Yang Mi Kicked Off Versace, MK China Needs Cool?

In August 12th, it may be a date that can be included in the history of big international public relations.

On that day, brands such as Givenchy, COACH, CK and Arthur (ASICS) were voicing one after another. They made public apology on some product designs and the blur of China's territorial sovereignty problems in the official website information search.

Behind all of this is the early morning of August 11th, Yang Mi studio unilaterally issued the termination of cooperation with Versace (Versace) triggered by the Domino dominoes effect.

In the back print design of a Versace T-shirt, China Hongkong and Macao of China are separately divided into countries. This luxury brand originated in Italy, overnight, caused the collective condemnation of netizens, and was forced to sign the first Chinese spokesperson in 50 days.

Founded in 1978, Versace is one of the eight major red blood brands in the world. When it was in its prime, it was the highest value clothing company in the world, but once it was shot by founder Jenny Versace, it was once in chaos. Until September 2018, the acquisition of Michael Kors, the US luxury brand, became the mainstay of the "luxury" transformation of the MK.

Versace is in the mood of public opinion. For MK, whose reputation is not very good, it may be a crit.

MK carried by Yang Mi

To ask the biggest impression of Chinese consumers on MK, it was undoubtedly fixed in September 2016. MK gave the limited edition of the red camera bag for Yang Mi's birthday banquet in New York, and the MK Mercer series that appeared repeatedly in Yang Mi's numerous airport Street filming in recent two years.

Until now, these two packages continue to rely on the label of "Yang Mi and the same" in the global MK stores and e-commerce purchasing, contributing continuously to MK consumption orders.

In September 12, 2017, Yang Mi officially became the MK global spokesperson. In the 2018 fiscal year ending March 31st, MK group achieved sales of US $4 billion 718 million, up 5% over the same period last year, of which the Asian market has become the main engine of revenue growth of the group, with a year-on-year growth of 45%. The industry generally agreed that "MK has been most successful in finding Yang Mi in the Chinese market."

However, as MK gradually opens up the market in China, celebrities have been out of stock from time to time, and consumers occasionally look at other brands of the brand. However, it is embarrassed to find that MK does not have a self designed package. Since then, MK has been dubbed by the industry as "Mai copy" or "the plagiarism of the luxury sector".

In 1981, when LVMH group's high-end luxury brand CELINE (Celine) designer Michael Kors created the brand of the same name, but because of business problems, it was once in financial crisis before and after 1993, and finally had to apply for bankruptcy protection.

In 2003, Cao Qifeng, a business tycoon in Hongkong who called the clothing industry "golden finger", found Michael Kors with sincerity and sincerity, and finally made MK go out of the gloom and full of blood resurrection.

A very important point of Cao Qifeng's advice is to copy a Coach. From the supply chain to the physical store design in the early years, MK is almost the same as Coach. Later, Michael Kors extended the two word "copy" to the product level. Its products included Montgomery, Peyton, Savannah, smiley face package and so on. No one could find the obvious signs of imitation of LV, Chanel, Dior, Coach and so on.

Because of the extreme similarity, there are still a lot of consumers in Taobao live rooms who have been repeatedly asking their hosts to torture their souls again and again: which is the best MK and Coach shells? What about Toth? What about Boston?

The crazy replication and expansion has made MK rise rapidly to a brand of light luxury. But the plagiarism gene rooted in corporate culture has made MK once without its own moat.

When the enthusiasm of users gradually cooled, the growth of MK declined again. In addition to the weakening of European retail stores, MK has further strengthened its determination to further develop the Chinese market.

　 China's road is not easy to go?

As a loyal follower of Coach, MK has been keen to capture the strategic principle of "diversified transformation" in 2017.

At that time, getting rid of the brand image of cheap handbags, learning the multi brand group operation of the old luxury brands LVMH, Gucci, Bottega Veneta and Kering (Richemont) is the only way out for Coach and MK in the bottleneck of development.

Coach bought the Stuart Weitzman of the high-end female shoe manufacturer, merged with Kate Spade, followed by MK buying similar brand shoes Choo Jimmy. But what shocked the industry most was its announcement in September 2018 that it bought Versace 1 billion 830 million euros (at about 2 billion 120 million US dollars at that time) and renamed the Capri Holdings group (hereinafter referred to as Capri group).

According to the Wall Street Journal quoted sources familiar with the matter, in addition to MK, the same time with the intention of Versace acquirer also includes Tiffany (Tiffany&Co.) and other well-known brands, but in the end are due to nearly 2 billion euros purchase price and Versace management and other reasons.

You know, at that time, MK in 2018, including Thanksgiving, Christmas and many other Western holidays, the best sales quarter (third quarter) earnings report, also only achieved a net profit of $219 million. This big deal is all in one basket.

On the day of the acquisition, Capri group outlined the future development plan for Versace in the press release: for example, raising the current annual income of $900 million to $2 billion, especially in the Asian market, will focus on the market in the future, and strive to increase from 11% to 19%, while the European market share basically remains unchanged at 24%, and the US market share is sharply reduced to 57%.

In June 26th this year, Yang Mi became the first Chinese spokesperson for Versace brand, which coincided with the expiration of its MK global spokesperson contract. For a time, four voices of doubt.

After all, Versace's past spokesmen are celebrities such as Madonna and Lady Gaga, who have wide popularity all over the world. And Yang Mi's perennial "girl set up" is obviously different from the brand's consistent sexy, boasting and wild style.

But for Capri group, what it most wants to see now is to copy Yang Mi's success in the MK bag endorsement as soon as possible.

In fact, before becoming the spokesperson for Versace brand, Yang Mi had already entered the role ahead of time. He was dressed in a Versace suit and worked hard in public places such as variety shows and airport shooting.

According to fashion business data, as of the first quarter of June 29th, Versace became the only luxury brand to grow in the first quarter of 2019. The same store sales increased by two digits, including sales from Asian markets including China, accounting for 34% of total revenue.

Today, only 50 days after the official announcement, there was a cancellation. Despite the fact that Versace has issued bilingual apology statements in official bilingual accounts such as Guan Bo, Instagram and Facebook, and attached an apology letter from the brand successor and the chief creative officer Donatella Versace, netizens do not seem to buy it.

In the view of netizens, the release of a luxury brand product itself needs to be examined by many departments, especially for such T-shirts which are mainly printed design. Their printing shows the brand's position and culture, and can never be careless with negligence. "This is a great revelation of luxury brands' arrogance and ignorance of Chinese culture." Some netizens said.

For Capri group, Versace's high-end brand positioning will gradually transform itself, but it will undoubtedly add more uncertainty to the company's future performance. In the first trading day after Yang Mi's cancellation, Capri group's share price fell more than 3%.