According to a Gartner report in 2019, LV scored the highest in digital IQ beating other luxury brands Bulgari, Cartier, Gucci, Montblanc, Coach.
Why did LVMH become so successful in China? LV focused on what Chinese youth wants; pivoting its products toward low-key fashion and streetwear branding. LV also collaborated with many Local Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs or Influencers in our terms) including famous actress Fan BingBing (over 40 million followers) and launched its WeChat pop-up shop Mini Program for popular sneakers designed by Virgil Abloh.
Louis Vuitton was the first luxury French brand that set its foot for the first time in China. In this article, you will see why LVMH is so successful in China? What are the factors that have contributed to the success of the company?
Growing Economy Demands for Luxury Brands
Chinese people demands for luxury and almost 20% of global spend on fancy items. It’s not bad at all. There is an ongoing battle between the world’s best fashion houses.
Without any doubt, the Chinese economy is a growing economy, and Louis Vuitton made its entry in China in 1992, and in no time, it became the most demanding brand. At that time, China was set on target to become the largest economy of the world. The whole class of the nouveau riche who acquired this status was looking to purchase luxury brands. So, what’s better than to buy a well appraised Western brand.
Louis Vuitton seized the right moment to enter into the Chinese market, and in any business success, timing is everything. Local brands in China are having a tough time. In China, luxury brands’ hierarchy is dominated by Western brands. Louis Vuitton is one of them. Other foreign brands are jewelry makers like Cartier and Bulgari and Burberry. Now the question is, in such strong competition, how Louis Vuitton becomes successful? Let’s have a look at the marketing strategy and advertisement campaigns that make this French luxury brand successful.
Legacy
Today, the brand value of Louis Vuitton is among the top businesses. But the truth is, even before making its entry to China, Louis Vuitton was still an iconic brand with a good history. So, they don’t have to introduce innovative products to attract customers. The fact is their main products haven’t been changed much through the years. It is the major factor of Louis Vuitton’s success in China.
Customers demand a piece of paper on history along with product and Louis Vuitton has both of these. The checkered bag of Louis Vuitton has a flair of Western Luxury lifestyle. In no time, this brand becomes popular and singlehandedly driven the majority of the luxury brand’s sale in China.
Making Use of SEO like a Pro
After introducing any brand into the international market, the next step is its online appearance. What Louis Vuitton perfectly does is make its better search engine appearance. They understand the local SEO of China. The search engine marketing of any luxury brand is similar to other brands. But the key behind success is the touch of the Chinese name is the brand of Louis Vuitton. The international website of Louis Vuitton has clearly added redirections to the Chinese Louis Vuitton’s website. Their marketing strategists have planned properly to display their visual content on SERP and optimized their content effectively. The brand has also made its appearance on social media channels. To keep them updated and to fulfill the demands of Chinese customers, Louis Vuitton also launched its E-commerce website.
How to maintain your top position forever?
The marketing success of Louis Vuitton in China was because of the below-given factors. However, it is crucial in any business not to just reach on the top of the mountain, and it is important to stay there. To do this, you will have to develop a marketing strategy into ever-evolving reality. At some point, this French brand faces these problems.
The huge success of Louis Vuitton's luxury brand’s checkered handbag backfired. The main reason behind the popularity of this brand was high demand from the middle class, and they wanted to purchase these bags to maintain and show their status.
This high demand boosted this market to grow. And the fact is China is notorious for the fake products, and soon the market was flooded with fake bags. And the interesting thing is bags were available in different shapes and sizes.
Louis Vuitton appears to be on the top of the list for many customers, but it started to lose high-end customers. If everyone is holding a luxury bag, mind it, it’s not a luxury bag anymore.
The entry of fake bags badly hurt the brand image of Louis Vuitton. Their image started to become less clear, and the company feels that they need to reinforce their brand values and establish better communication with their high-end customers and target audience.
How the French Luxury Brand Louis Vuitton Tackle These Problems?
Famous brands can easily find their ways to deal with such issues. Louis Vuitton tackles these problems in the following manner.
When does your brand’s logo start to lose value and become ubiquitous? You will remove it and so does the Louis Vuitton do. They took a bold decision to downplay their famous signature mark “LV.” However, Chinese consumers are not ready to accept these screaming logos. However, in the following years, low key fashion is an emerging trend that promises to grow.
How can you interact or relate with your target audience? It becomes more challenging when it comes to dealing with markets likes Chinese. To communicate their message across, they took the help of the Local Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs). They took the help of the famous and highly paid actress Fan Bingbing.
Fan Bingbing has a following of over 40 million on the local microblogging website, and she became a brand ambassador. Moreover, she is the most searched actress on the search engine. They also worked with another celebrity Gogoboi. He also achieved immense popularity in the fashion world.
Louis Vuitton handed over their official Weibo account to celebrities and let them do their job. It shows that this French luxury brand understands the need to empower fashion trend makers. Finally, they introduced their brand’s history to the people to regain their worth.
