“Mastering the paradox of star brands is very difficult and rare,” Arnault once told the Harvard Business Review, adding, “fortunately.”
“Our whole business is based on giving our artists and designers complete freedom to invent without limits,” he said. “If you look over a creative person’s shoulder, he will stop doing great work.”
In the topsy-turvy world of luxury sales, raising prices can actually increase demand — to say nothing of profits — by underlining the desirability of, say, a Louis Vuitton handbag that can cost US$3,000 or more. The growing number of extremely wealth people who can afford luxury goods, and the company’s early move into China as it developed into a major luxury market, have buoyed his fortune, too.
Given the company’s emphasis on its French heritage, the Paris sponsorship is “quite congruent with LVMH’s image,” says Qing Wang, professor of marketing and innovation at the University of Warwick’s business school. “With the Olympics in Paris, it’s an opportunity to highlight that connection.”
The modern Olympics were invented, after all, by a French nobleman, Baron Pierre de Coubertin, and French remains one of the Games’ official languages.
“We do feel a responsibility because our brands are very notoriously French. We are French,” Antoine Arnault told the AP. “My father is very deeply French and loves his country. So, we feel a responsibility to, yes, to do things the right way.”
