Mathilde Delhoume-Debreu of LVMH

0:05Welcome to Luxury Icons, the marketing and PR podcast created by the Luxury Communications Council. I'm Rosie Shephard, the founder of the Luxury Communications Council, the world's only membership network dedicated to advancing the global luxury industry by uniting, supporting and championing marketing communication leaders. This podcast is dedicated to meeting some of the industry's most prolific leaders, delving into the challenges and opportunities that we face together.

0:34We are here at Cannes Lions where the Luxury Communications Council is an official partner and today I'm meeting Mathilde Deholm-DeBroux who's the Global Brand Officer of LVMH. Now this week Mathilde has been the Jury President for the Luxury and Lifestyle Lion, a huge honour leading a panel of jurors to judge work submitted from all over the world. Now as we know LVMH is a domineering force for the luxury world. They have 70 luxury brands in the ever-growing portfolio of Maisons. This includes brands such as Louis Vuitton, Loewe, Givenchy, Fendi, jewellery brands such as Tiffany & Co, Bulgari, drinks brands such as Dom Perignon, Hennessy, Verve Clicquot and so much more including Sephora and Belmond.

1:20The list goes on. Now, Mathilde spent the majority of her career in FMCG at Procter & Gamble in France, later Switzerland and Belgium. And while she did study marketing, she also is a trained engineer. She joined LVMH in 2017 as the brand equity director and was swiftly promoted to global brand officer. Now, we're especially delighted to have Mathilde join us today because she's actually done very, very few interviews. so thank you so much for joining us welcome Mathilde. To begin with global brand officer what does that mean what do you actually get up to? Well we and I would say every chief brand officer in every of our 75 maisons are the trustee of the brand DNA so what is it to be the trustee of the brand DNA is making sure that you keep on pushing creativity while staying faithful to the DNA of the Maison.

2:19And as a global brand officer for LVMH, I'm here with my teams as a center of expertise to help those individual CMO to be able to do that. and you've had this extraordinary career taking fmcg skills to luxury um can you tell us a little bit about that journey what's led you to where you are today well it's true i've 30 years three zero years of working at procter and gamble fmcg and then in 2017 i moved to luxury with lvmh so So I think it was guided by a passion, a passion for brands that now I call Maison at LVMH. But this was at the center of what I love doing. A passion for the customers.

3:18And if we elaborate more, I will tell you the difference in the way we think about the customers in FMCG and the way we think about customers in luxury. and a passion also for everything that is creativity. So these three passions were both in FMCG and in luxury. They are very different, but they are on those foundations. So this was what guided my career overall, these three passions. Were there principles that you were able to bring from FMCG to luxury? Yes, there are some principles that you can bring. the execution may be very different. So the principle of how would you build a brand are the same, the fundamental principle, but there are nuances that you apply in luxury.

4:13So understanding your brand DNA, understanding your brand purpose, and really the word purpose as being the reason why your brand exists for the customers you want to serve. I'm not talking CSR, saving the planet when I talk purpose. It's really a very precise reason for being for a brand. So this is something you need to define very clearly in FMCG, but also in luxury. The values of the brand, the personality of the brand. What is your unique product expertise? Why people should believe in this product expertise? This is things that are common. And when you are the trustee of a brand, you really need to have this, at LVMH, we call it a brand platform, which is like a lighthouse that guides you.

5:09And when you have a clear lighthouse, you can start being creative. You can start trying to go left, trying to go right, because you have always these lighthouses to guide you. So this is something that exists in FMCG. This is something that exists in luxury. When you are in luxury, it's slightly different. I could even say it's completely different. If you just give what the consumer needs, you won't stay long in luxury. Because what the customer wants is to be surprised, I say to be elated, to get things that the customer would not even imagine it's possible. So how do you create this surprise?

