There is a hardly a piece of good news for anyone putting together a 2009 advertising budget for the IHT.
But for the IHT a couple of headlines caught my eye hard.
Japanese buy less, and European fashion houses suffer
Outlook seen challenging for luxury goods in 2009
http://www.iht.com/articles/reuters/2008/10/21/business/OUKBS-UK-LUXURY-OUTLOOK.php
Luxury brands, fashion and renewable energy have been the backbone of the IHT's 2008 advertising revenue, and all are in retreat.
Time to re-do those forecasts - again. But where are the cost cuts going to come from? Over at the FT, there is news of 60 layoffs.
Showing posts with label Luxury brand. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Luxury brand. Show all posts
Wednesday, 22 October 2008
Sunday, 5 October 2008
The IHT Brand Paradox: When you want to be edgy, modern, audacious but your brand holds most of its value in its history
Creating a gentle revolution in Champagne
By Sonia Kolesnikov-Jessop
Friday, October 3, 2008
SINGAPORE: Cécile Bonnefond doesn't look like a revolutionary, but this 54-year-old Frenchwoman sounds a little like one when she describes some of the ways in which she has marketed Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin, the Champagne house of which she became chief executive in 2001.
There was the collaboration with Emilio Pucci, who dressed a 9,000-bottle limited series in his flamboyantly colored prints. The interior designer Andrée Putman made a Champagne box that doubles as an ice bucket, decorated with her signature checkerboard pattern. Karim Rashid, a designer from Egypt, created the Globalight, an orb-shaped lamp that is also an Isotherm bottle carrier.
Innovation of any kind is tricky when the company you are running dates to 1772, and it can seem superfluous when your sales are rising even in tough economic times.
Yet Bonnefond, who has managed some of the best-known brands in Europe at companies like Groupe Danone and Grand Metropolitan (now Diageo), sees innovation as necessary to preserving Veuve Clicquot's place in a changing world.
"I see my job as really managing a paradox," Bonnefond said on a recent business trip to Singapore. "With Veuve Clicquot, you have history, but we also want to be the most edgy, modern, audacious, 'in' name in Champagne."
Audacity is part of Veuve Clicquot's heritage. In 1814, Barbe Nicole Ponsardin, the original Veuve, or Widow, Clicquot, defied Napoleon's nautical blockade of Russia by secretly shipping 10,550 bottles of Champagne to Königsberg (now Kaliningrad). By the 1860s, the czarist court and aristocracy were drinking 700,000 bottles per year, or 75 percent of Clicquot's production.
With the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, sales of Champagne to Russia abruptly halted. It wasn't until recently, with the rising wealth in Russia, that sales have picked up to the point where Bonnefond can say that "for the first time, this year, we've finally sold more bottles in Russia than Madame Clicquot."
Despite the emerging global economic slowdown, Bonnefond said the company had record sales in 2007 and was "only feeling a small pinch" this year, an accomplishment she attributes to " a very loyal core consumer group."
Marlous Kuiper, head of alcoholic beverages research at Euromonitor International, said Veuve Clicquot had outpaced growth in the global Champagne market in recent years, sometimes by as much as five percentage points.
Veuve Clicquot comes under the umbrella of LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, along with the Champagne brands Moët & Chandon, Dom Perignon, Krug, Mercier and Ruinart. Although LVMH does not release a breakdown of production or sales among its wine and spirit brands, the division had total net sales of €3.2 billion, or about $4.4 billion, in 2007, up 7 percent over the previous year, with 62.2 million bottles of Champagne sold in 2007, a 3.8 percent increase over 2006.
According to the latest LVHM results report, Veuve Clicquot and Moët & Chandon have had so far this year a "good performance." Bonnefond said, "I have to make my shareholders happy and they are very happy."
A native of Paris and a graduate of the European Business School with a degree in marketing, Bonnefond joined Danone's marketing division in 1979 before moving to Kellogg's in 1984 as marketing manager for France. Over the next 10 years, she held growing responsibilities across Europe in sales, marketing and general management. In 1995, she joined Grand Metropolitan as chairman and chief executive of a new unit overseeing the activities of Grand Met food brands including Brossard baked goods, Häagen-Dazs ice cream, Green Giant frozen foods and Old El Paso Mexican products.
