Ch. 17 - Personal Selling and Sales Management

Louis Vuitton is a company that lacks sales promotion. Their items

are never on sale, they never offer deals, and they certainly never give away samples. The brand that is Louis Vuitton is so coveted that it is unnecessary to offer deals. In fact, offering any type of discount would hurt the brand. The primary target market views themselves as elite, and use Vuitton to differentiate themselves; these people do not need to shop during times of sale prices.  Lack of promotion is something that draws them to Vuitton.

Vuitton's producers insist that the product is of high quality, therefore any type of outlet to discount prices is unnecessary because their products are highly warranted. Furthermore, sales can promote a mentality that the discounted product is outdated, undesired, and/or overpriced. The perception of the products to the consumer can become tainted. I certainly have had this happen to me when shopping- my thought process is something like this: "Why would I buy from this particular store when there isn't a sale when I know I can get it for cheaper, and they are still making a profit!" If Vuitton offered discounts they would lose their power of prestige.  

Instead, Vuitton focuses on engaging customers in memorable experiences. Their employees work to emphasize the unique products and ensure a distinguished retail experience. The sales associates develop relationships with customers and create a comfortable, organized environment where the customer feels relaxed- not rushed. 

Something that adds the overall experience is the option to custom make a bag.  On Vuitton's website, they offer "Custom Made"... "Whether it is designed to fulfill a practical purpose or is an expression of individual creativity, custom-made leather goods is both functional and exceptional. All our special orders are hand made in our historical workshop in Asnieres near Paris. founded by Louis Vuitton himself." Here you are given the option to chose your design, leather, and lining. 

Vuitton is a sponsor of the elite sporting event of yachting. The "America's Cup" trophy awards the winner of America's Cup match races between two yachts. This reaches the audience and target market of those who attend events such as yacht racing, these people most likely sport (pun intended) Louis Vuitton during their day-to-day lives. 

Ch. 16 - Advertising, Public Relations and Sales Promotion

 Louis Vuitton commonly uses print ads in magazines and billboards in cosmopolitan cities. It previously relied on selected press for its advertising campaigns (frequently involving prestigious stars like Steffi Graf, Andre Agassi, Gisele Bündchen and Catherine Deneuve) shot by Annie Leibovitz. However, Antoine Arnault, director of the communication department, has recently decided to enter the world of television and cinema: The commercial (90 seconds) is exploring the theme "Where will life take you?" and is translated into 13 different languages. We can clearly see diversity in their advertisements. 
This is A quest for freedom and adventure, introducing the new Spirit of Travel Campaign from Louis Vuitton starring Michelle Williams and Alicia Vikander

French leather goods maker Louis Vuitton is Luxury Daily’s 2014 Luxury Marketer of the Year for its seamless transition to new creative director Nicolas Ghesquiere’s vision.

Louis Vuitton won over first runner-up Hermès and second runners-up Dior for keeping a consistent visibility across channels. Throughout this year, all three brands showed a strong ability to keep their presence known through efforts spanning print and online, maintaining key placement in important fashion publications and speaking directly to their audience through social media. Louis Vuitton has also entered the publishing game itself. Starting in October Louis Vuitton began publishing “The Book,” a biannual, in-house glossy magazine. The branded print publication will be translated into 11 languages and mailed only to select Louis Vuitton clients. 
Louis Vuitton populated its Fall 2011 runway with supermodels like Kate Moss, Amber Valletta, Carolyn Murphy, and Naomi Campbell, but you wouldn't guess it based on the collection's campaign. Instead of its usual top model or actress seasonal face, the brand went with very young, in some cases: 16-year-old Zuzanna Bijoch, 15-year-old Daphne Groeneveld, 20-year-old Gertrud Hegelund, 16-year-old Nyasha Matonhodze, 20-year-old Anais Pouliot, and Fei Fei Sun, who was born in 1989.
The Louis Vuitton company seeks to cultivate a celebrity following and has used famous models, musicians, and actors such as Keith Richards, Madonna, Sean Connery, Michelle Williams, Matthias Schoenaerts, Jennifer Connelly, Hayden Christensen, Angelina Jolie, Gisele Bündchen and most recently David Bowie in its marketing campaigns. On 2 August 2007, the company announced that the former USSR leader Mikhail Gorbachev[29] would appear in an ad campaign along with Steffi Graf and Catherine Deneuve. Many rappers, most notably Kanye West, Juicy J and Wiz Khalifa have mentioned the company in certain songs.