5:51And it's a difference between a need and a desire. so I'm not solving problems I'm creating desirability and so this is a big difference how you approach the customer yeah and it makes total sense um in your career there's probably been some incredible moments what would you say your your most proudest moments or your personal highlights my personal highlights are not related to me they are related to the success of the people I was privileged to coach, to train. So there is nothing that makes me prouder than an agency that wins a lion for the work we've done together or for someone who makes it to the top as a CEO of a big company.

6:42These are my proudest moments. So it's not a proudest moment about me. it's the proudest moment of people that achieve something in which I see myself as having played a little role and I'm a bit mama-like so mama is very proud and this is this is the proudest moment not moments that are linked to me. I actually asked all of our guests on the podcast what's their superpower so would you say that that's your superpower sort of that nurturing mentoring? Yeah, I think the superpower is this. I think it's nurturing, mentoring, making people grow. And because you had sent me a few questions to think about, I think the other one I have is to try to make the complex simple.

7:32So to distill complex thoughts, complex concepts, and make them simple for people to understand. And at the end, it's how I train, how I coach the people to try to make the complex simple, not simplistic. Because that's the danger. When you try to make too simple, you become simplistic. And that's a big pitfall. So this is it. But at the end, you're right. It's probably to make sure that people are growing, are learning something. And this is the objective. And you say you're like a mama, but you are also a mom, aren't you? Yes, I am. You have some daughters. I have two daughters. One is celebrating her birthday today.

8:17She is 34. And she lives between Paris, Geneva. And the other one is 30. And she lives in Boston. And they are two very successful women in their careers. One is marketing director. and she's currently experiencing the market role. She has been doing in global roles, global strategic roles, regional roles. She has been in China also as a marketing director. Now she's in France as a marketing director and she's a brand builder at heart. And so this is the older one and the little one and I'm sorry, she's 30 years old, but I will always call her the little one. Sorry Alexia, you are going to hate me to call you the little one but I'm very proud of her She has chosen to be a designer So she's a UX designer at Sonos She studied in the US So she did Rhode Island School of Design and she took some liberal art at Brown and it has been 10 years she has been in the US and she's doing design Oh my gosh, you must be so proud It sounds like they very much followed in your footsteps and inherited your creativity Well, they have followed their own footsteps because they are very determined in what they want to do.

9:38But I think what I try to show them is that they needed to have a job they had passion for. I always told them, I say, find a job. You can do whatever you want. But every morning when the alarm clock goes on, you need to be happy to get up and go to work. if every morning dragging out of your bed saying oh it's such a chore to go to work it's because you have done you are not doing what you should be doing so this is the only thing I've asked them to find as a job they could have been a cook they could have been nurse whatever they wanted to do as long as they were happy to go to work well it's really nice to hear that actually someone like you can have such a big role can then clearly sort of inspire the next generation I've got three children under six and I'm slightly worried that whilst I'm sort of trying to do the juggle, I'm not inspiring them.

10:35Anyway, I'm going to ask you for lots of tips on that juggle later on. And I'm going to give you a story. I gave it on another podcast, but it's a long time ago, so probably people may have forgotten. So my older daughter, the one who is celebrating her 31st birthday today, one day she was seeing me go to work and she said, mom why are you going to work why don't you stay with me and then I did a stupid answer I say you see darling mom need to go to work to make a bit of money because every day you go to the park and you go to the carousel and we have to pay for the carousel so you know this is what money is for is to buy some things and then she looked at me and say and if I stop going on the carousel will you stop working oh no stupid clever girl stupid answer mom and then I corrected it I said darling you know what uh this was this is not right you should keep on going on the carousel because going to work is I love it as much as you love going on the carousel oh yeah great okay so and this was the beginning of our story about do what you love oh I love it that's great Okay, well, I will start saying that to my children because I'm definitely saying, you know how you like toys.

12:00This is how we pay for them, so I need to change my narrative. Yes, very good tips. Thank you so much. Going back to LVMH, I mean, it's indisputably a formidable force in luxury, leading the way, setting the trajectory. You obviously have so many admirers from afar, but what is it like on the inside, the mindset, the magic? I can imagine the energy. I think what is great at LVMH is the art of crafting dreams. So in the art, you have lots of emotion, lots of sensoriality. So this is one. Crafting. Craft is at the core. And again, it's unique to luxury and dreams. As I was saying, we are about desire.

