Executive Summary for Louis Vuitton

Louis Vuitton’s History and Growth: a) The Designer Louis Vuitton's History: The designer Louis Vuitton was born with the name Louis Vuitton Malletier, and he was born in France in a country called Jura in 1821. He started working in France as a young adult, and he became a fashion designer by accident. He was from a working class family, as his father Xavier Vuitton was a farmer, and his mother was a milliner.Louis Vuitton used to walk 250 miles from his hometown to Paris, as he carried different jobs on the road in order to pay for his journey. He also worked on household items which gave him the experience of designing and creating unique and distinguished quality bags and luggage. In 1854, Louis Vuitton married a 17 year old girl called Clemence Emilie parriaux and afterwards he took the decision of establishing his own company on the rue des capuchins, just next to his old boss.He used to advertise his products on a small poster that said â€Å"securely packs the most fr agile objects, specializing in packing fashions† which was very creative at that time. He was succeeding in a fast rate until he became the manufacturer and designer of one of the most luxurious fashion brands in history. Despite the experience Louis Vuitton gained from travelling to France as a teenager, he would never have made it to what he became as one of the most important fashion designers in the world. b)The Brand Louis Vuitton's History and Growth:Whenever anyone hears the name Louis Vuitton, the first thing that pops in minds is the elegant and luxurious women bags and shoes with their famous brown and beige colors and the unique LV logo, which became any elegant woman’s dream to have Louis Vuitton bags and shoes in her closet or her dressing room. Louis Vuitton opened their first store in London along with Oxford Street. Louis Vuitton is also well known for their luxurious and flexible travelling suitcases that were very practical, elegant and useful bags tha t changed the way of travelling.The organization continued their growth as they produced dresses, perfumes and a lot of other fashion industries along with the luxurious bags and shoes. Even to increase the brand value and sales, Louis Vuitton in 1983 joined with the America’s cup in order to form the Louis Vuitton’s cup , which was a yacht race competition. Louis Vuitton in 1987 merged with the Moet ET Chandon and Hennessey in order to form the conglomerate which was known as LVMH. In 1989 Louis Vuitton was operating in about 130 different stores worldwide.Louis Vuitton launched their 150th anniversary of Louis Vuitton’s foundation as they initiated their first global store in shanghai and other stores in Sau Paulo, Johannesburg and Newyork. Louis Vuitton was named the world’s most valuable luxury brand for seven consecutive years. In 1997 Marc Jacobs merged with Louis Vuitton ,in order to design elegant and unique clothing line for both men and women, à ¢â‚¬Å"When I saw the first trunk in Trianon grey canvas,† says Jacobs, â€Å"I said to myself, ‘That's how Louis Vuitton got started and that's how we, too, are going to start, with greys and whites, with a logo hidden inside the clothing. But it resulted in the consumer's disappointment as they were expecting something more elegant and glamorous. Mark Jacobs then brought in the 80’s New York designer Stephen Sprouse to add graffiti style to the monogram canvas, He usen used Jennifer Lopez as a celebrity endorsement in a marketing campaign followed by later celebrity endorsement campaigns done by Uma Thurman and Sean connery, Which was very successful campaigns. Jacobs also did a mixture between the classical and elegant image of the brand with hip hop by hiring Pharrel Williams to design sunglasses collection for Louis Vuitton in 2005.Louis Vuitton started as a retailer for travelling bags at the beginning, followed by the most fashionable retailer of shoes, bag s and purses for women, and now they became the most elegant and distinguished well known brand among other competitors like Christian Louboutin , Christian dior, Calvin Klein and coco channel, as Louis Vuitton also became one of the most famous and distinctive retailers for most of the fashion industries among men and women of all ages. Louis Vuitton's Strengths and Weaknesses a) Louis Vuitton’s strengths:Louis Vuitton is a global brand that has a lot of points of strengths, which makes it crucial for the competitors to be able to cope up with the competition in the market share. Louis Vuitton is known with its elegant and luxurious brand name in the fashion industry which helped Louis Vuitton maintain a unique position in the market. The strong brand name is one of the main points of strengths that any successful company should maintain, and most of the promotions, advertising, marketing strategies and public relations efforts are for the sake of gaining a strong, unique an d recognizable brand name in the minds of consumers.Louis Vuitton has a distinctive and effective marketing strategy that it uses in order to appeal to its target customers, so most of their profit is predictable rather than being just a coincidence as a result of their unique and strong marketing strategy. Louis Vuitton uses the principle of the special order which gives the consumer the opportunity to order a product tailored exactly for him and his own preferences, the special order principle is used in most of the brands with high customer loyalty and high brand names for a distinctive amount of target customers.Louis Vuitton maintains also effective pricing strategies, as they make sales and special offers at the end of the season in order to attract and encourage customers to hurry up and not miss the special offers and discounts, which improves the short-run sales and increases the total sales revenue for the organization. Louis Vuitton is also famous with using the product b undling strategy, which aims to sell more than one product in a combination form, this strategy is used for customers who prefer grouped and combined packages rather than individual products.One of the most famous strategies of Louis Vuitton that makes it distinctive from most of the other brands is that it uses the flawless repairs strategy which gives consumers the right to get their products repaired when damaged which can rarely be found in any other brand. B) Louis Vuitton’s weaknesses: Louis Vuitton’s main weakness is that they have restricted retail opportunity and they distribute their products through their own retailers, so there are few distribution channels for their products, as they don’t distribute their products to outlet retailers which might increase the net sales for the organization.The organization is also known for not using tv ads, which might be very influential on the sales revenue and the brand image , but sometimes it’s influenc e is negative and sometimes positive, so Louis Vuitton organization chose not to use the tv ads at all as they might negatively influence