Category: general

The French luxury market has been dominated by two publicly traded Groups, LVMH and Kering for a while. And both acquired Italian brands.

The Italian market stayed more diversified with companies like Armani, Brunello Cucinelli, Dolce & Gabbana, Ferragamo, Kiton, Max Mara, Prada, Tod’s to name a few.

Now Ermenegildo Zegna Group is going public via SPAC. Over years Zegna developed from textile, to menswear, to women’s wear and licensor. It took a license from Maserati, and bought brands like Thom Browne.

The Marzotto Group took a similar path earlier. Originally a textile company too, at one point they owned Hugo Boss, Valentino, and were the licensee of Marlboro Classics.

Behind the SPAC is InvestIndustrial, a private equity company, with former and current interests in Aston Martin Lagonda, Ducati, Morgan Motor Company, B&B Italia, Jacuzzi.

We are looking for US American fashion and lifestyle brands to launch in Europe via exclusive licensees.

Volkswagen AG is selling its Bugatti brand to Rimac as part of a joint venture of VW subsidiary Porsche with Rimac. The new company is called Bugatti-Rimac.

Co-Branding, throwing together brands, is hard and expensive to communicate.

Volkswagen verkauft seine Marke Bugatti an ein Joint Venture seiner Tochtergesellschaft Porsche mit Rimac. Die neue Firma heißt Bugatti-Rimac.

Co-Branding, das Zusammenwerfen von Marken, ist aufwendig und schwer zu kommunizieren.

Certainly you know the Swiss Army Knife, and you can visualize the logo with the cross. The makers name is less known, Victorinox.

The brand history is colorful. And a Munich court just wrote another chapter. It ruled, that a Chinese competitor can neither use ‘Switzerland’, nor symbols from the country flag, the national emblem, like the cross.

Flags and locations are common and popular in labeling and branding. The Union Jack on Reebok shoes, various flags on ‘Geographic Norway’ clothes, Venice Beach and Camp David as clothing label, and Montblanc is a Swiss mountain. While the fountain pen company is German, and various products made elsewhere.

The recent judgement raises more questions. Switzerland does not have a monopoly on the cross in its national flag.

And what does Johnson & Johnson think, owner of the red cross brand? And what does the J&J licensee, The Red Cross, has to say?

And do all the merchandising articles in country colors for World and Euro soccer championships now have to be produced in the corresponding countries?