Melwani says that to grow its customer base and foster cultural relevance, LVMH looks for shared moments of culture. \u201cIf you take a step back, these things\u201d \u2014 he holds up his smartphone \u2014 \u201care ruining society. We know that that\u2019s a pretty established fact, at this point. One of the reasons it\u2019s problematic is because what each of us watch on these devices is almost totally different from each other. So therefore it\u2019s very, very hard to build cultural desirability through this,\u201d he explains. \u201cWe need shared points of culture in order to build cultural relevance and therefore long-term desirability \u2014 that\u2019s the business that we\u2019re in \u2014 so Formula One is one of the remaining places for shared culture and [the fact that] younger women are coming into the sport, that\u2019s a key part of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
LVMH has begun approaching moments like this at a group level, breaking with tradition to promote individual brands. This strategy was prominent during the Paris Olympics \u2014 in addition to opening ceremony suits from Berluti, Chaumet-designed medals, athletes dressed in Dior and Louis Vuitton, and Mo\u00ebt Hennessy-stocked events \u2014 LVMH itself hosted a hospitality townhouse on Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honor\u00e9.<\/p>\n
Formula One is building on this template, creating efficiencies in terms of shared event venues, guest lists and experiences. On the Thursday leading into the race weekend, Tag Heuer hosted a private party at its new Austin store, which opened in June, with sales that surpassed expectations. The F1 partnership is working especially well for the luxury watchmaker, Melwani says. (Tag Heuer\u2019s F1 relationship goes back to a Ferrari sponsorship in 1971.) At the track, Tag Heuer collectors joined Louis Vuitton clients in private track-side \u201cphoto safaris\u201d and paddock tours, cooling off and dining together in the shared suite.<\/p>\n
LVMH plans to build on this approach with subsequent races. The Austin race was just extended through 2034, and there are 24 races a year. Unlike with the Olympics, LVMH has 10 years to finesse its approach. \u201cWhenever we see something that is expanding the tent that can be accessed, that\u2019s interesting to us,\u201d Melwani says.<\/p>\n
Made in the USA, in Texas<\/p>\n
The crowd in Austin reached 450,000<\/a>, and it\u2019s one of the best-attended F1 events. But Texas is important to LVMH beyond F1. Texas\u2019s business-friendly climate and lower taxes now attract those including Apple, Tesla and Charles Schwab<\/a>. LVMH has about 100 boutiques across the state, having opened 10 new retail locations in the past year. Dallas\u2019s Dior boutique was one of only two locations to open a Dominique Crenn-led restaurant<\/a> (the other is in Beverly Hills), and Houston is the homebase of a joint venture between Beyonc\u00e9 and SirDavis whisky<\/a>. LVMH also has a distribution center and a client service center in Texas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Melwani says that to grow its customer base and foster cultural relevance, LVMH looks for shared moments of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":29326,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133,910,19754,19755,19756],"class_list":["post-29325","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news","tag-business","tag-splitscreenimageleftinset","tag-storytypereporting","tag-web"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29325","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29325"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29325\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}