When Grand Met sold its bakery business to Sara Lee in 1997, she joined that company as chief executive of the bakery division in France and Italy.
At Veuve Clicquot, Bonnefond has shown some of the qualities that helped the original owner propel the company, including a knack for seizing the moment. Soon after she joined, she introduced a Veuve Clicquot Rosé nonvintage Champagne. "Knowing that 90 percent of the rosé Champagne drunk in the world was nonvintage, there was a feeling that we were missing a business opportunity," she said.
Bonnefond chose Japan as a test market for the first limited production of the new Champagne. The response was so enthusiastic that the company did not have enough bottles to test it in Hong Kong and Belgium as planned. After increasing production, she took nonvintage rosé international in 2006. Today the product represents around 10 percent of the company's overall sales.
Bonnefond has also moved into other product extensions. There's the Clicquot gift carton that unfolds into an insulated Champagne bucket, a neoprene jacket to keep the bottle cool, and an ice bucket in the bold orange of the brand.
She said that she was not recruited to Veuve Clicquot to "bring in a revolution" but that she was "accelerating" business.
"We've just pushed the boundaries further," Bonnefond said.
READ AN ALTERNATIVE IHT DAILY NARRATIVE AT
A PLACE IN THE AUVERGNE
A PLACE IN THE AUVERGNE
International Herald Tribune
IHT
New York Times
NYT
Vacation /Business Trip Furnished Apartment in Paris
Friday, 3 October 2008
Question of the day: What have handbags got to do with newspapers?
I know. Do you?
Handbag heaven
By Leah Greengarten
Thursday, October 2, 2008
ANTIBES, France: As dawn breaks a golden brown over the French Riveria, Caroline Calabria, owner of the Vintage Art Gallery, is often one of the first arrivals at a local market.
She combs the jumbled stalls for vintage handbags because, she says, "People in this area are renowned travelers, so I can find bags from Argentina to Africa and anything in between."
Calabria's shop, just a year old, is sandwiched between a hairdresser and a little French restaurant on the cobbled pedestrian street of Rue Thuret. But during the summer high season, it displays 600 or more bags - this season mostly clutches, but it all depends on what she finds.
Calabria says she always has loved handbags. At first, "I brought vintage handbags for myself and then after years of collecting and lots of bags, I had this idea to open my own store." She moved from Paris to Antibes five years ago - "to increase the collection, so I could be closer to the markets."
There is a small collection of vintage clothing at the store entrance. Miranda Richardson, a Londoner, bought a parrot-colored 1960s frock this summer and says she "loves it so much and wore it all the time on holidays in Ibiza."
But the rest of the three-room shop is just handbags. There is every color of the rainbow and all the dark hues of the ocean, as well as the smell of old leather.
"Crocodile bags have been really popular this summer," says Calabria - they range from €150 to €500, or $210 to $705.
As for designers, it has been "Chanel and Louis Vuitton," she said. "I sold a '70s vintage sports bag by Louis Vuitton this morning for €1,200."
Richardson's mother, Madeline Richardson of Grasse, France, bought a handbag at the shop earlier this year. "I really love my crocodile clutch bag," she said. "It's elegant and classic and it was good value for money, too."
With no Web site, no telephone number and just a brown paper bag with the word "vintage" hanging on the front of the store, Calabria says that kind of word-of-mouth has been her most powerful marketing tool.
By Leah Greengarten
Thursday, October 2, 2008
ANTIBES, France: As dawn breaks a golden brown over the French Riveria, Caroline Calabria, owner of the Vintage Art Gallery, is often one of the first arrivals at a local market.
She combs the jumbled stalls for vintage handbags because, she says, "People in this area are renowned travelers, so I can find bags from Argentina to Africa and anything in between."
Calabria's shop, just a year old, is sandwiched between a hairdresser and a little French restaurant on the cobbled pedestrian street of Rue Thuret. But during the summer high season, it displays 600 or more bags - this season mostly clutches, but it all depends on what she finds.
Calabria says she always has loved handbags. At first, "I brought vintage handbags for myself and then after years of collecting and lots of bags, I had this idea to open my own store." She moved from Paris to Antibes five years ago - "to increase the collection, so I could be closer to the markets."
