All eyes are set on this yr’s Summer season Olympic video games in Paris with an estimated draw of 1 billion individuals who will probably be watching the occasion all over the world and 326,000 in-person attendees. In June 2023, LVMH CEO Bernard Arnault introduced his plans to sponsor the 2024 Summer season Olympics in a first-of-its-kind deal that comes with a USD 166 million (or approx. €150 million) payout. LVMH had beforehand acknowledged its claims to leverage progress in model consciousness and potential affinity via the recognition of athletic associations. It’s a transfer which Arnault aptly places, “will contribute to heightening the enchantment of France all over the world.”
Branding & Advertising
It goes with out saying that because the business companion of a mainstream sports activities occasion, LVMH will probably be anticipated to obtain in depth publicity to a world viewers via numerous advertising and marketing channels related to the Olympics, together with tv broadcasts, digital platforms, and onsite signage. Step one is product placement and integration. There’s a global recognition of the 5 multi-coloured Olympic rings. LVMH’s recognition, nonetheless — one might argue — is restricted to a clientele versed within the appreciation of luxurious items. Whereas most of the people might recognise manufacturers like Louis Vuitton and Dior, there’s a disparity within the common curiosity of LVMH versus the Olympic Video games which unites nations and other people throughout generations and earnings brackets.
Learn Extra: Palaces, Superyachts and Chauffeurs: How UHNWIs Will Watch the 2024 Paris Olympics
Subsequent, an affiliation with the Olympics would enable LVMH to ship what they do finest — luxurious craftsmanship throughout vogue and hospitality. The bodily manifestation of LVMH’s branding comes within the type of medals, torches, trunks and uniforms. That is the place product placement and integration are available. Paris 2024 will entrust a number of important roles to artisans from the LVMH Group. These embody the design of the Olympic and Paralympic medals by Maison Chaumet whereas Louis Vuitton has crafted particular trunks to case the medals and torches.
Learn Extra: The Significance of The Olympic Crew Uniforms and The Designers Who Make Them
In April, LVMH and Berluti unveiled workforce France’s outfits for the Opening Ceremonies of the 2024 Paris Olympic and Paralympic Video games. The Opening Ceremonies will see French athletes and coaches clad in Berluti tuxedos and sneakers, all custom-tailored to immortalise the event. In keeping with LVMH, selecting Berluti was strategic in numerous steps together with highlighting the Maison as a distinctive French home and an ode to the founder’s observe as a grasp shoemaker. The challenge concerned delivering 1,500 outfits for Crew France which included tuxedos, shirts, belts, scarves or pocket squares, and sneakers in an effort that concerned roughly 180 folks.
Athletic Endorsements
As a run-up to the video games, LVMH has engaged Olympian model ambassadors together with para-athlete sprinter Timothée Adolphe and member of the Olympic French rugby sevens workforce Antoine Dupont with Louis Vuitton alongside double bronze para-cycling medalist para-cyclist Marie Patouillet at Maison Dior.
Marie Patouillet will symbolize Dior as Ambassador for the Paralympic Video games 2024 whereas Antoine Dupont and Timothée Adolphe will probably be ambassadors of Louis Vuitton for the Olympic and Paralympic Video games Paris 2024 respectively.
Retail Growth & Buying Prime Places
LVMH goals to capitalise on the inflow of vacationers and guests in the course of the Olympics by strategically positioning its stores, flagship shops, and pop-up retailers throughout Paris. This serves to drive footfall and gross sales as a part of the conglomerate’s technique to hone in on prime Parisian landmarks and property.
