Industrial Marketing, Advanced Course, 4D1152

Louis Vuitton
The usage of Brand Alliances

1 Introduction.........................................................................................................................3
1.2 Aim and delimitations...............................................................................................3
1.3 The Louis Vuitton Company.....................................................................................3
2 Brand Alliances...................................................................................................................5
2.1 Sponsorship ..............................................................................................................5
2.2 Conglomerate ...........................................................................................................6
2.3 Co-branding..............................................................................................................6
2.4 Ingredient co-branding..............................................................................................8
4 Conclusion ..........................................................................................................................9

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5 Discussion...........................................................................................................................9
References............................................................................................................................10

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1 Introduction
This report deals with a research project concerning the brand strategy of Louis Vuitton. The project is a part of the course Advanced Marketing and was carried out during autumn 2005 at the department of Industrial Economics and Organization at The Royal Institute of
Technology. This chapter comprises aims and delimitations for the project and a general introduction of the company.
1.2 Aim and delimitations
The aim for this report is to investigate how Louis Vuitton uses brand alliances in their brand strategy. In order to do so the authors have studied literature in the subject of brand alliances as well as relevant information found on the Internet.
1.3 The Louis Vuitton Company
Founded in 1854, the Louis Vuitton Company was soon to become one of the world’s most famous makers of luxury goods. Creator of high quality travel trunks and leather accessories, the company was above all known for its designer luggage pattern, a beige monogram, LV, on a chestnut background. After his father’s death in 1892, George Vuitton took over the company, taking it to new heights in developing what was recognized as the first "designer label" on a product.
When Marc Jacobs in 1998 assumed the role as Artistic Director, Louis Vuitton entered the world of high fashion. Commissioning artists such as Stephen Sprouse and Takashi
Murakami, Louis Vuitton was able to lend their cutting-edge design ideas for their signature products, creating must-have status symbols1 (Fig 1). Today Louis Vuitton is a world leader in luxury customer goods, including travel books, perfumes, distilled spirits and designer shoes and clothing.
Like several others luxury and prestige brands launched in the 19th and early 20th centuries,
Louis Vuitton started out with providing luxury products exclusively for the very wealthy people of society. Even though times have changed and the market for this kind of products has increased enormously Louis Vuitton still targets its products at consumers on the top-end of the wealth spectrum. These are price insensitive consumers allowing the company to charge thousands of dollars for one item.
According to Uche Okonkwo, creativity exclusivity, craftsmanship, precision, high quality, innovation and premium pricing are product attributes that not only give the consumer the satisfaction of owning expensive items but the extra-added psychological benefits like prestige and a