Louis Vuitton Plus Soccer Legends = Cool Brand Promotion

Looking through the Sunday New York Times I spied an amazing ad (art by Annie Lebovitz) featuring soccer legends Diego Maradona, Pele, and Zinedine Zidane. An ad for G. An indepth tease for ESPN's World Cup coverag. Nope. It is the focal point of a multi-level international brand campaign by Louis Vuitton that ties all elements of style, sport, and digital together with some traditional fun. The campaign, dissected in the LA Times, was shot in Spain with the three soccer legends getting together to “hang out” under the watchful eye of Leibovitz. All alone it is an amazing series of ads as art, promoting the quality of the brand. Then one visits the website.

There you have the three legends playing foosball in the rustic bar, chatting and talking trash in their native tongues and connecting not just soccer fans, but any male who enjoys a casual game of sport with friends, to these three legends. Go further and the site gives the visitor the ability to have each of the three play against the other, and even allows the participant to conduct a very interesting set of questions, with pretty compelling answers, to each of the legends. The questions give insight into where and what each think of the upcoming World Cup and what they will be doing before and after. The sote gives fans from around the world the chance to listen in on the conversation in their own langauge, and has a call to action series where winners can even obtain signed items from the legneds.

There is no overt sell anywhere in the campaign or the high tech site. It gives lots of understated hints about product and comfort and the beauty of comraderie, and provides a look in to what these legends do and think about each other. It provides a very interesting perspective to casual fans who may know the man and what they did but not all the detail, and for those who thought they knew everything…well they may not have seen the trio together like this before. In the end their is the obligitory but not overt, link for further information as well as all the social media ties to capture information about the visitor.

The most intriguing thing is how much an non-traditional sports but a very strong fashion brand went above and beyond to create a very strong brand campaign as the eyes of the world really focus on South Africa this month. They chose the classic in every sense of the word…classic champions and athletes…comfortable and masculine looks in a very rustic setting, all playing a fun game that many have enjoyed as kids. Nothing is overt, everything is subtle. Does it sell produc.? Unsure. Does it exemplify a lifestyle bran. Yes. Will it help with recall when men are shopping and have a discretionary choice in the shops of the worl. Probably. As a brand inspiration, the campaign is a great one, even with a bit of ambush marketing thrown in. It certainly was not cheap to pull such a campaign off, but then again Louis Vuitton does not want the cheap…they want the high discretionary dollar and by linking to the champions the way they did, they have a good chance of getting it.