12:42We are not about just functional. So the mission is very clear and the values are also very clear. Creativity and innovation is the first value of the group. So because it's one of my passions, having that as a first value was very important. The second value is a search for excellence. And this can be something that people may not like. But having been raised in the French education system, this is very, very French. Search for excellence. So not being perfect is not acceptable. so you need to go for perfection. And what is funny is in FMCG, people were always telling me that I was too perfectionist and I should accept to do the 80 for 20.

13:31So the 20 % of things that gets 80 % of things done and then forget about the 20 % imperfect, it will be okay. In luxury, if you do that, well, you don't stay long. You are out of the door very quickly because really everything is in the detail. Craft is in the detail. So the search for excellence was also resonating for me. And the third one was entrepreneurship. So you just take risk. You are accountable for the risk you take. But you are not going to be tangled in a process where you need to justify why you do things, which in the big FMCG companies, process is really important because you need to align so many departments, etc., that sometimes process takes the lead over entrepreneurship.

14:24So at LVMH, entrepreneurship is a third value. And there is a fourth value, which is engagement. So we want people to feel engaged in a couple of things, sustainability, D &I, which is really important also for the group. And those elements that you've just talked about, would you say they're the sort of common threads and essential ingredients for those really successful brands. Yes, exactly. Exactly. But they express it each time in their own way. So it's not going to be a cut and paste when you do positioning for those brands. If they come to me with a positioning saying, creativity, search for excellence, entrepreneurship, I tell them, go back to work, because this has a value of LVMH.

15:08What is your unique take on those values as a L 'Europeana? as a Dom Perignon, as a Belmont endorsement brand for hospitality, they are going to articulate their own values inspired by LVMH value, but in their own unique way. We're obviously celebrating. Hoping you had a very, very fun evening. You were awarded the Grand Prix, LVMH, for their partnership that changed everything. This is huge. This is very exciting. But the thing is, that piece of work was huge. I mean, it was leaning into culture in a way that no one had done before. It really did change the face of how sports sponsorships went about.

15:50And just in case anybody doesn't know, and I'll just say it quickly and then you can elaborate a bit more, but LVMH used their entire portfolio, or many, many brands, many maisons, sorry, under their portfolio. They dressed the artists, they dressed the French athletes, they made trunks, they made medals. It was just so beautiful. I guess this example has been discussed at length anyway, even before you were winning at Cannes this week, especially by us. Obviously, we were very much sort of bringing together all of the luxury leaders here in Cannes. One of the events we were doing for NBCUniversal, we were actually really discussing quite a depth, this sort of intersection between luxury and culture.

16:29And the question that we kept coming back to again and again was, should luxury brands be leading culture or reflecting it? Do you have a view on that? Both. Both. Both. In fact, a luxury brand can inspire culture and should be inspired by cultures. So in the broad sense. So it's really a give and receive, give and receive, with always being careful that when you receive, you give credit. So I think it goes really both ways. The example of the Olympics is probably the best embodiment of the art of crafting dreams because there was dreams, dreams of the Olympians. It was then captured in a narrative which was artisans of all victories.

17:18So artisan was craft at the center and victory was a hope that all those athletes were having and we were also paying homage to our own artisans behind everything. And it was also the perfect embodiment of what I call the four C's So first, creativity. And the creativity, which is how do you disrupt a norm? How do you disrupt traditional sports sponsorship and turn it into a creative partnership? Creative partnership with the International Olympic Committee and working hand-in-hand to really elevate the game through the second C, craft. So how do you bring craft? So it was just another medal. It was a medal designed like a jewel by Chaumet, and you can find some of the iconic codes of Chaumet, which is the solarity, and in the middle you had the fragment of the Eiffel Tower.

