When the luxurious large, LVMH, introduced its official sponsorship of the Paris 2024 Olympics in July 2023 it set the Dior bar excessive. Pun supposed. Introduced as a “Premium Companion” alongside fellow French corporations, Accor, Groupe BPCE, Carrefour Group, EDF, Orange and Sanofi, it was, reportedly, a reluctant sponsor. However, as the biggest French firm on the planet with whole revenues of over €86.2 billion in 2023, its €150 million funding appeared like pocket change to the French authorities twisting its arm to speculate.
The primary main luxurious vogue connection to the Olympics – Omega watches proceed to be a ‘Worldwide Companion’ and has served because the Official Timekeeper of the Olympic Video games since 1932 – LVMH introduced that a number of of its ‘iconic’ Maisons could be “enjoying high-profile roles to make sure that French savoir-faire shines brightly throughout defining moments of the Paris 2024 festivities”. This included Berluti, Chaumet, Dior, Louis Vuitton, Moët Hennessy and Sephora, the Official Companion of the Olympic and Paralympic Torch Relays.
Louis Vuitton had beforehand dabbled with the odd travelling trunk for a premium trophy.
Two weeks later, did an “elevated” Paris Olympics work for luxurious and has it set a precedent for future mass sporting occasions and luxurious tie-ups?
Medals, designed by Chaumet, had been carried in Louis Vuitton Damier circumstances, whereas medal bearer uniforms had been additionally created by Louis Vuitton (Picture: LVMH)
The expectations for Paris had been excessive. Many individuals had purchased into the years of luxurious advertising and marketing from LVMH and the concept Paris is the epicentre of world luxurious. The fact of the opening and shutting ceremonies was very totally different.
Whereas bold, the primary opening ceremony exterior a stadium lacked a transparent imaginative and prescient or model voice and didn’t current France as a complicated or modern artistic machine. The manufacturers had been current, however no person appeared to take cost of the complete imaginative and prescient and the vast majority of references would have gone over viewers’ heads, regardless of LVMH changing into the Paris 2024 organising committee’s essential accomplice for the opening ceremony.
Rolling Louis Vuitton monogrammed trunks across the cobbled streets of Paris appeared clunky and dropped at thoughts the nouveau-riche picture of a travelling Joan Collins at Heathrow Airport within the Nineteen Eighties. Additionally Louis Vuitton Males’s Creative Director – and international music celebrity – Pharell being a part of the torch-bearing procession (essential picture) did not go over in addition to may need been anticipated (since he’s neither French nor an athlete, so the appropriateness of this was extensively questioned). Star performers like Girl Gaga and Celine Dion had been dressed by Dior, however other than that there have been few ‘wow’ moments from the ceremony that may stay in folks’s reminiscences.
Maybe its presence wasn’t as coherent because it may have been, as LVMH needed to navigate strict promotional guidelines through the ceremony and all through the video games. It was reported that an LVMH commercial, attributable to seem in the midst of the opening ceremony, was lower from the official schedule by the Worldwide Olympic Committee (IOC).
The French Olympic crew wore uniforms from LVMH-owned Berluti (Picture: LVMH)
Additional into the video games, the French Olympic delegation wore relaxed Berluti sportswear (it was a disgrace these outfits had been largely obscured by plastic ponchos through the Opening Ceremony boat pageant) whereas Louis Vuitton Damier checked trays had been used to current the medals carried by medal bearers sporting Louis Vuitton-designed uniforms. To worldwide TV viewers, another model visibility was restricted. The closing ceremony was even much less memorable with solely the LA phase providing some pleasure.
Sports activities, sportswear and sports activities professionals have been a serious driver of vogue gross sales for luxurious vogue manufacturers over the previous decade. The chance for publicity on the Olympics is large, however principally doesn’t go additional than sponsorship of chosen sporting people for single luxurious manufacturers.
Due to the sponsorship of Paris 2024, LVMH has been positioned alongside day-to-day international mass manufacturers reminiscent of Airbnb, Alibaba, Allianz, Atos, Bridgestone, Coca-Cola, Deloitte, Intel, Omega, Panasonic, P&G, Samsung, Toyota and Visa. Any such overexposure comes at a troublesome time. Luxurious gross sales are slowing – LVMH reported €41.7 billion in income within the first half of 2024, down 1%, and €20.9 billion ($22.7 billion) within the second quarter, up 1% year-over-year – and lots of aren’t certain if and when they are going to begin to develop once more for the luxurious French conglomerate.
LVMH was in a troublesome place. It couldn’t refuse assist to France’s first Olympics in a century, but its energy in having so many manufacturers was a weak point right here. It ought to have simply chosen one model to sponsor and let the artistic director oversee the presentation. Or maybe it ought to have considered its sponsorship like philanthropy – very like the €200m Bernard Arnault’s (the billionaire chief of LVMH and France’s wealthiest man) donated to the restoration of Notre Dame cathedral in Paris – and anticipated nothing in return aside from goodwill from the French public.
The Paris 2024 was a terrific advert for tourism, the impact on already highly-exposed LVMH-owned luxurious manufacturers is debatable.
