Vuarnet relaunches with Vincent Cassel as brand ambassador

By

Jean-Paul Leroy

Published
Apr 4, 2016

French eyewear brand Vuarnet's new team has been operational since May 2015, working behind the scenes notably with former André General Manager Lionel Giraud in charge as CEO. The brand now hits centre stage with a new communications campaign featuring actor Vincent Cassel.

"He is the ideal personification of the Vuarnet image," said Lionel Giraud, "in addition to being a long-standing customer of the brand! The choice of Vincent Cassel was self-evident," explained the brand's CEO. "A French actor of international renown, he is talented, generous, charismatic and instinctive. He is a man who is perpetually active, overflowing with energy, a lover of the great outdoors and surfing. He embodies Vuarnet's own essence perfectly: elegance and motion."
 
To portray this closeness, the Vuarnet team wanted to meet Vincent Cassel on his home turf, in Rio de Janeiro, where he lives, in his daily environment: on the beach where he surfs, in the small restaurant where he regularly eats, and in the heart of the city. And photos at each location, by photographer Marcel Hartmann, with whom Cassel has already collaborated several times.

The brand knew that it also needed to be able to reflect this new image to consumers. "We have redesigned the brand," pointed out Lionel Giraud, "and launched new collections. We reinvested in our Meaux production facility, where our mineral sunglasses lenses are manufactured, and we created a subsidiary in the USA, the country that has historically been the brand's leading foreign market."

Vuarnet was even a sponsor of the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles. "In the USA the brand is still well-known. In eight months, we have already generated $1 million in revenue," stated Lionel Giraud.
 
Vuarnet is featuring a collection with just under 30 models, for a total of 200-250 items. According to Lionel Giraud, the prices fit perfectly with the brand's positioning, between €150 and €400, with an average price between €200 and €220.