18:19It was the craft of the trunks, of the Louis Vuitton trunks, that were transporting the medals, that was also transporting the torch. It was a craftsmanship of the tray on which the medals were presented, which was Louis Vuitton at its best in the design of the tray. It was a craftsmanship of the couture with Christian Dior dressing Aya, dressing Lady Gaga, dressing Céline Dion, dressing this beautiful soprano singing the Marseillaise on top of the Grand Palais. I mean, it really was a masterclass, actually, and I think it's an example that will be cited for years and years to come. I'm just going to give a little bit of background to some of our listeners on Cannes Lions, because actually many of the luxury industry aren't that engaged with the Cannes Lions.

19:07We've only been doing the luxury and lifestyle category for the last two years. LCC got involved with it last year. So there's sort of various categories which you can enter, including experience, brand storytelling, partnerships, et cetera. And there are four levels of awards, so bronze, silver, gold, of course, and then this Grand Prix, which is the one that this campaign we're mentioning was awarded. it's actually it's not like the sort of normal setup in the sense that the jurors actually have discretion to award many lines or actually none at all so it's sort of not like a first, second, third sort of situation I'd love to hear a bit more about the process obviously you're locked in a room with nine other jurors what was sort of the scale of the process what did those deliberations look like what was going on?

19:53So the process started with prejudging so we had to prejudge the 181 entries that were submitted that consisted usually in a presentation image. A case study of two minutes to being 30. Some supporting images. I would say that reviewing each case study was about 15 to 20 minutes. Okay, this is extensive. So it was quite extensive. Particularly, I think what was great is I talk about the great jury that did it, is that when we gathered on Monday morning, everyone knew the case, all the cases. So everyone had done a very deep homework about it. So pre-judging and out of this pre-judging, the Lions team kind of did the top 30 brands or 30 projects that were submitted with the highest rating.

20:54and from that we started shortlisting it and we gave to each juror a possibility to bring back a case they had seen in the prejudging that was not part of this list of 13. Ah, so it's a sort of lifeline. A kind of golden ticket. Yes, exactly. If they had a passion and if they had given a high grade to something that was not in the final pack, they could bring it back. And then we could discuss it and re-engage in it. And so from the shortlist, we were still given a number to reach on the shortlist. We were told 17 to 18 it would be good to cut almost by half. And then to cut almost by half also to get to the lions.

21:39So we didn't have an infinite number of lions to distribute. We had seven. And we had some healthy debate during the jury room on which one and making some tough choices. But what guided us was, again, one, creativity. How do you disrupt the norm? If an idea was beautifully executed but had been done before by the brand or another luxury brand, it was fine to stay in the short list. So then the quality of the craft. Was it deserving of a craft for luxury or luxury for craft, call it the way you want. So we were also looking at the craftsmanship that was behind the communication or the experience.

22:28And then we also look at what kind of reaction you were relating on the customer and where you were having a wow. Nobody had done that before. I'm wowed. So that was also the third. So again, and then last but not least, impact on culture. so we were saying will the world be different after this or not and it kept in some little ways but it was really important you know would we have moved the the scale on the way people see this type of category did they entered into uh from advertising to entertainment so we were looking at the cultural shift also as something important so yeah that was a process then came the jury and the jury was really great because very diverse so we had the privilege to have two fashion designers we had Tebe Magogu from South Africa and we had Naya Violeta from Brazil so they were bringing their perspective of artistic director actually creating real pieces for luxury having their own fashion house we had Kenya Hunt with the chief editor of Elle.

23:46So bringing a journalistic point of view, a cultural point of view to the party. We had four chief creative officers. We had Tillman. We had Julien. We had Christiana from Le Pub. So we had those three people. We had a strategist, chief strategy officer with Clement from BETC. and we had a craft person with Constanza. So, you know, it was really interesting because we had the full spectrum to give an opinion on each case. And everyone was really bringing the expertise and the perspective. And were there any big surprises for you? Was there anything that someone championed that you were quite surprised about or any brands that sort of really approached luxury in a way that you weren't expecting?

