“The campaign that’s coming out is synonymous with what we’ve been doing with our suitcases—showing that they are symbols of your transformation, your journeys,” Rimowa’s senior vice president of product and marketing Emelie De Vitis told ADWEEK. “They are witnesses to your evolution. Every dent tells a story of how you’ve developed to be the person you are.”
“This is [also] why we’ve used the suitcases of our ambassadors in this iteration,” De Vitis added, noting that Hamilton, Chou and Rosé appeared in Rimowa ads two years ago. “The suitcases are aging—beautifying with our ambassadors,” she said. “For me, it’s really the sense that you’ve never stopped growing.”
In a category defined by “It” bags on the shoulders of fresh-faced stars, Rimowa’s strategy is a marked departure not just from luxury-segment norms, but from the flavor-of-the-month culture of marketing overall, according to Mike Ford, CEO of data-based marketing optimization firm Skydeo.
“It’s easy (and expensive) to hire a trending face to pump out content. What’s harder (and more valuable) is building a brand story arc over time,” he said. “By showing personalities evolving and tying that evolution to their product, Rimowa isn’t just marketing travel, it’s marketing identity.”
Later this month, Rimowa will also release “Sticker Stories,” a series of videos featuring its brand ambassadors in casual conversation about their lives and travels. Rosé’s video, for example, is a kind of show-and-tell with her sticker-covered Classic Cabin roller, which she calls “a good friend.” Over the past year, she explains, “I’ve basically been living out of my suitcase, so it’s been a big part of writing my album.”
To underscore its positioning still further, Rimowa will also be expanding its popular Re-Crafted program, through which the company purchases well-worn cases from past customers and reconditions them functionally but not aesthetically: The cases close, lock, and roll as though they’re showroom fresh, but all of the dents and dings and stickers from the previous owners remain untouched. Tested in 2023 in Germany and Japan, the sales were so popular—stocks in Japan sold out in seven minutes—that they will now be a quarterly event in the U.S.