LVMH Group Chairman Bernard Arnault once said: “Louis Vuitton is not just a fashion brand, but a cultural and creative brand.”
This statement’s significance lies in elevating Louis Vuitton’s spiritual attributes to “another level” in the luxury goods circle. The implication is that one cannot judge Louis Vuitton’s actions by the traditional commercial logic of luxury goods, including the current grand “Beijing Style” event!
Although Louis Vuitton has held similar promotional activities in other cities in the Chinese Mainland, the effect and response it generates when it comes to Beijing, the cultural heart of China, is on “another level”!
In the landmark building of Beijing’s central axis—the Drum Tower—the bustling scene of Beijing’s alleyways, passing vehicles, and tourists coming to check in form a lively atmosphere.
In July, follow Luxeplace.com to delve into how Louis Vuitton creates a magical chemical reaction with the millennial ancient capital, naturally integrating its brand DNA and cultural heritage into the powerful aura of Beijing, becoming a genuine “person of culture.”
Which Four Districts and Two Platforms Did Louis Vuitton Set Up?
Another quote from Bernard Arnault perhaps explains why luxury brands venture into the cultural realm: “It is because Louis Vuitton participates in all aspects of cultural life that it can reach a broad customer base, from the most important Generation Z, who are loyal fans of Louis Vuitton, to a more mature clientele.”
Although we often divide brand customer groups by age and purchasing power, for Louis Vuitton, all consumers who pay attention to and aspire to culture are target groups for dialogue.
The broader and more dispersed the target audience a brand seeks to communicate with, the more it tests the brand’s appeal and its understanding and planning ability for content and activities.
From travel and sports to reading and art, Louis Vuitton’s Beijing series of activities successfully radiated a broader range of people offline and online, using brand genes and traditions as the introduction.
On July 10, Louis Vuitton’s “Beijing Style” pop-up spaces simultaneously opened in the four districts of 798CUBE, Drum Tower, Liangma River, and China World Trade Center, displaying a selection of brand books, gifts, sports, travel, and lifestyle art series, including the “Louis Vuitton City Guide” Beijing and Paris editions.
Louis Vuitton’s “Beijing Style” Limited Time Pop-Up Spaces
In the “Louis Vuitton City Guide” Beijing edition, 798CUBE is described as “a contemporary art center transformed from an old factory,” where artists’ creativity collides with the Bauhaus-style factory buildings built in the 1950s, creating a free and romantic artistic atmosphere.
Today, 798CUBE is not only a paradise for artists but also attracts countless young people who aspire to art, fashion, and trends.
If 798CUBE represents Beijing’s modernization, then the Drum Tower, which has stood for 600 years on the city’s central axis, is a testament to the capital’s profound history, always attracting history enthusiasts.
Located at 798CUBE: Louis Vuitton’s “Beijing Style” pop-up space
Interestingly, since a Beijing aunt’s comment “What’s so great about this old city gate?” went viral, the distance between the Drum Tower and young people suddenly shortened, making it a popular spot for strolling residents, passersby, and city-walking young tourists.
The CBD of China World Trade Center showcases the city’s sharpness and progress, while Liangma River does not miss any opportunity to chill, whether it’s paddleboarding or kayaking.
Located at China World Trade Center CBD: Louis Vuitton’s “Beijing Style” pop-up space
Located at Liangma River: Louis Vuitton’s “Beijing Style” pop-up space
Different functional areas together form a city’s lifestyle. Cultural life gradually takes shape in these aspects. Entering different communities, we see vivid interpretations of Louis Vuitton participating in cultural life and reaching different groups.
Beijing’s Central Axis
In the internet age, people’s lives extend online, and brands follow suit, continuing to tell Beijing stories on social media platforms.
For the first time, Louis Vuitton launched a limited-time online bookstore on Douyin, delivering brand publications, including the “City Guide” series, to a broader audience through the internet.
