Case Study: Longchamp's Marketing, Brand, and Future Strategy

This case study delves into Longchamp's marketing management strategies, particularly focusing on the impact of its iconic Le Pliage handbag. It analyzes how Le Pliage both helps and hinders the Longchamp brand, questioning whether it should be spun off as a separate entity. The study also examines the potential benefits and risks of extending the Longchamp brand into menswear, eyeglasses, and fragrances through licensing. Furthermore, it outlines strategies for Longchamp to move further into the luxury segment, addressing product development, distribution channels, pricing, and promotional activities. The analysis considers competitive pricing strategies, the use of fashion shows for promotion, and maintaining a brand reputation for quality and luxury.

Running head: MARKETING MAAGEMENT
Marketing Management
Name of the student
Name of the university
Author note

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Table of Contents
Question 2: How does Le Pliage help and hurt Longchamp? Should Le Pliage be unleashed
from Longchamp to grow to its full potential as a separate brand?...........................................3
Question 3: Should Longchamp extend its brand further into menswear, eyeglasses, and
fragrances? What are the risks and benefits of licensing the Longchamp brand in order to
pursue this strategy?...................................................................................................................4
Question 4: What should Longchamp do to move up market into the luxury segment?...........5
References:.................................................................................................................................7

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Question 2: How does Le Pliage help and hurt Longchamp? Should Le
Pliage be unleashed from Longchamp to grow to its full potential as a
separate brand?
Long champ is one of the famous luxury leather goods company in France, which is
highly committed towards producing high quality of products. In the world of high fashion,
the company shows utmost commitment in the way of producing high quality of fashion
related products such as Burberry trenches and brinkin bag with the assistance of unique
brand like Le Pilange (Franco, Hussain & McColl, 2019). Appropriate branding plays a major
role in terms of gathering attention of customers, which is the key of strengthening the public
image of a brand. Being a famous luxury fashion brand, Long champ’s collection of nylon
handbag namely Le Pilange is one of the most necessary products around the world, which is
used by both young and old generation (Fernie & Sparks, 2018). However, it is becoming
utterly challenging for Long champ to manage the thrilled success of Le Pilange, which is
leading the company to refocus on high priced leather bag. Still, reining Le Pilange is quite
difficult due to its brand awareness.
In this way, it is becoming utterly difficult for Long champ to bit Le Pilange, which
eventually is affecting success of Long champ. However, the iconic handbag is one of the
signature products, making significant effort in the way of increasing brand awareness of
Long champ. Managing Le Pilange was quite difficult for Long champ due to its high sales
level. However, as Le Pilange is one of the famous brands around the world, it is important
for the company to separate their brand and create their own identity. This is the way, through
which the company can be able to strengthen their statistics of profit as the rate of sales of
this product is extremely high. It is true that Le Pilange was the entry point of Long champ,
which might make it difficult for the company to improve their public image (Esteban-Santos

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et al., 2018). Still, by creating own identity, Le Pilange can be able to improve their brand
identity.
Question 3: Should Longchamp extend its brand further into menswear,
eyeglasses, and fragrances? What are the risks and benefits of licensing the
Longchamp brand in order to pursue this strategy?
The fundamental goal of Long champ is not only making money, but also improve
their status around the world. Market extension always plays a major role in terms of
strengthening the public image of a firm. Therefore, adding more product with their existing
product line will help Long champ to get closer to the fashion market (Mitterfellner, 2019).
Apart from women, the men are also becoming highly fashion oriented in the contemporary
times. Therefore, it is important for Long champ to launch new menswear, which can serve
them with the ability to attract wide ranges of customers. At the same time, the trend of using
sunglasses as one of the best fashion accessories is rapidly increasing. Therefore, launching
new ranges of sunglasses can help Long champ to improve their brand awareness by
attracting a potential base of customers. As the range of competition in global fashion is
rapidly increasing, it is suggested for Long champ go introduce new men’s line of leather
handed watch, shoes, sunglasses and wallets, which is the key of strengthening the position of
a company in US market (Heuer & Becker-Leifhold, 2018). Thus, it can be said that
launching new product can help Long champ to strengthen their public image. However, the
new products can fail unexpectedly ever after testing for thousand period of time. At the same
time, the process of launching new product line can generate unrealistic future expectation for
the brand. Therefore, it is recommended for Long champ to create a quality benchmark and
thereby ensure the fact that the new product will meet consumer’s value expectations.

