“The marketing campaign that’s popping out is synonymous with what we’ve been doing with our suitcases—exhibiting that they’re symbols of your transformation, your journeys,” Rimowa’s senior vice chairman of product and advertising Emelie De Vitis informed ADWEEK. “They’re witnesses to your evolution. Each dent tells a narrative of the way you’ve developed to be the individual you might be.”
“That is [also] why we’ve used the suitcases of our ambassadors on this iteration,” De Vitis added, noting that Hamilton, Chou and Rosé appeared in Rimowa advertisements two years in the past. “The suitcases are getting older—beautifying with our ambassadors,” she mentioned. “For me, it’s actually the sense that you just’ve by no means stopped rising.”
In a class outlined by “It” bags on the shoulders of fresh-faced stars, Rimowa’s technique is a marked departure not simply from luxury-segment norms, however from the flavor-of-the-month tradition of selling general, in keeping with Mike Ford, CEO of data-based advertising optimization agency Skydeo.
“It’s simple (and costly) to rent a trending face to pump out content material. What’s tougher (and extra invaluable) is constructing a model story arc over time,” he mentioned. “By exhibiting personalities evolving and tying that evolution to their product, Rimowa isn’t simply advertising journey, it’s advertising identification.”
Later this month, Rimowa may also launch “Sticker Tales,” a collection of movies that includes its model ambassadors in informal dialog about their lives and travels. Rosé’s video, for instance, is a type of show-and-tell together with her sticker-covered Traditional Cabin curler, which she calls “a very good pal.” Over the previous yr, she explains, “I’ve mainly been residing out of my suitcase, so it’s been an enormous a part of writing my album.”
To underscore its positioning nonetheless additional, Rimowa may also be increasing its well-liked Re-Crafted program, by which the corporate purchases well-worn instances from previous clients and reconditions them functionally however not aesthetically: The instances shut, lock, and roll as if they’re showroom contemporary, however all the dents and dings and stickers from the earlier house owners stay untouched. Examined in 2023 in Germany and Japan, the gross sales have been so well-liked—shares in Japan offered out in seven minutes—that they are going to now be a quarterly occasion within the U.S.