Learn Extra: Luxurious Properties Gear Up for the Paris 2024 Summer season Olympics
Arguably the pièce de résistance of Parisian structure, the Champs-Élysées is about to bear an “Olympic” transformation. In keeping with Forbes, almost a billion US {dollars} has been spent in the direction of constructing a presence on the prime location and delivering a mixture of each retail and hospitality. By doing so, LVMH will reinforce its actual property footprint on this space, guaranteeing a powerful presence and visibility when it inevitably turns into a vacation spot for procuring and leisure. In the course of the Olympic and Paralympic Video games Paris 2024, the Champs-Elysees will probably be reworked to host the city sports activities competitors, together with BMX freestyle, skateboarding, and three by 3 basketball occasions.
Utilising the Parisian skyline, LVMH unveiled its “The Rooftops” marketing campaign showcasing LVMH athletes paired with emblematic Paris monuments together with the Fondation Louis Vuitton, the Panthéon, Montmartre and the Sacré-Coeur, the Arc de Triomphe and the Eiffel Tower. The video marketing campaign was launched in 60-second and 30-second variations and reprised in occasion schedule billboards for the Olympic & Paralympic Video games Paris 2024 and on social networks, plus 5 show and print codecs. As LVMH notes “Paris, the Metropolis of Gentle, metropolis of arts and literature, a crossroads of historical past and fervour… and now town the place our athletes will obtain their most memorable feats”.
In keeping with stories from Forbes, LVMH can be set to organise a cultural path throughout a few of its prime retail areas to showcase the convergence of artwork, sports activities and tradition. These exhibitions will happen in lots of the group’s model flagships, together with Guerlain, Berluti, Dior, and the La Samaritaine division retailer. In the course of the video games, guests will be capable to bask in distinctive pictures, artwork, and vogue exhibitions created particularly with the Olympic video games in thoughts, aiming to carry sports activities and vogue collectively by highlighting the same qualities of the 2 themes.
LVMH has additionally invested in retail growth by shifting the attitude of bodily shops into hospitality retail as a approach to develop its manufacturers’ ecosystems and to create immersive premium experiences and that enable for the elevation of every model beneath the LVMH umbrella.
Learn Extra: Champs-Élysées To Bear Inexperienced Transformation
Sustainability
Whereas it might not be excessive on LVMH’s guidelines of a strategic takeover, that is the conglomerate’s probability to flex with its “environmental prowess” and spotlight that the corporate is forward of its opponents with regards to sustainability. 2024 sees most of the people place rising emphasis on sustainability in main occasions just like the Olympics, and LVMH might implement sustainability initiatives associated to their operations, provide chain, and merchandise to align with the sustainability objectives of the Video games. In an interview with Selection, the chairman & CEO of LVMH Inc. Anish Melwani — who heads the North American enterprise of the luxurious big — acknowledged that the long-term success of LVMH homes relies upon immediately on preserving and respecting the pure sources used to make their merchandise, which in flip will increase their desirability.
When questioned about LVMH’s sustainability efforts, Melwani replied saying “…we can not create top-quality Champagne with out grapes, perfumes with out roses and attire with out cotton. We created the LIFE (LVMH Initiatives for the Atmosphere) program, which made sustainable improvement an integral a part of our strategic enterprise plans for all 75 homes”. LIFE is aimed toward defending biodiversity, preventing local weather change, selling the round economic system and offering manufacturing and sourcing transparency.
What Comes After Gold?
Historical past will bear in mind the 2024 Olympic Video games as a world sporting occasion that was synonymous with LVMH. By affiliation alone, LVMH has imbued itself into the event with medals, torches and uniforms — common symbols of the video games. With retail retailer expansions, quite a few model activations, and putting a foothold on Paris’ prime areas, it’s as much as LVMH to leverage these alternatives for longevity after the video games have ended to actually get a return on the corporate’s multi-million greenback funding. Because the world’s largest luxurious items conglomerate and one of many largest firms on the earth, the LVMH and Olympic partnership could possibly be the ultimate feather in CEO Bernard Arnault’s cap to cement him as certainly one of historical past’s most profitable entrepreneurs and ensures a legacy for his kids to comply with via as LVMH lays the inspiration for its personal succession methods.
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