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The Perfect Paradox of Star Brands: An Interview with Bernard Arnault of LVMH
Customers must want the product. That sounds simple, I am sure, but to get advertising right is very, very difficult—it’s difficult to get advertising to represent the true brand. Most companies think it is enough to use advertising to present a picture of the product. That’s not enough. You need to project the image of the brand itself.
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Suzy Wetlaufer • The Perfect Paradox of Star Brands: An Interview with Bernard Arnault of LVMH
At the same time, you want people to constantly reinvent the brand, right?
Yes, otherwise you won’t be current, and a star brand is current—or you could call it fashionable. It is edgy, it has sex appeal, it is modern. In some way, it fulfills a fantasy. It is so new and unique you want to buy it. You feel as if you must buy it, in fact, or else yo... See more
Yes, otherwise you won’t be current, and a star brand is current—or you could call it fashionable. It is edgy, it has sex appeal, it is modern. In some way, it fulfills a fantasy. It is so new and unique you want to buy it. You feel as if you must buy it, in fact, or else yo... See more
Suzy Wetlaufer • The Perfect Paradox of Star Brands: An Interview with Bernard Arnault of LVMH
The problem is that the quality of timelessness takes years to develop, even decades. You cannot just decree it. A brand has to pay its dues—it has to come to stand for something in the eyes of the world. But you can, as a manager, enhance timelessness—that is, create the impression of timelessness sooner rather than later. And you do that with unc... See more
Suzy Wetlaufer • The Perfect Paradox of Star Brands: An Interview with Bernard Arnault of LVMH
What was your reaction when you first saw John Galliano’s newspaper dresses?
I was shocked, which is good, of course. A new product is not creative—it is not important—if it does not shock when you first see it.
And after the shock wore off, did your managerial alarm bells start ringing?
I don’t have alarm bells when it comes to creativity. If you ... See more
I was shocked, which is good, of course. A new product is not creative—it is not important—if it does not shock when you first see it.
And after the shock wore off, did your managerial alarm bells start ringing?
I don’t have alarm bells when it comes to creativity. If you ... See more
Suzy Wetlaufer • The Perfect Paradox of Star Brands: An Interview with Bernard Arnault of LVMH
Each year, new products account for approximately 15 % of LVMH sales, and some of them enjoy operating margins of up to 47 % . (For a list of the company’s brands, see the exhibit “The House of Arnault.”) What makes these statistics all the more remarkable is that many of these products at first appear utterly outlandish—a kidney-shaped handbag cov... See more
Suzy Wetlaufer • The Perfect Paradox of Star Brands: An Interview with Bernard Arnault of LVMH
You can’t charge a premium price for giving people what they expect, and you won’t ever have break-out products that way—the kinds of products that people line up around the block for.
Suzy Wetlaufer • The Perfect Paradox of Star Brands: An Interview with Bernard Arnault of LVMH
Our philosophy is quite simple, really. If you look over a creative person’s shoulder, he will stop doing great work. Wouldn’t you, if some manager were watching your every move, clutching a calculator in his hand? So that is why LVMH is, as a company, so decentralized. Each brand very much runs itself, headed by its own artistic director. Central
... See moreSuzy Wetlaufer • The Perfect Paradox of Star Brands: An Interview with Bernard Arnault of LVMH
A lot of companies talk about quality, but if you want your brand to be timeless, you have to be a fanatic about it. Before we launch a Louis Vuitton suitcase, for example, we put it in a torture machine, where it is opened and closed five times per minute for three weeks. And that is not all—it is thrown, and shaken, and crushed. You would laugh i
... See moreSuzy Wetlaufer • The Perfect Paradox of Star Brands: An Interview with Bernard Arnault of LVMH
The fact is, star brands take time to grow. Take some of the small makeup companies we have acquired recently, like Bliss and Urban Decay. When we bought them, they were little start-ups run by their founders—very simple businesses, but with a lot of originality in the products. So now we know we must nurture them until they have some history. But
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