Warby Parker vs. Luxottica: The Media War

The following conversation has repeated itself often in the past few years:

Somebody: “So what do you do?

Me: “I make eyeglasses and sunglasses.”

Somebody: “Isn’t there this this one company that owns all the brands and controls everything?”

For many years, Luxottica flew below the general public’s radar. But not anymore.

Let me first say, I think Luxottica is a great company, and Leonardo Del Vecchio is a personal hero of mine. His life story is one of overcoming enormous odds to achieve enormous success. The focus here is to try to understand the recent blizzard of negative press and why the company seems so Ill equipped to handle it.

When I was writing my book, Luxottica graciously helped with some images of 18th Century pieces from their museum. Since the focus of the book was the development of the modern industry, I was keen on featuring Luxottica’s first Armani collection, which was their first designer license.

I felt it was a benchmark for both the company and industry. It beautifully encapsulated the sensibility of the licensor and the moment in time it was created. It was an unprecedented combination of aesthetic and commercial triumph. It set the tone for their rise to industry domination and the industry itself.

To my surprise, they discouraged me from featuring it! Apparently they didn’t want people to know there was a middleman between the licensor and the product. Although they’ve used “Never Hide” as Ray Ban’s slogan for years, invisibility seemed a core P.R. principle. This was obviously unsustainable for a company that size.

It also seems strange until you remember Luxottica was a component manufacturer that evolved into a distribution company. They’d never built a public facing brand from the ground up, and successfully promoted it to end consumers. Public Relations/relating to the public was never part of their toolbox. This was an endemic weakness, but it went unnoticed as Luxottica advanced from victory to victory.

Around the time of my book, someone very powerful in fashion suggested to them that they bring me on to work with them on Ray Ban – something like Thom Browne’s role with Brooks Brothers (owned by Leonardo Del Vecchio’s son). I had impressive credentials as a designer, authoritative knowledge of the brand’s design history, and proof of concept for numerous unique strategies to add value and generate press.

On the strength of the recommendation, most fashion companies would have, at least, taken the meeting seriously. From Luxottica I got a courtesy lunch with a mid-level P.R. executive. They must have thought the idea of anybody “helping” them add “cool factor”, or any other value, tangible or otherwise, to a commercial juggernaut like Ray Ban was absurd.

They probably figured the labels they’d licensed or bought had all the brand equity they needed. Consumer facing, value added initiatives were unnecessary. Having a corporate persona was unnecessary. This approach was validated by their bottom line – profit margins of over 20% (EBITDA as a percentage of revenue) on a vast scale.

So when Warby Parker materialized, well-funded and highly aggressive, they were easily able to define Luxottica because Luxottica had never felt the need to define themselves. And Luxottica’s been getting hammered in the press like a piñata ever since.

Even the FAANG companies, most of which are at least as monopolistic and much spookier than Luxottica, seem to get better press. That’s probably because they worked at building corporate personae that included well crafted hagiographies of key personnel… And various consumer facing, value added initiatives.

Former Luxottica CEO Andrea Guerra’s 60 Minutes interview, of course, was an historic debacle. He was asked the difference between an inexpensive frame sold under a house brand, and a similar designer license frame, which cost more than twice as much. After a long awkward silence, he pointed at the logo hardware on the designer frame’s temple, explained how nice it was, and how expensive it was to create.

Things like that can happen when a company doesn’t prioritize contributing to a product’s value equation beyond the purchased/rented branding.

But can any of this hurt Luxottica in the long term?

In lieu of superior competitors, and with their massive entrenchment, probably not too much.

But if the incessant bad press spurs anti-trust regulators to get involved… Who knows?

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As noted last post, I’m going to be showing my first collection in years at Vision Expo East this week. For those unaware, I do pretty cool work. (hit the bolded lettering for link)

For those in attendance, I’ll be at booth G127. To make an appointment, leave a comment. It won’t be published…

I’ll be happy to sign your book if you bring it, too.

And scroll to the top right corner of the frame and SUBSCRIBE!