There is a small collection of vintage clothing at the store entrance. Miranda Richardson, a Londoner, bought a parrot-colored 1960s frock this summer and says she "loves it so much and wore it all the time on holidays in Ibiza."
But the rest of the three-room shop is just handbags. There is every color of the rainbow and all the dark hues of the ocean, as well as the smell of old leather.
"Crocodile bags have been really popular this summer," says Calabria - they range from €150 to €500, or $210 to $705.
As for designers, it has been "Chanel and Louis Vuitton," she said. "I sold a '70s vintage sports bag by Louis Vuitton this morning for €1,200."
Richardson's mother, Madeline Richardson of Grasse, France, bought a handbag at the shop earlier this year. "I really love my crocodile clutch bag," she said. "It's elegant and classic and it was good value for money, too."
With no Web site, no telephone number and just a brown paper bag with the word "vintage" hanging on the front of the store, Calabria says that kind of word-of-mouth has been her most powerful marketing tool.
Monday, 28 July 2008
Just to keep in mind: readers=fans
As someone who writes a blog (part of a social network) about the IHT (not, but possibly, a luxury brand for younger people), this caught my eye:
ON ADVERTISING
Luxury brands discover social networks
PARIS: 'I love Cartier," writes Rockstar Mom. "Thanks for being so classic and timeless," adds Emily. Sting just gazes out broodingly from his publicity photo.
On MySpace, Cartier has many friends like these - 3,761 of them, to be precise. Some of them are famous, others less so, but the jeweler is counting on them to spread the vibe through the social network and beyond.
Cartier's presence on MySpace is the product of a recent agreement that makes it one of the first luxury brands to market itself in a big way on a mainstream social network.
The MySpace profile was set up to advertise jewelry in Cartier's Love collection. But visitors can also sample music from artists like Lou Reed and Grand National, including several songs around the theme of love that were composed for Cartier. They can watch film clips with a romantic story line. And, of course, they can click on any of those friends' pictures to visit their profiles.
The possibility of blending entertainment and marketing and spreading it through chain letter-style links has gotten many marketers excited about social networking. But luxury brands, worried about the company they keep, have been reluctant to get involved with the likes of MySpace or Facebook. Cartier took the risk, said Corinne Delattre, its director of communications, because it saw a "different way to talk to a young audience."
"To work in the luxury environment, it means being a step in advance sometimes," she said. "We work with people moving fast. They use technology. They are ahead in their way of life."
Actually, many luxury brands have been slow to move to the Internet more generally, let alone freewheeling frontiers like social networking. Some brand owners have spent years battling eBay, the online auction site, contending that it does too little to curb sales of fakes. Others have clashed with Google over its advertising system, which has allowed rival marketers to snatch away their trademarks as search keywords.
A number of fashion and luxury companies have advertised on ASmallWorld, an invitation-only social network aimed at wealthy consumers. Now some of them are getting their first exposure to mainstream, mass-market social networks. Some have "fan pages" on Facebook, which allow people to post videos of themselves wearing their favorite designers' fashions, for example.
But practically anyone can set up a page on Facebook, at no cost, which demonstrates two of the biggest problems with social networking as an advertising medium. One, for the advertiser, is a lack of control over the process; the other, for the network owner, is the lack of money changing hands - if "fans" of a luxury brand voluntarily tell their friends about it, why should the brand owner spend any money to do so?
Though ad spending on MySpace has trailed expectations, the company, part of News Corp., thinks it has solved some of the problem, with the Cartier campaign serving as a model. MySpace requires big marketers who want to create profiles to pay for the space, though it declined to say how much Cartier was being charged for its yearlong campaign.
In return, MySpace takes steps to drive traffic to advertisers' profiles and to ensure that the material that appears on them "respects the brand's objectives," as Damien Vincent, head of sales at MySpace France, put it. In the case of Cartier, that means weeding out some would-be friends. Candidates whose photos show them guzzling a beer at a party, for instance, are unlikely to make the cut, Vincent said.
MySpace is eager to show that its audience extends beyond teenagers looking to kill time after school. Eighty-five percent of American users are over 18, it says. "I think there's a huge potential market for luxury advertisers," said Jamie Kantrowitz, senior vice president of content and marketing at MySpace International.