the organization’s reputation in the minds of consumers, and they chose to use instead magazines and newspapers in their promotions, until they recently launched their first ever tv ad known with he theme â€Å"where would life take you† which was a 90 second advertisement, but Louis Vuitton concentrates more on magazines and newspapers as they can last longer than a few seconds tv ad. Business and Marketing Level Strategy It's very important to put into consideration to the place in Louis Vuitton's marketing strategy. In fact, whether we reflect on the shops, their stocking strategy, or their communication straightforwardly into the shops, each point has been strictly planned and codified in advance. Louis Vuitton shops have to be distinctive and unique; just about as a total experience just by them.Christophe Barthelemy (from the f irm fair play) says: â€Å"The shop can no longer look like a shop but like a theatre playing the desire world of the brand†. So, their design is actually essential to the brand. Louis Vuitton's major lines are to encourage and motivate soberness, class, and prosperity in the shades. This is essential in their sensorial marketing strategy which requests to the sense of viewing. For several years Louis vuitton focused more on their competence, image and the design of its products than the sustainability of their stores.But rapidly, the company recognized that their customers as well expected the products to be constantly available in the shops. Louis vuitton realized this bend in the customer's mind and thus, modified its supply chain consequently; if you control your distribution, you control your image'. Because of the success that runs into, LVMH plans on globalizing the concept to more of its distributions in the group. Mr. Carcelle prepared strategic plans to set up the o rganizations general goals. Louis Vuitton's goal is to develop and grow-up faster that their competitors.The reason of attaining lots of companies in a short time was based on the inner growth of LVMH. Mr. Carcelle's thought that what happened for Louis vuitton could happen for his latest smaller brands. He is in for the long run and knows the time lines. Louis Vuitton is reinforcement design teams and continues to increase and fix up their global store network. They persist to devote in promotion and advertising at the same time as making the assets expenditures compulsory to enlarge construction capacity and gather the demand for their products.They have a superior environmental balance and managing over distribution. They had a great support of brand image; they have a strong existence in all luxury divisions plus they are number one in the world with fifty brands. The strategy was based on the established and sustainable development of multi-brands. Louis Vuitton's mission is to characterize the most developed qualities of Western â€Å"Art de Vivre† globally. LVMH should maintain to be the same with both creativity and elegance. Our cultural values and products, they represent combined innovation and tradition, and encourage fantasy and dream.Obviously, there are five priorities reveal the essential values joint by all group stakeholders: 1) Be creative and innovate. 2) Aim for product excellence. 3) Bolster the image of our brands with passionate determination. 4) Act as entrepreneurs. 5) Strive to be the best in all we do. Even though, they did not present a vision statement, the first procession of the mission can proceed as their vision statement, as it classifies the company's enduring goal. By means of †Are de Vivre† meaning †the art of living†, the main objective is to provide people to feel the qualities of are of living.They are an enterprise that owns numerous of luxury brands that sell a variety of high-quality go ods like: accessories, spirits, champagne , apparel ,etc, therefore, the goal they want to accomplish is to embody Western luxury living around the world, since they are an international company. Another objective is to symbolize luxury life, thus they should †continue to be the same with both creativity and elegance† as a reason that luxurious living is frequently associated to these adjectives and their products should be creative and elegant in sequence to represent luxury living.Moreover, they considered five of their major strategies that increase the whole aim. To correspond good at Western luxury living, they should be creative and innovative in order to let their products unique from others, best quality possible and support the company's brands with passionate power as determination of an organization frequently leads to the best quality of work. In addition to, they seek to act as entrepreneurs and do their best to be the best in all they do. It's inaccurate to say competitive strategy- since Louis Vuitton is not a commerce. It doesn't contend with anyone because it is an international of decentralized brands.Every brand has its own story/value plan and its own competitors and distinctive business strategies. Furthermore, Louis Vuitton's corporate strategy is to grip a portfolio of the most treasured, coveted luxury brands and add value throughout its particular resources – sourcing, its supply chain management, brand management and talent. LVMH is the world's primary luxury products group. The strategy of LVMH is based on mixing it's leather goods and fashion. As for the marketing costs, Louis Vuitton's net sales have grown-up 57% in the previous two years. In 2001 LVHM had great earnings growth in a falling economy.This was a reason to the strength of Louis Vuitton, which is the world director in luxury goods and promoted the younger brands from the synergies that residential within the industry group. Every company should focus on their interior design and marketing industry, despite the fact that they helped from shared technical and financial expertise. Everyone is moving on the way to improve sales and its objectives. Louis Vuitton and Marc Jacobs allocated extensively more budget to advertising and promotion this year as the ad market returns from a catastrophic 2009, according to Kantar Media.The whole advertising expenditures during the first half of 2010 are up 5. 7 percent year-over-year and many luxury brands are truly outperforming that development. Especially Louis Vuitton and Marc Jacobs have improved their ad spend by 280 and 57 percent correspondingly. Louis Vuitton spent more than $22 million on advertising crossways all channels between January and June, balanced to to some extent more than $14 million throughout the same period last year, a 57 percent raise. Louis Vuitton is a hard cash cow. It reports for 37% of its group sales and most of it profits.In conjuction with its leather goods a nd product growth strategy, it has expanded the sales by establishing products like: watches, jewelry, sunglasses and a clothing line. Louis Vuitton has constantly exceeded barriers crossways technical, artistic, and logical orders. 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