Ch. 14 - Marketing Channels and Retailing

Louis Vuitton store Macy's Herald Square
Macy's, 151 West 34th Street, 1st Floor, New York, NY 10001

I recently visited the Louis Vuitton store in Macy's herald square 1st floor. The store itself is very elegant, it’s not one of the biggest stores in New York but is one of the busiest. The largest store in the US is on Fifth Avenue New York and is absolutely breath-taking.

The luxury store offers a truly unique shopping experience with its leather goods, classic men's and women's ready-to-wear, modern timepieces and jewelry, and uptown-chic footwear. Past the towering wooden grids that showcase the famed handbags lie the relaxed suits and ultra-feminine knee-length skirts that typify Vuitton's polished look, punctuated by bright colors and soft accents for a swank mix of tradition and modernity; this familiar style is echoed throughout Vuitton's designs, from the monogrammed canvas belts to the red ostrich-leather wrist watches. The displays are elegantly furnished; every item seems to scream buy me. The customers service is also excellent, the sales associates wear black suits with the tag of their name and they're not pushy, but well informed about the products and very professional. The atmosphere is without any doubt welcoming and is really hard to get out without buying anything. Louis Vuitton uses e-tailing as well, its website is very elegant, informative and easy to navigate, the background music makes the shopping online even more pleasant. The website offers all services that you can find in the store, there are different ways you can contact a professional if you need any help, such as chat option, phone or call back option. The website offers personalized service as well. Louis Vuitton's use of personalized e-commerce shows marketers how luxury brands can preserve their exclusive shopping experience and aspirational brand image online. Louis Vuitton is able to offer its traditional personalized service to its community of Facebook users via its Mon Monogram app. Users discuss purchase to a much greater extent than for other post topics, suggesting the app can act as a call to action while maintaining Louis Vuitton’s luxurious brand image. Alongside its posts about culture and travel, Louis Vuitton's Facebook page features the Mon Monogram app.  which allows members to fully customize their bag with hand-painted personal initials and stripes on the color and direction of their choice. They are then prompted to visit the Louis Vuitton store to purchase their customized bag. Users of the app can also send “virtual” gifts to each other, adding a social dimension to the experience.

Ch. 6 - Consumer Decision Making

In a world filled with different social classes and values, Louis Vuitton does a brilliant job targeting all of these groups. Like mentioned in the mission statement  section, Vuitton's products notoriously represent wealth and luxury. The wealthy want Vuitton in order to differentiate themselves from the lower classes, while the less wealthy want Vuitton to feel like they have achieved what the wealthy has. When purchasing a Louis Vuitton product, consumers are driven by social factors, cultural factors, psychological factors and individual factors. The external stimulus of the consumers comes from a wide range of factors such as the continuous innovation of the products. Louis Vuitton has added ready to wear line, fine jewelry, watches and shoes to its collections. Along with the innovation of the products the company has adopted the new technology. The Mon Monogram application allows the consumers to customize their products. Louis Vuitton advertises its products

through multiple channels, from print advertising to commercials, billboards, magazines and social media. The nonmarketing-controlled information source comes from hundreds of blogs, and review websites where people talk about the brand, lifestyle-related posts help associate Louis Vuitton with elite culture are successful in driving purchase discussion. When considering of purchasing a LV's bag the consumer is affected by conscious motives such as the high quality of the product that performs well, friends, colleagues or acquaintances

that already have a LV's bag, and limited edition make it more fashionable. 
I would say that the majority of Louis Vuitton's consumers are those that feel Vuitton will enhance their ideal self- image. Although there is a small percentage that buys Vuitton products like luggage and clothing  that lack monograms and extensive design because they are of the utmost quality. To them, the products are a smart investment that will serve to assist in their travels and wardrobes.
Overall I feel the decision-making process for Vuitton mostly entails want. Price is secondary to the initial desire for the product. Most consumers will find a way to save and purchase if the yearning for a higher self- image is present.

