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Published · transcript-backed

David Rosenthal: belief

20 Feb 2024 Acquired Hermès

“Two other things that I saw in the research and I think Bernard probably saw here, too.”

— David Rosenthal

Source trail

Everything needed to verify it.

Speaker
David Rosenthal
Attribution
Verified speaker
Claim type
belief
Recorded
20 Feb 2024
Publisher
Acquired
Episode
Hermès

Transcript context

…It's almost like when I was sitting there watching Wonder Woman 84. I was just so appalled at what I was watching that on this meta level, it occurred to me like, the story here isn't the plot of this movie. The story here is, how do you have such a process failure at Warner Brothers where this thing was let out the door? That is a failure of creative leadership, and that is what you have going on with a $150 canvas tote bag after 175 years of successful Hermes brand stewardship. Right, and building up the Birkin and the Kelly. For God's sakes, the scarves sell for $500. That I think is the most visceral illustration of this. Two other things that I saw in the research and I think Bernard probably saw here, too. Towards the end of Jean-Louis tenure, he and Hermes started buying and investing in other companies. But why is Hermes doing this? Right. This is the weird stuff going on at Nike when they were buying Converse was the good example, but Starter. It was almost like they didn't realize, oh, we should be concentrating our firepower behind our one hero brand that they were trying to create the constellation of weak brands.…

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