Louis Vuitton and 40 Years of Moon Travel

Talk about a brand that truly knows itself and its customers. Bravo Louis Vuitton.

Yes, LV is a luxury brand. Yes, their logo and products are the envy of any high-end shopper. But more important, it is a name and brand that knows who they are. It is a symbol that stands for travel and the journey. How big and how small one goes with the concept of the journey is up to the individual. From a small clutch and a trip for a latte, to the kind of baggage one only sees in vintage shots of ocean liners, to a trip to the moon. It is this last journey that they were smart enough to realize just how big it could be. Not because they could latch onto the 40th anniversary buzz, but because they could help to make the buzz. They went from being a product company that creates luggage, to a company that moves people.

When I first saw their print advertisement months ago, I thought, "Wow, now there's a company that understands what they are about, and isn't afraid to use real people that truly exemplify their brand, instead of just another pretty body or face." I never realized how big they were going to go with it though. From a store wrap that attracts gawkers and, more important, shoppers, to today's reproduction of The New York Times July 21st, 1969 headline, complete with, yes you guessed it, their ad on the back, they not only captured the excitement, they built upon it by honoring the astronauts. Best of all, when I saw President Obama with the astronauts - Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins - I couldn't help but think about the ad by Louis Vuitton.

To the other brands out there - first find out what is at the heart of your product and your company. Cull it down to one word. Then find a way to take that word off the drawing board and bring it to life. For Louis Vuitton, it was journey. For the rest of us, it was the Apollo 11 moon shot from 40 years ago.

Green Ideas That Make Business Sense

Every once in a while you come across a company that is shifting their brand in very real ways. It's often the simplest things that make the biggest difference in how a company and a brand is perceived. It's what I call taking the brand off the drawing board and bringing it to life.

For all those people who look at outdoor advertising as a blight on America, I ask you to check out what Fuel Outdoor in Miami has done. It's created a deal with the city of Miami to build 600 solar powered bus shelters. Yes, it gets to sell the advertising space on these locations, but hey, that's 600 bus shelters for people to hide from the sun and rain. Better still, they're solar powered, so the cost of keeping them lit at night is nothing.

So who says creating a green initiative has to cost? Who says it has to be painful for the company? It can be a win for the company [Fuel gets more ad space to sell], a win for the community [Miami gets 600 bus shelters for free], and for the planet [solar, solar, solar which will prevent an estimated 2 tons of carbon emissions from being expelled into the air].

Miami Mayor Manny Diaz explained, “Thanks to a successful public-private partnership, what we have with Fuel Miami is a revolutionary model at work – corporate advertising dollars are being used to clean the environment.”

“As outdoor advertisers, we are sensitive to the quality and appearance of the city’s environment,” Freedman said. “In the case of our Miami bus shelters, we felt it was necessary to ensure that our advertisements could provide benefits to not only our clients, but also the city.”

Not a bad thing for everyone involved....