Important Advice for Creatives from the Richest Person in the World
johnpweiss.com
johnpweiss.com
"Arnault praised Apple as an excellent product and brand, but he doesn’t consider it a luxury brand. Why? It lacks timelessness. And timelessness is a magical quality."
I think Apple learned this point with the expensive flop of the first-generation Apple Watch Edition in 2015. They built the Apple Watch in gold-cased editions priced in the $10,000-15,000 range, set up show rooms in places like Dubai, and got a few celebrities like Beyoncé to wear one in pictures. Everything by the book for a luxury launch.
But everyone knows that their Apple products need to be replaced every couple of years. A luxury watch needs to be something you could imagine passing to your grandchildren (even if you don't actually do that and just end up selling the watch some time later, as many buyers do). An Apple Watch just stops getting updates after four years and becomes electronics junk, gold alloy or not.
In a rare misstep, the design and marketing departments at Apple were out of sync with the reality of their hardware product as part of a software-driven platform.
In a similar vein, 25 years ago Nokia was at the top and tried to create a separate luxury brand Vertu for $10k phones: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertu
That didn't work out either because the devices were lacking the holistic combination of handcraft and creativity that Arnault would expect from a luxury product. They were simply ordinary Nokia phone guts in opulent metal cases. Vertu finally went bankrupt in 2017.
That's why you'll see people buy old barely functional luxury goods (like mid 2000s Lamborghinis which barely work any more) because most people don't realise they're dirt cheap now, and so the cost to signal ratio is very high. Look at Maseratis: awful garbage cars in most cases, but because they look nice, lots of people trying to signal wealth and success will buy them for cheap, despite an almost guarantee they'll be worthless.
Finally, LVMH may be critical of Apple in this article, but they would love to be in their position. Apple has mastered the art of selling things with Toyota volumes and Ferrari margins.
It makes for an interesting contrast with the previous holder of the title of world's richest man, Elon Musk.
I'm an occasional customer of both Tesla and LVMH. The rare times I've bought a bottle of Krug or Dom Pérignon, it has never let me down. The product was exactly what they promised. But with Tesla, my prevailing mood is a lingering disappointment that I was stupid enough to pay $7500 for a "Full Self Driving" package which four years later still doesn't do anything.
I know Musk has lots of fans, but eventually lies will catch up to you. Arnault doesn't have this problem.
If you look at the Vuitton catalogue, you will indeed see products which would definitely be seen as luxury goods: the best Italian leathers, costly assembly techniques, products painstakingly handcrafted in places known for their mastery of the craft. All of these a pretty decor to sell perfumes with global appeal (read uninteresting) and overpriced handbags.
> “We don’t do marketing,” Arnault told his interviewer.
If you believe this interview, I have a bridge (or a new cryptocurrency) to sell you.
I think you're confusing marketing and advertising.
People can all be quite confident the luxury market was very well catered to quite a number of centuries before this.