Ch. 5 - Developing a Global Vision

France’s Louis Vuitton is ranked as the world’s most valuable luxury brand for the eleventh year running, according to the 2016 “BrandZ Top 10 Luxury Brands” report.Louis Vuitton started to expand since 1885. In that year the company opened the first store in London followed by other two stores in the next two years. In 1904 Louis Vuitton participated in World's Trade fair in U.S. trying to get the brand recognized by the Americans. In 1987 The brand established its presence in Japan, getting a share in the Asian market, and also prepared the strategy to expand in China, and other Asian countries. With a well-established presence in Europe and U.S. and Japan, and more than 1500 stores around the world and its e-commerce site, Louis Vuitton is a multinational corporation. Louis Vuitton uses the same quality of its products everywhere in the world. A bag sold in China or in India is the same quality of one sold in France. The company takes into consideration the cultural background and how people would understand better the concept of luxury. In Japan, the company promotes its products through innovation and the involvement in the art and architecture scene associating its products with the art. 
Louis Vuitton's products have the same price all over the world. The company adopted the dumping practice for the Japanese market as a strategy to have the greatest market share. In fact, about 90% of Japanese own a Louis Vuitton product. 

Ch. 4 - The Marketing Environment

Not only is Louis Vuitton one of the most well-known fashion boutiques in the world with one of the richest history, it is also one of, if not the most legendary of fashion houses in the world.

Largest luxury brand with exclusivity
The high prices commanded by Louis Vuitton products is justified not only by its superior quality but also by the high degree of scarcity and exclusivity, evident in their “no discounts or promotions” as well as “immediate disposal of defective products” policies.Louis Vuitton is historically known to serve the powerful and the wealthy. Its target market is both men and women from 22 to 65 years of age. In its marketing strategy, all the key factors play a very important role and are fully executed.

Economic Factors

One of the biggest factors that affects sales of LV goods in India is the tariff. The higher the taxes are for its goods, the smaller the incentive is to buy those goods because demand isn’t going to be as high if prices have to increase in order to make up for the tax. In order for luxury goods too. LV targets the richest people in the country. But on the other hand, most of the population is very poor and wouldn’t be able to purchase such goods, even if they saved up for it. However, there is a select group of rich people who would make setting up luxury stores in India profitable because there are very few stores in India for them to go to. The market is currently set up for an oligopoly because the demand for goods at a luxury store would be inelastic for anyone interested in a luxury item and there are so few stores

Technology factors
Various companies advertise online has tremendously increased due to the growing popularity of the social networking site. LV also gathers various information, opinions and attitude of friends, families reviews from the internet etc through various forums, blogs, chat groups, and websites. There is also growing trend of online shopping facilities and growing E-tailing trend facilities in the UK market. New technologies also have allergic perfumes for those who have allergic problems. Modern technology boosts new sampling innovations. it will increase competition among the market  with anti-ageing skincare formulations have advanced.

Political and legal factors:

Due to LV’s image, it has become one of the most counterfeited fashion brands in the world. Owing to its high price, generally, people cannot afford to buy it. In the recent years, no doubt there are numerous products bearing LV initials in the streets all over the world, but only a small percentage of the products are genuine. Lately, there has been a rise in counterfeiting luxury products because numerous manufacturing has been shifted to countries with poor intellectual property rights and with the opportunity provided to those countries by technology. Although LV has taken various actions to fight against counterfeit but there are still numerous fake LVs out there. Therefore the company has setup a team of people responsible fully on anti-counterfeiting with the help of special investigation agencies and lawyers.

Extravagant parties used for promotion:

As part of Louis Vuitton’s promotional strategy, Louis Vuitton holds extravagant parties. The  parties are thrown in a spectacular manner the extravagance itself and a large number of famous celebrities become topics of conversation which are rapidly picked up on by the mass media. Even though Louis Vuitton must pay if it is to hold these, the advertising results attained far surpass those that would be achieved through the same amount of direct advertising costs.

Ch. 18- Social Media and Marketing

 Louis Vuitton is a luxury brand that is known to millions of people across the world. But in the highly competitive luxury industry, is the brand able to maintain attention towards its products? With a great number of luxury shoppers using social media to find product recommendations and discover new brands, it is essential to understand what drives your audience, as well as the way they use each social media platform.
 Understanding public sentiment towards your brand is pivotal for companies in all industries. Talkwalker? social media monitoring tool can help you to visualize global online sentiment quickly and easily. The map below shows positive and negative sentiment worldwide for Louis Vuitton.

The brand emphasizes the personal selling, values the “fullness of information” exchanged between a customer and a Louis Vuitton salesperson; LV trains salespeople to tell the stories behind the products and inform customers regarding the rich details of latest pieces, how to care for the bags, and updates on key fashion designers. Yearly, Louis Vuitton supplements stores with catalogs that consumers can buy.  Louis Vuitton has many websites they mostly use all of their social media websites. And daily update them.