Perhaps to the surprise of many, Douyin, with hundreds of millions of users, has built a hall of knowledge dissemination. According to Douyin’s “2024 Douyin Reading Ecosystem Data Report,” the total number of reading videos longer than or equal to 5 minutes is 11.43 million. Among the user groups, Generation Z has the highest preference, with the proportion of Gen Z who love watching reading videos being the largest compared to other young age groups.
Behind this is the platform’s construction of a “Douyin Cultural Knowledge System,” breaking down knowledge barriers and curing “cultural hunger.”
Louis Vuitton not only invited skier Gu Ailing to lead everyone in reading the “City Guide” Beijing edition but also leveraged the platform’s knowledge matrix, inviting active cultural figures on Douyin like Hong Huang to share their unique insights.
Skier Gu Ailing and Douyin cultural influencer Hong Huang reading and sharing the Beijing edition of the “City Guide”
Using books as a medium, the internet’s speed and breadth of dissemination help Louis Vuitton forge a path to capture quality audiences in the vast sea of books, a pioneering and bold attempt in the luxury industry.
On Little Red Book, Louis Vuitton continued the keywords “travel” and “sports,” launching the Beijing Roaming Guide. With cycling, art, and culture as the three travel routes to explore Beijing, the brand further deepened its connection with travel, based on the previously co-created hashtags like #TravelWithLouisVuitton.
Facing a more uncertain future than ever, new customer groups are crucial for luxury brands to maintain growth. However, potential young customers, their focus, preferences, and habits, urge brands to rethink their dialogue under the new context.
Offline event reservation page on Little Red Book
How to Break the Circle Online and Offline?
In the internet age, digital channels provide the potential for exponential growth of offline activities and brand presence.
With the launch of Louis Vuitton’s “Beijing Style” pop-up spaces in four districts, social media platforms such as Douyin and Little Red Book were immediately filled with visit posts from bloggers and KOLs, reaching the first batch of brand and KOL audiences online:
Partying at the opening event with the band New Pants, enjoying authentic Beijing snacks and coffee; paddling with friends on the Liangma River; cycling with skier Su Yiming under the Drum Tower…
©yuyusai; Da Dong GOODGO; P$K Guanxi is not Edison Chen
Louis Vuitton’s Chinese podcast, Louis Vuitton [EXTENDED], aired a Beijing special. The sounds and life of old Beijing alleyways came to life, touching the hearts of expatriates and inspiring more to explore.
Today, people are more eager than ever to find a sense of spiritual belonging. The city provides such a foothold, giving the brand an opportunity to connect with local consumers.
At the end of the program, the guest introduced Louis Vuitton’s pop-up bookstore event, naturally achieving a seamless online-to-offline conversion.
Louis Vuitton Podcast Salon
For many, it might be a “fun fact” that Louis Vuitton publishes books. In the late 1990s, the brand officially entered the publishing industry. Even earlier, the third-generation heir of the founding family, Gaston Louis Vuitton, had a passion for literature and books, which preluded the brand’s connection with books.
Today, in the brand’s boutiques, we can still see books on art, fashion, and travel.
On Douyin, Louis Vuitton took the “Beijing Style” pop-up space as an opportunity to further explore new ways to break the circle. User searches covered the entire chain, from trending lists, video keywords, to brand zones, sparking a reading craze on Douyin, breaking industry barriers, and reaching a broader audience with knowledge and content.
Louis Vuitton Douyin Pop-Up Bookstore
Since opening its Douyin account in August 2020, Louis Vuitton has accumulated nearly 4 million followers, making it the first in the luxury goods industry.
In recent years, Louis Vuitton has continuously explored the Douyin ecosystem, from a series of grand live broadcasts upon joining, to exciting clips of exhibitions and collaborations, as well as VIP ROOM and mini-program services, building a complete closed-loop path.
Online is offline. Every click, visit, and even functional operation such as reservations on social media is a transmission in the real world.
The Douyin online bookstore disseminates Louis Vuitton’s publishing tradition, while Littl Red Book’s online guides vividly interpret Louis Vuitton’s travel spirit.
These not only drive traffic online and offline but also add multi-dimensional aspects for the public to understand the brand, enriching Louis Vuitton’s content assets and brand image.
