The Business of Fashion
Agenda-setting intelligence, analysis and advice for the global fashion community.
Agenda-setting intelligence, analysis and advice for the global fashion community.
In honour of Chinese New Year, Bottega Veneta is staging a takeover on the Great Wall of China from Jan. 6 to Jan. 12. The display showcases not only Bottega Veneta’s name and logo, but also the characters 新春快乐, which means Happy New Year. The installation is done in Bottega Veneta’s signature green as well as a tangerine shade of orange, which the brand chose because it’s a symbol of luck in China.
Along with the takeover, the Kering-owned brand is pledging a donation to the Shanhai Pass, one of the major passes on the Great Wall of China and its easternmost stronghold. It is also running a Chinese New Year campaign, which is dominated by the same shade of tangerine featured on the Great Wall installation.
The take over is the latest example of Bottega Veneta’s experimental approach to marketing. Over the past year, the brand has been investing in eye-catching out-of-home advertisements, such as on rooftops near Los Angeles’ LAX airport, so passengers could see them as they were taking off and landing in the city. Simultaneously, Bottega Veneta has abandoned massive marketing tools, deactivating its Instagram, Facebook, Weibo and Twitter accounts last year. In February 2021, Kering chief executive François-Henri Pinault said the decision was to allow social media users to drive the conversation around the brand, not the brand doing so itself.
“[Bottega Veneta is] not disappearing from social networks,” he said during an earnings calls with analysts. “It’s merely using them differently.”
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2022 is sure to be a year of further headlines for the brand: Its creative director Daniel Lee, announced his departure from the brand in November. Later that month, the brand named Matthieu Blazy, the former deputy of Raf Simons and Phoebe Philo, as his successor.
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