Chapter 905: Luxury Brand

Anna Wintour said: "Prada is my favorite fashion brand, and Miuccia is also a good friend of mine."

"Miuccia?"

"Miuccia Prada, she is the second generation head of Prada."

"oh!"

Tang En suddenly realized.

Miuccia Prada is not only the current head of Prada Group, but also the soul designer of Prada. In addition to the movie "The Devil Wears Prada", the costume design in "The Great Gatsby" starring Leonardo DiCaprio is also from her hands, and won the best Oscar in one fell swoop. Costume Design Award.

I heard Anna Wintour say: "Miu Miu and I have known each other for 30 years. At that time... Prada was already a dying family brand. It was she who innovated and made Prada a world-class luxury brand."

She seemed to be a little emotional, showing a look of reminiscence, shaking her head and sighing.

Tang En said: "Prada is a world-class brand, there is no doubt about it. But I heard my girlfriend mentioned that Prada is not having a good time recently."

That's the excuse.

Tang En didn't know much about fashion, nor was he interested in it.

His knowledge of Prada is still due to the movie project "The Queen Wears Prada". In this movie, all the costumes must be designed and produced by Prada, and they will be given to the crew for free, and a large amount of sponsorship fees will also be used.

However, on the issue of sponsorship fees, there has been a lot of disagreement.

According to Universal Pictures, the production budget of "The Devil Wears Prada" is between 30 million and 40 million U.S. dollars, and the Prada Group... just sponsor half of the production budget, 20 million U.S. dollars!

Subsequent box office incentive bonuses will be calculated separately.

Prada certainly disagreed, saying that it could only pay a sponsorship fee of US$5 million at most.

This is one of the reasons why the project has been delayed.

Both sides are still consuming.

It was also because of this incident that Tang En knew that Prada's current operating conditions were very poor, and it encountered a serious debt crisis and cash flow difficulties.

If you switch to LV, or Coach, Gucci and other thriving brands, it’s only 20 million US dollars, and you can pay directly!

This is injecting the brand name directly into the movie title!

It's a Hollywood movie!

The influence is too great!

Just look at the road to fame of the famous luxury brand "Tiffany".

Where is the success of "Tiffany"?

It's because Audrey Hepburn starred in a movie called "Breakfast at Tiffany's" that year!

In addition, the road to fame of luxury brands such as Dior, Versace, Givenchy, Chanel, Hermes, etc., cannot do without the promotion of movies.

This rare opportunity should not be missed.

Unfortunately, Prada has no money now.

Anna Wintour said: "Now, the world's best-selling fashion leather luxury goods is undisputedly LV. However, 30 years ago, LV was just a little-known small workshop, which is comparable to Prada and Hermes. The brands are simply incomparable. Later, the Louis Vuitton Group changed its operation plan and started the road of mergers and acquisitions. It successively won Hennessy, Givenchy, Dior, Guerlain, Sephora and other well-known brands, and began to develop into a large fashion group. It has achieved amazing results The success. Under this momentum, LV overtook it in one fell swoop.”

Tang En understood, "So...Prada also wants to follow the development route of this large group?"

Anna Wintour said bitterly: "Miao Miu had such a plan. At the end of the 1990s, Prada spent huge sums of money and successively won Fendi, Helmut Lang, Jil Sander and other extreme brands. A prestigious international brand. As a result, it did not achieve the expected success, and the brand integration failed. Not only did the turnover not get a huge increase, but also because of the large-scale acquisition, it was burdened with huge debts.”

In Europe and the United States in the 1990s, there was a frenzy of mergers and acquisitions, not only in the entertainment industry, but also in the fashion industry.

With success, in addition to LVMH, Switzerland’s Richemont Group has also successively won many brands such as Van Cleef & Arpels, Jaeger-LeCoultre, Lange, IWC, and suddenly became a company with dozens of luxury brands. The Kingdom of Pin shines brightly.

In addition, France's PPR Group also took 42% of the shares of Gucci Group, and entered the luxury goods industry in one fell swoop, and achieved great success.

There are even more failures.

After the advent of the new century, the wave of mergers and acquisitions in the 1990s faded, and the bubbles in various industries began to burst gradually. Many luxury brands began to have various problems, and they were facing the crisis of bankruptcy and bankruptcy.

Such as Wedgwood, such as Escada, such as Yohji Yamamoto, such as Yake Shidan, such as Hermes, and such as Prada!

Although Tang En didn't know much about the fashion field, he was quite insightful about business laws. He nodded and said, "Family-run luxury brands... are more artistic, but they are weak in risk resistance. The market changes too fast, and a single brand Even Hermes and Prada have risks. If they want to survive, they must be conglomerate, becoming a large group like LVMH and Richemont, and sharing risks among multiple brands. From this point of view , Ms. Prada's M&A strategy is not wrong."