Ben Hourahine, futures editor at the London branch of the ad agency Leo Burnett, said the use of social networks was appropriate at a time when consumer attitudes about luxury were changing. In a recent survey of U.S. consumers by the agency, only 7 percent said they thought "luxury" meant being part of an exclusive club.
"Luxury brands in the past had this unattainable aspect to them," he said. "Now they realize they need to connect and communicate with people."
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/07/27/business/ad28.php
www.aplaceintheauvergne.blogspot.com
International Herald Tribune
IHT
New York Times
NYT
ON ADVERTISING
Luxury brands discover social networks
PARIS: 'I love Cartier," writes Rockstar Mom. "Thanks for being so classic and timeless," adds Emily. Sting just gazes out broodingly from his publicity photo.
On MySpace, Cartier has many friends like these - 3,761 of them, to be precise. Some of them are famous, others less so, but the jeweler is counting on them to spread the vibe through the social network and beyond.
Cartier's presence on MySpace is the product of a recent agreement that makes it one of the first luxury brands to market itself in a big way on a mainstream social network.
The MySpace profile was set up to advertise jewelry in Cartier's Love collection. But visitors can also sample music from artists like Lou Reed and Grand National, including several songs around the theme of love that were composed for Cartier. They can watch film clips with a romantic story line. And, of course, they can click on any of those friends' pictures to visit their profiles.
The possibility of blending entertainment and marketing and spreading it through chain letter-style links has gotten many marketers excited about social networking. But luxury brands, worried about the company they keep, have been reluctant to get involved with the likes of MySpace or Facebook. Cartier took the risk, said Corinne Delattre, its director of communications, because it saw a "different way to talk to a young audience."
"To work in the luxury environment, it means being a step in advance sometimes," she said. "We work with people moving fast. They use technology. They are ahead in their way of life."
Actually, many luxury brands have been slow to move to the Internet more generally, let alone freewheeling frontiers like social networking. Some brand owners have spent years battling eBay, the online auction site, contending that it does too little to curb sales of fakes. Others have clashed with Google over its advertising system, which has allowed rival marketers to snatch away their trademarks as search keywords.
A number of fashion and luxury companies have advertised on ASmallWorld, an invitation-only social network aimed at wealthy consumers. Now some of them are getting their first exposure to mainstream, mass-market social networks. Some have "fan pages" on Facebook, which allow people to post videos of themselves wearing their favorite designers' fashions, for example.
But practically anyone can set up a page on Facebook, at no cost, which demonstrates two of the biggest problems with social networking as an advertising medium. One, for the advertiser, is a lack of control over the process; the other, for the network owner, is the lack of money changing hands - if "fans" of a luxury brand voluntarily tell their friends about it, why should the brand owner spend any money to do so?
Though ad spending on MySpace has trailed expectations, the company, part of News Corp., thinks it has solved some of the problem, with the Cartier campaign serving as a model. MySpace requires big marketers who want to create profiles to pay for the space, though it declined to say how much Cartier was being charged for its yearlong campaign.
In return, MySpace takes steps to drive traffic to advertisers' profiles and to ensure that the material that appears on them "respects the brand's objectives," as Damien Vincent, head of sales at MySpace France, put it. In the case of Cartier, that means weeding out some would-be friends. Candidates whose photos show them guzzling a beer at a party, for instance, are unlikely to make the cut, Vincent said.
MySpace is eager to show that its audience extends beyond teenagers looking to kill time after school. Eighty-five percent of American users are over 18, it says. "I think there's a huge potential market for luxury advertisers," said Jamie Kantrowitz, senior vice president of content and marketing at MySpace International.
Ben Hourahine, futures editor at the London branch of the ad agency Leo Burnett, said the use of social networks was appropriate at a time when consumer attitudes about luxury were changing. In a recent survey of U.S. consumers by the agency, only 7 percent said they thought "luxury" meant being part of an exclusive club.
"Luxury brands in the past had this unattainable aspect to them," he said. "Now they realize they need to connect and communicate with people."
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/07/27/business/ad28.php
www.aplaceintheauvergne.blogspot.com
International Herald Tribune
IHT
New York Times
NYT
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