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Marketing Excellence Louis Vuitton

Louis Vuitton (LV) is one of the world’s legendary brands and synonymous with luxury, wealth, and fashion. Currently the highest-ranking luxury brand in the world, the company is best known for its iconic handbags, leather goods, shoes, watches, jewelry, accessories, and sunglasses.

Louis Vuitton opened his first store in Paris in 1854, selling handmade, high-quality trunks and luggage. Word of his skill and craftsmanship traveled quickly, but it wasn’t until Napoleon’s wife challenged him to “pack the most beautiful clothes in an exquisite way” that he truly made a name for himself in the industry. In 1872, Vuitton introduced a simple, luxurious design that attracted Paris’s most elite customers. He also created the signature Damier and Monogram Canvas materials, featuring the famous design still used in most of the company’s products today.

Throughout the 20th century, the company that carries his name continued to grow internationally, expanding into the fashion world by the 1950s and reaching $10 million in sales by 1977. In 1987, Louis Vuitton merged with Moët et Chandon and Hennessy, leading manufacturers of champagne and cognac respectively, and created LVMH, a luxury goods conglomerate.

Louis Vuitton’s products stand out in both quality and design. Everything is made with state-of-the-art materials, combining art, precision, and craftsmanship, and tested rigorously. For example, the company spends as long as 60 hours making one piece of luggage by hand—the same way it did 150 years ago—and tests zippers 5,000 times before putting them in its luxurious handbags. The legendary LV monogram appears on all its products and continues to stand for the highest quality, premium status, and luxury travel.

Until the 1980s, Louis Vuitton products were available in a wide variety of department stores. However, this led to a high rate of counterfeiting—one of the brand’s most difficult challenges—so the company now maintains tighter control over its distribution channels. It sells only through its 3,200 authentic Louis Vuitton boutiques, located in upscale shopping areas and high-end department stores and run by its own employees and managers. The company limits store openings each year to help maintain a sense of exclusivity. Only recently did it start selling products through louisvuitton.com in hopes of reaching new consumers and regions. Louis Vuitton prices are never reduced. In fact, the company recently increased prices as much as 13 percent and has been primarily marketing its more expensive line of bags in order to push the concept that owning an LV product is a rare luxury. Strategies like this have built barriers to entry and have helped create a status brand that is resilient even during tough economic times.

Louis Vuitton is careful not to dilute its brand through overexposure or over-marketing. This presents the company with the challenge of trying to sell as much as possible while maintaining an aura of exclusivity, luxury, and prestige. Over the years, it has used high-profile celebrities and supermodels to showcase its products, including Madonna, Angelina Jolie, Jennifer Lopez, and images of the late Audrey Hepburn. Marketing campaigns often include a combination of high-fashion celebrities, billboards, print ads, and Vuitton’s own international regatta—the Louis Vuitton Cup.

In hopes of keeping the brand fresh, the company recently broke tradition and featured celebrities such as Michael Phelps, Steffi Graf, Mikhail Gorbachev, Buzz Aldrin, Bono, and Keith Richards in a noteworthy campaign titled “Core Values.” It also launched its first television commercial focused on luxury travel rather than on fashion and formed new partnerships with international artists, museums, and cultural organizations.

Today, Louis Vuitton holds a brand value of $22.5 billion according to Forbes and is ranked the 19th most powerful global brand according to Interbrand. The company is focused on expanding its luxury brand into growing markets such as China and India as well as continuing to grow in already strong markets like Japan and Europe.

Course Textbook:

Edberg, M. (2015). Essentials of health behavior: Social and behavioral theory in public health (2nd ed.). Jones & Bartlett Learning. https://online.vitalsource.com/#/books/9781284061277