little push. Here is why.

Between stock market inconsistency and spending frugality interspersed with random surges in spending, consumer behavior was almost untrackable in 2011. Therefore, marketers were forced to up the ante and, as a result, had truly mind-blowing ideas.

Luxury brands such as Chanel, Marc Jacobs and Tag Heuer used video and social media to usher in the New Year and stay top-of-mind.

New York’s yellow taxicabs offer a location-based, video advertising platform with Taxi TV that can put luxury brands in direct contact with the city’s affluent tourists and residents.

French fashion label Chanel is attracting ultra-affluent guests at the Courchevel resort in the French Alps by incorporating iPads into the space, allowing guests to play and browse while they shop.

Luxury automakers, publishers, hoteliers and fashion designers have made their mark in the mobile space in 2011, developing applications that engage, entertain and inform a multitude of affluent consumers.

With 15 percent of all Google queries coming from mobile devices, search engine optimization and search engine marketing are both crucial to luxury brands.

Luxury marketers including Chanel, Cartier, Saks Fifth Avenue, Diane von Furstenberg, Benefit Cosmetics, BMW and Waterford Wedgwood Royal Doulton are emailing their customer databases with enticing shipping offers to nab last-minute holiday shoppers.

Using Condé Nast’s Vogue magazine as audience leverage, fashion house Chanel incorporated a Christmas-themed supplement pushing its famed No. 5 fragrance.