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Licensing is one of the best ways of launching new product. This is the way, through
which Long champ can avail new business opportunity, which is very much needed in order
to attain immense success from business. However, after signing the licencing agreement, =
the companies have to be dependent on the licensors, which eventually can lead Long champ
to lose control over their new ranges of products (Ryding, Henninger & Cano, 2018).
Question 4: What should Longchamp do to move up market into the luxury
segment?
Product – Regarding the product of the company it can be said that the company mainly
manufactures physical product which are simple in shape, few fall under the category of
luxury products and rest falls under the category of accessible luxury brands. Therefore in
order to stay competitive in the market the company should make use of the vast resources
available that is from marketing till manufacturing. It can also be recommended that the
company should bolster their luxury fashion portfolios by acquiring the major European
brands like Lanvin and Bally. The company can also shift its manufacturing units to premium
perfumes, sunglasses and fashion wears rather than just manufacturing the fashion bags.
Place – In order to gain a competitive advantage over the rivals, the company should make
use of global distribution channel. The business organization should rather get hold of the
retailers rather than the wholesalers. According to the author Chailan (2018) the retailers will
be befitting the company by increasing the marketing procedures and upholding a higher
brand image maintenance. Also the brand should plan to attack the hot and growing markets
of US and China fashion market while amplifying the brand’s fashion offerings. Due to less
amount of retailers found in the market of US, the company can therefore plan to gain
relationships with few of the famous departmental stores including Nordstrom, Neiman
Marcus and Bloomingdales.

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Price – As per the pricing strategies the company is already giving a very tough competition
to the famous luxury brands like Lous Vuitton or the Hermes. But however, few brands like
Michael Kors and Coach are known for giving a very tough competition to the company.
Therefore in order to maintain the competitive position in the market the company should
make use of the competitive pricing strategies like offering the customers with few amount of
discounts, this will help the company to win the sales and clear away the stocks (Mosquera-
Perez, Mosquera-Adell and Navarro-dePablos 2019).
Promotion – Regarding the promotional mix of the company, the brand should make use of
the fashion shows which will affect the market of US a lot. This will help the company to
increase the sales so as by promoting the designs and advertising the product portfolio of the
company. The company is also known for maintain the promotional mix by stating the
mission of increasing and maintaining the reputation of the women by providing them with
quality, beautiful and premium hand bags.

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References:
Chailan, C. (2018). Art as a means to recreate luxury brands' rarity and value. Journal of
Business Research, 85, 414-423.
Esteban-Santos, L., García Medina, I., Carey, L., & Bellido-Pérez, E. (2018). Fashion
bloggers: communication tools for the fashion industry. Journal of Fashion
Marketing and Management: An International Journal, 22(3), 420-437.
Fernie, J., & Sparks, L. (Eds.). (2018). Logistics and retail management: emerging issues
and new challenges in the retail supply chain. Kogan page publishers.
Franco, J. C., Hussain, D., & McColl, R. (2019). Luxury fashion and sustainability: looking
good together. Journal of Business Strategy, 2(1), 89-96.
Heuer, M., & Becker-Leifhold, C. (Eds.). (2018). Eco-friendly and Fair: Fast Fashion and
Consumer Behaviour. Routledge.
Mitterfellner, O. (2019). Fashion Marketing and Communication: Theory and Practice
Across the Fashion Industry. CRC Press.
Mosquera-Perez, C., Mosquera-Adell, E., & Navarro-dePablos, J. (2019, September). A
museological approach of an urban project: Parisian cultural institutions as urban
actors. In IOP Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering (Vol. 603, No.
4, p. 042088). IOP Publishing.
Ryding, D., Henninger, C. E., & Cano, M. B. (Eds.). (2018). Vintage Luxury Fashion:
Exploring the Rise of the Secondhand Clothing Trade. Springer.