Will I Get a Tracking Number From Louis Vuitton

Two summers ago we learned a valuable lesson: Charity, even if it doesn't involve kittens or a Buzzfeed quiz, can go viral. The Ice Bucket Challenge— with its Facebook ubiquity, its popularity with stars from Bill Gates to Benedict Cumberbatch, and its $115 million raised for ALS—was all the proof we needed.

Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connelly

Patrick Demarchelier

So when Louis Vuitton decided to partner with UNICEF, LV CEO Michael Burke knew that the Silver Lockit bracelet and pendant his company was creating for the campaign was only part of the equation ($200 of the $500 price goes to UNICEF's efforts to help children in crisis around the world). "We wanted to create not just a great product but a strong symbol, a gesture that could make the whole effort 100 times more potent," Burke says.

And so his team came up with the "pinky promise": two or more people interlocking pinkies, the way children do when swearing something—which could be photographed and then Instagrammed, Tweeted, and Facebooked.

"The pinky promise is not universal," he says. "Children do it in certain countries, like the U.S. and Japan, but it's not in France, for instance. But we thought it was playful and heartfelt and childlike—which made sense, since we were focusing on children—so it was worth trying. Still, I thought it would take much longer for it to gain traction, that we'd have to explain it. The surprise was how quickly it went viral and global. We ended up selling 4,000 bracelets and pendants in 10 days, which is a multiple of what we anticipated."

A big part of that success is the result of a strategic launch: LV unveiled its #MAKEAPROMISE social media campaign and Silver Lockit at UNICEF's ball in Los Angeles in January, where Patrick Demarchelier snapped such pinky-linked attendees as Léa Seydoux, Jennifer Connelly, Nicole Kidman, and Mariah Carey—the photos to be 'grammed out into the universe and hashtagged accordingly. "Kicking a social media campaign off with an event like that is smart, because you get celebrities to activate it for you," says Kevin Kelly, digital media director at the L.A. social impact agency Propper Daley.

"We had scheduled #MAKEAPROMISE events for all over the world—London, Germany, Asia—but we didn't even have to wait for those to happen to get those countries to pick up on this," Burke says. "China, for instance, took to it right away. Over 30 top Chinese influencers posted #MAKEAPROMISE photos within days of the L.A. event."

Does all this mean social media is now a necessary part of corporate philanthropy? Yes—at least if you want to reach the audience that is most moved by companies doing social good. "Millennials are so much more interested in brands that are giving back," Kelly says. "They are the ones likely to spend an extra dollar on a protein bar if that bar is feeding a family."

Selena Gomez and Miranda Kerr

Patrick Demarchelier

LV's very visible UNICEF effort is undoubtedly good branding, but according to Burke it actually had another motivation: LV's own employees, who had been eager to help victims of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, in 2011. "We have a deep relationship with Japan, and we had nothing in place at that time to help our people donate. We basically said, 'That shouldn't happen again.'" With UNICEF, LV now has a permanent fund, which can be fed both by the Lockit sales and direct donations and be used whenever and wherever disaster strikes and the company feels compelled to take action.

Nevertheless, Burke was worried that his French colleagues would be his toughest customers. Even after the L.A. event and the initial viral success, he doubted whether they could be persuaded to jump on the pinky promise bandwagon. "This is not what's typically done by a French luxury brand. In America or Italy, sure, but I had some hesitation about doing it here," he said about the #MAKEAPROMISE-themed party he threw for LV's 1,200 Paris employees in late January. "But by the end of the night we had 20 or 30 people at a time trying to squeeze into that photo booth to link pinkies. To me that was more impressive than getting the celebrities to do it."

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io

Will I Get a Tracking Number From Louis Vuitton

Source: https://www.townandcountrymag.com/style/fashion-trends/news/a5675/louis-vuitton-make-a-promise/

Share this post