24:38To be absolutely honest, in the 181 entries, there were 50 % of what I call average ideas, good ideas, but average. And so this was quite easy. Then you were having a few ideas or a few cases that were not luxuries. They had nothing to do with luxury, but were piggybacking on luxury. And on this one, we agreed from the beginning that we should not even look at it. Because this is not luxury. And we applaud the creativity of beers, of mayonnaise, of cars, which are just normal cars. So they are right to promote themselves piggybacking on luxury. But this is not because you piggyback that you are.

25:30yes so uh this is something that we decided not to look at mayonnaise love it hilarious nice try there was a case on mayonnaise and i applaud yeah great love it sorry as i say we rewarded disruption of creativity while staying true to the brand dna so each time there was a disruption but the dna we were scratching our head and say but this is not the dna of the brand what are they doing? And so this one was a kind of straight elimination. Then the power to craft stories, experiences that were just, as I say, so surprising and so beautifully done. But while being deep, really deep, insightful, relevant, not stunts.

26:18You know, the kind of superficial stunt that sometimes can give you a lion and say, not for us. So this is really where we started sorting out what was shortlisting what was not shortlisted that was so interesting um lvmh had a lot of shortlisted um entries as well did you have to leave the room because you didn't mark your own homework oh yes so in all the case study i was leaving the room right away even starting discussion and because there was nine jurors in the case when they didn't have interest because for the uh olympics two people from one person from publicist and one person from betc even if they were not directly involved but because they were belonging to the holding companies that were involved they were also leaving the room so everyone having skin in the game could not stay yeah that makes sense so i spent a lot of time in the corridor say like you must have not been there for half of it like the anxious dad waiting.

27:19But each time I was delegating the president role to one of the jurors. And to make sure that everyone had a chance to be a president, they took turn. Great. Lovely. Okay, so let's just hone in on some of the pieces of work quickly. Ritz Carlton, hospitality winning creative work. That's incredible and quite rare. That's really exciting. Can you tell us about what you loved about that one? What we loved, because it was disrupting the traditional advertising for hospitality, it was getting into entertainment. So as a sudden, from ad to entertainment, and we all know the beautiful ads that all luxury hospitality are able to do, you know, beautiful landscape, beautiful food experience, and as a sudden they did this first collaboration with Late Checkout, then they staged this film, which was a little bit Wes Anderson-like, so you are thinking about Grand Budapest Hotel, where a client and his children are going to experience 24 hours at the Ritz-Carlton with everything you expect from high hospitality, every wishes being anticipated.

28:36And this is what was great. And also the way to appeal to a younger generation. So this is not the traditional hospitality for the silver generation. It was also something resonating with the younger generation. So for all these reasons, plus the results, because there were also results on their brand image, results on their rate of occupancy, and of course results about the buzz around their collaboration. But not just buzz, you know, actual business results, actual impact on image. Amazing. And that quite rightly won a gold lion. Yeah, as you said, the concept of sort of a collaboration where you create a capsule collection isn't anything new.

29:23But I think it was the long form of their piece of work that they created that exactly, as you say, it was like a movie. And actually in our age of where we're constantly flick, flick, flick, flick, flicking, this sort of form, this sort of, I guess, this art of creating something a bit longer and a bit more considered and a bit more stops, disrupts your day, and gives an entire moment, whilst also not being plug, plug, plug, actually being really generous, and as you say, going into the entertainment business. I felt like a few of the ones that we really liked, or you guys really liked, were sort of playing in that space.

