On the trail of the French Crocodile

Meet Guillaume De Blic, CEO of Lacoste France to discuss his iconic brand.

Your background?
I started my career at Procter & Gamble where I spent 8 years in sales in the regions (Rhône Alpes) and marketing at the headquarters in Neuilly.
Then 12 years with the world leader in the herbs, spices and culinary aids business, McCormick, in various positions, the last of which was Sales Director.
Five years at DBApparel (Dim, Playtex, Wonderbra, Shock Absorber…) then became Hanes (world leader in underwear) as General Manager France.
Since 2016, CEO Lacoste France.

Your latest readings?
Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari: a classic that helps us take a step back to better understand and appreciate our condition.
Les Vieux Fourneaux by Wilfrid Lupano and Paul Cauuet: it had been a long time since a comic book had made me laugh so much. An acerbic look at our society with a scathing humor.

Your sources of inspiration?
Happy people and those who take risks in their lives.

Your mission as head of Lacoste in France?
To ensure a reasonable growth of the brand in France through a quality distribution which makes the customer experience unique in our points of sale.

Distribution as well as retail are suffering in Europe and notoriously in France, Lacoste seems to be “immune” in particular in France… what are your recipes?
Lacoste has been doing extraordinarily well for the past few years, especially in France where the textile market is in continuous decline.
Our success is based on the in-depth work carried out by the Studio’s teams who offer innovative, high-quality products that are in line with trends.
Our Marketing teams have also developed Lacoste’s image through our positioning through our positioning, our communications and our events around the world. Our brand is more and more desirable, especially with the younger generations. We have always relied on our sporting DNA with the heritage of René Lacoste while remaining modern and innovative through collaborations with designers and strong brands.
Finally, we have invested in our teams in France by devoting a great deal of time and money to training our teams and refurbishing our sales outlets.

Made in France: apart from the “successes” of Le Slip Français and Lacoste in particular, myth or reality and the place/vocation of Lacoste in this trend?
Since its creation, Lacoste has maintained part of its factories in France, in Troyes to be precise. Our strategy is to produce as close as possible to the consumer areas.  We therefore have production in South America for the Americas zone, production in Asia for this zone and production in France and the Mediterranean basin for Europe. Certain know-how is specific to certain sites. In this context, our factories in Troyes have a strategic place. It is here, for example, that we manufacture the outfits worn by French athletes during the Olympic Games. We also manufacture in France collections Made in France which are sold throughout the world and are always a great success.
French know-how is still recognized abroad and remains a guarantee of quality. For me, it is an important asset that more and more brands are taking into consideration.
In our industry, it is becoming very difficult to find the right skills in the traditional textile trades. This is why we created last year an academy in Troyes to train seamstresses and technicians capable of extending the know-how of our elders.

Counterfeiters, where do you stand?
Counterfeiting is a growing scourge for brands. A study released this week by the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO), estimates the loss of revenue for brands at over 60 billion euros.
The most desirable brands of the moment like ours are particularly affected, especially with the rise of internet sales.
We are working closely with the authorities to fight against this parallel business that harms consumers and our employees. In 2018 more than 1.7 million counterfeit Lacoste products were seized worldwide…

Moha La Squale, Keith Haring, Romeo Elvis, Opening Ceremony, the Olympic Committee, Lacoste collaborates with the most fashionable artists, brands and organizations. How do you choose your partners?
The partnerships are chosen by the Marketing team and the Studio according to their coherence with our brand and its values. These collaborations and partnerships are extraordinary opportunity for our brand to be in the news and in fashion.

Another flagship collaboration: the one with the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) in 2018 that you are renewing in 2019, for which your iconic logo, the Crocodile, gives way to the image of 10 endangered species, a limited edition because the number of polo shirts bearing the effigy of each species corresponds to the number of these animals remaining in the wild. What are/have been Lacoste’s other environmental initiatives?
Our Save Our Species operation, which we have been running for the second year running, has once again been a great success.a great success. This highly visible approach goes hand in hand with many other environmental initiatives that we carry out around the world. For example, at our sites in Troyes, we have set up a partnership with the company Veolia to qualify and transform 100% of our waste. They then become either new material (paper, textile) or energy (bio methane, electricity).

Your new campaign has not gone unnoticed, is it the beginning of a new brand platform? Comparing the life of a couple and its conflicts to a sport is a daring way to broaden the Lacoste target to non-sportsmen? What is the strategy behind this film?
Our new campaign is aimed at everyone, it highlights the fact that life is a beautiful sport, through its joys and trials. Without competing at a high level, we all have challenges to face in our daily lives. Lacoste offers outfits that allow you to be on the move and to move serenely through life!
Our poster campaign, which was carried out in major cities and international airports, highlights this notion of movement.

Do you have a different market maturity in France and internationally?
France is the cradle of the brand, so we have a special responsibility to responsibility.

The brand is very strong in France, this allows us to test concepts or ideas before deploying them in other countries. However, the level of requirement is the same all over the world and the customer experience must be at the same level whatever the continent you are on.

How will you reach out to Millennials?
We recruit a lot of millenials and GenZ thanks to the evolution of our urban sport collections, Lacoste L!ve products, sneakers, and the collaborations we’ve done with the Supreme brand.
Our communication with influencers, on social networks and in digital is also a major asset to speak to these generations.

Developing your brand and digital?
Digital is not a question for us, it has been a reality for a long time.
Our clients are ultra-digitalized and we have accompanied them in this evolution.
Not a day goes by in the store without a customer arriving with a photo from a blogger or a star on their smartphone with one of our products. The size of our stores does not allow us to offer all the collections. To be able to always bring a solution to these customers, we have trained and equipped our teams in store with tablets that allow us to propose our entire offer to customers and deliver them the next day at the point of sale or at home. Point-of-sale delivery allows you to try the product, change it or return it easily.
We have also reworked our digital flagship, lacoste.com and our Digital Factory teams have implemented more than six months ago and among the first, the progressive web app (PWA) technology that gives an incomparable fluidity to our site and allows offline navigation.
We will continue to accompany our customers in their way of consuming and adapt to technological developments. In terms of products, we sell for example a backpack equipped with a solar charger for smartphone and we will soon unveil other interesting innovations.