Luxury group LVMH has announced a new strategic partnership with Google Cloud as it looks to accelerate innovation across its brands and leverage artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning technology to create more personalised customer experiences.
The partnership was announced by Toni Belloni, group managing director at LVMH, at the Viva Technology in Paris on Wednesday.
“This new, unprecedented and significant partnership with Google Cloud is the reflection of our high ambitions in this area,” Belloni said.
“By combining our best-in-class approaches in our respective industries, it will take us a step forward in the use of data and AI. For us, privacy, personalisation, and luxury are synonymous, and that will always remain true.
“The new opportunities offered to our customers are exactly what our talented teams are working for at LVMH: a unique and unforgettable experience.”
Beyond the digital catwalk
Simon Stacey, creative director and studio head at design agency YourStudio, believes the partnership makes “perfect sense” for LVMH, as the luxury sector moves beyond digital catwalks to stay one step ahead of their increasingly tech-savvy customers.
“The luxury sector has moved far beyond the need for pandemic provoked ‘digital catwalks’ to the creation of amazing ‘playscapes’ as immersive touch points for a fast growing millennial/Gen Z customer base,” Stacey said, noting that this audience is expected to be worth half of a projected $350 billion global luxury market by 2025.
“As luxury brands consider what drives this new generation of affluent consumers, ever-changing digital-era technologies are the starting point for O2O [offline to online] experiences that mash up exciting digital [and] physical brand landscapes based on self-expression, creativity and experience over ownership,” he said. “You are literally playing inside luxury brand campaigns!”
All about product storytelling
While LVMH has not gone into detail about the kinds of personalised customer experiences it’s hoping to create with Google’s technology, Stacey believes that product storytelling is a big opportunity, especially when it’s geared towards a broad audience, not just luxury customers.
This could include ‘replica realities’, where product narratives can be experienced by many people through digital portals, ‘augmented IRL’, where gamified narratives drive engagement through the joy of play, and ‘virtual worlds’, where rich product storytelling transports people to other worlds.
“Nearly all of YourStudio’s luxury clients are now looking for 360 degree ‘experience worlds’,” he said. “We’re designing ‘metaversal worlds’!”
A culture of innovation
As part of the partnership, LVMH will use Google Cloud to modernise components of its IT infrastructure. It will also get support to enhance its culture of innovation, including the creation of dedicated, inclusive upskilling and certification programs for teams working across its luxury brands. The two companies will also launch a Data and AI Academy in Paris to accelerate their expertise and innovation in these fields.
“We are proud to be entering into such an innovative and extensive partnership with LVMH to power its innovation through cloud technology and AI capacities. Together, we can help drive the future of customer experience in the luxury industry,” Thomas Kurian, Google Cloud’s CEO, said.
Digital acceleration during Covid
At the Viva Technology conference in Paris this week, LVMH is presenting customer experience innovations that have been introduced at over a dozen of its luxury brands, including the launch of the ‘seamless’ app for sales advisors at the luxury fashion label Celine.
The app, which was developed during Covid, facilitates the entire relationship between customers and advisors, using data on purchase history and tastes to create the best possible purchase experience.
“Covid-19 was the best Chief Digital Transformation Officer! Due to lockdowns, clients used their smartphone or laptop, Whatsapp, WeChat, etc. We had to adapt, and we did,” Michael David, LVMH’s chief omnichannel officer, said.
“The group and the brands joined forces and worked together maybe more than ever before.”
