Starwood’s Annick Goutal Brand Direction
Back in October I wrote about Starwood Capital’s possible sale of some of their French hotels, and I also wrote about the Annick Goutal perfume brand that Starwood purchased when they bought Groupe Taittinger. At the time, I wasn’t sure what Starwood’s plans (if any) they had for the brand – but it seems as though I was right on target when I expected that Starwood would run with the brand and create it into something that would be known and respected throughout the world.
A blog named NathanBranch.com linked to my post soon after I wrote it. It’s written by a person named Nathan Branch who writes about the global luxury industry - much like I track the hotel industry. In Nathan’s post he brought to light some articles and message boards which show that Starwood Capital is looking to expand the brand at a rapid pace – even during the economic downturn.
The basis of the information is from a story in WWD, but it’s only available to subscribers so I’m unable to read it in its entirety. Does anyone have a pdf or copy of the article that they can email me? I’d really appreciate it!
In any case, 2009 should be a big year for Annick Goutal, including the launch of a cosmetics line, linens, potpourri, jewelry and possibly lingerie. In addition it’s planning on opening its first stand alone boutiques in the US, Italy, Spain and Dubai. Currently throughout the US you can find Annick Goutal’s products sold in Sephora, Nordstrom and other high end department stores, but I do not believe there is a stand alone Annick Goutal store in the US.
Annick is looking to expand their store count four-fold, with square footage between 125 and 800 square feet, with the larger stores selling the lingerie and offering a skincare area where treatments can be applied in store.
I also found out that Annick Goutal does have hotel amenities – provided at least in some of the hotels managed by Concorde Hotels, and the perfume bottles are manufactured by Baccarat – or at least just the collectable bottlesare. Both of those cross marketing efforts started prior to Starwood Capital’s purchase of Group Taittinger and still today make perfect sense.
This is great news for Annick Goutal fans (and there seem to be a lot of them) since I don’t think Starwood was expected to keep the brand for too long. I guess they discovered how much of a gem this could be and they are hard at work expanding it out of their original Paris roots.
Once again Starwood Capital amazes me with their business acumen and foresight to create, er, reestablish yet another brand.
Related posts:
Category: barry sternlicht, branding, design, Hotels, Starwood Capital Group
Subscribe
If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to receive more just like it.
Read my
Hello, I am trying to get hold of the Annick Goutal hotel supplies range that you mention in your blog. Do you have any contact details for a supplier in the UK?
Thank you very much for your time.