Anna Wintour sighed, "That's what I said, but business and art... are not the same thing at all. You must understand when I say this, Twain, you are a great film artist, but you manage new Is Universal's philosophy in an artist's way?"

Tang En smiled slightly.

If you manage the company with the thinking of an artist, you can only die!

For example, the DreamWorks managed by Spielberg must be getting more and more lost.

It can be said that this is an old problem of many European nobles.

Just like Murdoch asked him for help and asked New Universal to invest in Sky TV, those old-fashioned European aristocrats are very fucked in business management.

Europe has much more artistic atmosphere than the United States, especially those family businesses, all of which have a heritage of artistic inheritance. This kind of artistic infection makes them want to earn both money and respect when they make money.

How can there be such a good thing?

The normal thinking of a businessman is that if you can make money, you are decent!

For example, the rising star LV, which is thriving, and Hermes and Prada, whose sales are getting lower and lower.

Where is the gap?

LV belongs to the LVMH Group. The head of the company is Bernard Arnault, a real estate tycoon who knows nothing about fashion. He is a businessman through and through!

Family businesses such as Hermes, Prada, and Bulgari are headed by designers and artists.

No wonder this can manage the company well.

For example, what is the purpose of customers buying luxury brands? Is it because the quality of luxury goods is better, the style is newer, and it is more elegant? It is true that some high-end users are indeed like this.

However, for a larger part of people, it is because luxury goods can show their personal status!

It's for showing off!

Bernard Arnault keenly grasped this psychology of customers, and as a complete layman, he forcibly adjusted the design concept of LV products - making the logo bigger!

Take women's bags as an example.

Why do women prefer to buy LV bags instead of Prada and Hermes?

Prada and Hermès are too low-key. The brand logos are designed very small, especially Hermès. There are several brands of bags that are even lined inside and cannot be seen outside.

Isn't this nonsense?

If others can't see the brand logo, who will buy it?

On the other hand, how does LV do it?

The LV bag is very ostentatious on the outside, so it is equipped with two big golden letters "L" and "V"!

It seems that it can be seen from two miles away.

This is so cool.

Take it out to be a thief!

Customers naturally have a soft spot for LV bags.

Designers of Hermès and Prada often criticize LV's bag design as being too tyrannical, too stupid, ugly and ugly, without any artistic flavor.

So what?

LV is on fire!

The combined sales of Hermes and Prada are no match for LV!

Art?

That's bullshit!

Most customers do not understand the artistry of luxury goods at all, and only care about the added value that luxury goods bring to themselves.

The same goes for movies.

At this film festival, Tang En and Lao Mouzi met a few times and talked about the movie "House of Flying Daggers" many times. Simple, full of loopholes in the plot, it can be called a bad movie.

But Twain knew that the film's reputation exploded among American critics, second only to "Hero". The film's use of overall scene scheduling almost copied "Hero", which is amazing.

This full-level difficulty shooting technique has almost been lost after Francis Coppola. A Chinese director can use it freely, isn't that great enough?

As for the shortcomings in the plot, they are almost negligible, and the flaws are not concealed. In terms of art and film audio-visual aspects, Lao Mouzi's film is the only one in the world!

From this perspective, "House of Flying Daggers" was selected as one of the top ten best films in the world in 2004 by Time Magazine, and it deserves its name.

However, the audience is different.

When ordinary audiences watch movies, what they watch is not the language of the movie, the color rendering, the mise-en-scène, or the artistic content, but the smooth appeal of the story.

A good plot is a good movie!

If the plot is not good, it is a bad movie!

This is the biggest difference between business and art.

Different targets must be distinguished.

Tang En had a deep understanding and said with a smile: "With Prada's background and popularity, this is just a little trouble, right?"

Anna Wintour shook her head and said: "IPO financing is the best way to solve the debt crisis. However, Prada's listing application failed because the debt ratio is too high."

Well, the company's debt ratio is too high, and it is not allowed to go public.

Otherwise, there will be suspicions of entrapping shareholders and cutting leeks.

Tang En nodded thoughtfully, "So, Ms. Prada entrusted you to find me?"

"No, she didn't say that." Anna Wintour shook her head, "She just complained about the troubles she encountered, but she didn't think about selling the family business. I'm just acting as a middleman, let's see what you mean first. "

"If I agree, you can persuade her?" Tang En smiled half-smile.

Anna Wintour smiled even brighter, "I don't think anyone can refuse the potential and strength of New Universal!"