How Does Louis Vuitton’s DNA Continue to Strongly Connect with Culture from Shanghai to Beijing?
“From six o’clock in the morning, you can see the robust Beijingers in the city’s major parks, dancing gracefully or practicing Tai Chi.”
“The sport of bat-and-ball… was the first sport formally played in Paris. To this day, a tennis court remains in the Paris city center to commemorate its origin.”
The upcoming Olympics awaken the sports memories of Beijing and Paris, two Olympic cities. In the latest edition of the “Louis Vuitton City Guide” for Beijing and Paris, the sports atmosphere and long history of the two cities are introduced.
Sports help us uncover a corner of the city and find connections between the two.
Sports know no borders. Whether it’s Beijingers playing with crickets in Houhai Park, skating on the lake’s ice, or Parisians practicing equestrian skills at the racecourse or playing basketball on the street, people thousands of miles apart find resonance in sports. Different lifestyles all reveal a love for life itself.
Of course, sports are just one aspect of these two cities. The “Louis Vuitton City Guide” constructs cultural exchanges between Beijing and Paris from sports, as well as food, scenery, fashion, history, culture, and art.
Born in Paris, Louis Vuitton has long set its sights worldwide, focusing on exploring the local culture of top global cities, with Beijing being an indispensable stop.
As one of the earliest overseas luxury brands to enter the Chinese Mainland market since the 1990s, Louis Vuitton has always been at the forefront of exploring local culture in China.
Since the first edition of the “Louis Vuitton City Guide” in 1998, the series has traveled to 30 cities, including New York, Tokyo, Lisbon, and Tokyo. Each edition invites local artists or urban enthusiasts with rich life experiences to share their city experiences.
“Louis Vuitton City Guide” Series
Readers enter Beijing from the perspective of a traveler, visiting the city’s wonderful attractions, palaces and hotels, luxurious restaurants and corner taverns, bustling markets and quiet museums. The city’s culture and life unfold like peeling an onion—this is how Louis Vuitton delves into and shares local culture, which is also a natural requirement of the brand’s travel spirit.
In October 2023, Louis Vuitton launched the “Hello, Shanghai” pop-up space along the Suzhou River in Shanghai, releasing a new edition of the “Louis Vuitton City Guide” Shanghai special edition, and launched the first Chinese podcast program Louis Vuitton [EXTENDED], along with a series of book clubs and cultural talks.
This year, starting with the podcast program, Louis Vuitton expanded more localized content, maximizing the diffusion effect through online and offline co-creation.
Over 100 years ago, during the “Age of Steam,” the brand’s eponymous founder, Louis Vuitton, started with an innovative hard-sided travel trunk, beginning the brand’s legendary history. The travel spirit has since been deeply embedded in Louis Vuitton’s brand DNA.
Today, continuing the brand’s spirit, Louis Vuitton becomes the first luxury brand to launch custom plane tickets.
During the pop-up space’s opening period, the new editions of the “Louis Vuitton City Guide” Beijing and Paris were available for free download on the “Louis Vuitton City Guide” APP. Brand advertisements made their debut on the Beijing-Shanghai route of China Eastern Airlines, expanding the “Beijing Style” pop-up space’s reach among frequent travelers to Beijing.
The airport is an important scene for Louis Vuitton. Brand specials have appeared on the boarding bridges of Shanghai Hongqiao International Airport, luggage conveyor belts at Shanghai Pudong International Airport, and there are permanent boutiques in five domestic airports, as well as brand VIP lounges at airports in London and Doha.
Through boarding passes, Louis Vuitton extends its brand visibility from the “airport” to the “cabin.”
The lifestyle of travel remains a key definition of luxury in today’s context. In exploring and sharing city destinations, Louis Vuitton involves itself in the cultural life of the city, subtly shaping or influencing consumers’ understanding of luxury culture.
｜Image Credit: provided by the brand, Little Red Book blogger images (see account names)
｜Editor: Zhu Ruoyu