29:57And you say two things which are really interesting. You talk about the collaboration is nothing new. And it's true we saw a lot of what I call the collaboration disease. And luxury is not just about collaboration. So we were also very careful when there was collaboration to say it needs to be a multiplying collaboration. Is one plus one equal ten? It's not one borrowing from the other or one plus one equal two because then there is no surprise. So the beauty of the Ritz-Carlton at late checkout was a one plus one equal ten. the beauty of the partnership with the Olympic Games the Olympics and Paralympic Games for LVMH was 1 plus 1 equal 1 ,000 and more because of the cultural impact when it was just a collab another collab I think we said it was not shortlist worthy and we don't want to summarize luxury to collaboration you need to have the magic what do you add on top so I think that's one thing then you talk about the long format and that's really interesting because I've heard on the croissants and here on Le Palais the power of one second so now the customers the viewers, the audience is going to absorb content in one second and at the end they will be able to add all the seconds to create an image for a brand I'm sorry I don't believe in that I still believe in the power of storytelling if I tell you once upon a time you won't have the story and then if I tell you one day there was a princess and we expect the customers to gather all those seconds of attention into something meaningful into something desirable this is very dangerous for luxury so we believe in the power of long format of course complemented with short format don't get me wrong but storytelling is an art and it should not be cut in seconds well everyone should be following those rules um you've heard it here what um just staying on the work for one more example because this is i mean this is why we're here um tiffany blue was wonderful bottega veneta also won prada one what was your favorite what Well, it's difficult.

32:28You have to choose among your children. You're right. OK. And I can, of course, I can talk about Tiffany, but it's an LVMH brand. But I think the work that the Tiffany & Co Maison did was remarkable. Jean Stromberger was a key designer of the Tiffany Maison, had a full collection on the ocean, on sea animals. So this was a continuation of a DNA plus the color. And so what they created were products. They had a full holistic exploitation in the boutique, in the flagship boutique in New York, on the walls with out-of-home, in social. So it was a full activation. And at the end, the results are there in the sense that they managed to protect the ocean of the equivalent of the face of the United States.

33:19And they are going to keep on to meet their sustainability goal as expected. So this one is one with a real impact. Prada is a great example, which is, it's a fragrance brand, and it's not the traditional 30-second advertising. It's really a story that builds in the Lunar Rosa sailing ship that they have, and how they got Jack to experience what sailing is with Prada, and he say, I was expecting sailing, I I ended up flying and with the Prada story built in. So just for anyone who hasn't seen that, that's Jake Gyllenhaal actually joined the crew of the Luna Rosa, which is the boat that Prada enters into the America's Cup.

34:06And actually, I've been on the Prada chaser boat at the America's Cup in another life when I was looking after Peroni. It was one of the most extraordinary experiences. But what you see is Jake actually like really, you know, this must have been a piece of work that took a long time. He trained. I mean, it was really sort of very immersive of him. It went completely beyond the sort of, well, not even comparable to the sort of normal celebrity endorsement, Class Your Face. It was really powerful. Continue. Sorry, I interrupted. I just wanted to ensure that you had context. Because I've been so immersed in this case.

34:38Yes, exactly. And we have discussed it a lot. So we like the disruption it did. Yves Saint Laurent, they did something a bit different. They did Abuse is Not Love. And it's a film that has an education purpose about teaching the first sign of abuse that may lead to domestic violence. And it was done in South Africa, where domestic violence is a big issue. And it was done very subtly. And it is a training for young women to be able to detect the first sign of abuse that could end up in tragic consequences. at a later stage. So this one was interesting because this was more on the, we granted it storytelling things, but it is also D &I.

35:30And between Tiffany and YSL, we say, can luxury play a bigger role on those big important matters? And so the answer is yes, but it needs to be relevant versus the brand that carries this message. So this was also an interesting one. You don't jump on a cause just to give you a good conscience. It needs to align with what your brand stands for. So YSL was a really interesting one also. Yeah, incredibly impressive. You know, two perfume brands taking two different approaches. One, the entertainment, so disruptive through entertainment. one bringing a more dni approach which was also very interesting but both going back to what you said about um having a long-lasting impact on the world like you know that you couldn't be more literal with that and then you had loeve on tiktok which was also really interesting because can luxury do tiktok and i think loeve found a unique voice to do tiktok in a way that preserves the luxury angle of the brand, but in a way that is relevant for TikTok.