Louis Vuitton has partnered with Soundwalk to produce a series of surreal audio tours that whisk listeners through some of China’s most well-known cities: Beijing, Hong Kong, and Shanghai. The tours offer a strange and captivating mix of music, sound effects, and narration that are sure to enhance any traveler’s visit to the country. Listeners stuck at home can enjoy the tours as well - simply relax and watch the stories through your mind’s eye.
Three of China’s most well-known actors (Gong Li, Shu Qi, and Joan Chen) supply the narration, which blends instructions (walk down this road, open the door) with heartfelt and nostalgic story telling. Each city essentially serves as a stage for a different tale of love and longing that helps bring the tour’s destinations to life. It sounds weird, but it works.
These tours are sure to be a hit with the throngs of tourists that will soon head to China for the Olympics, as well as with listeners at home. But be warned: this isn’t your typical travel guide, so don’t buy one expecting a tour full of trivia and factoids.
Louis Vuitton Soundwalk tours are $17 for each hour-long tour, and are available in English, French, Cantonese, Japanese, Korean and Mandarin. Soundwalk, the company that Louis Vuitton has collaborated with, describes itself as a creator of “audio tours for people who don’t normally take audio tours”, and has offerings for a number of other cities worldwide.
This is great news. Good luck to both of them.
Rob.
Lovely idea, but I’m not gonna shell out 17 clams for such a thing. Who’s their target market with these things? I’m all about China, but I can probably get similar things on YouTube for free, even if they aren’t so refined . . .
Not to be a hater, but isn’t this an example of an antiquated model? Wouldn’t it benefit Soundwalk and Louis Vuitton to offer these tours for free? Surely LV doesn’t need the money considering the amount they spend on their lavish events in Hong Kong, Shanghai and Beijing. At their recent extravaganza in Hong Kong they actually built a whole building just for a one night party!
http://www.hongkonghustle.com/.....ton-party/
This is a clever marketing idea that will be successful in China for two reasons. The first is that Chinese love all the new luxury brands hitting the market. They see it as their chance to arrive on the world stage, and some of my Chinese friends say they have gone without eating for two months in order to by a small LV wallet. They don’t understand why foreigners come to China to buy the knock-offs.
The second reason it will work in China is the piracy. Once one of these MP3s gets leaked, it will be all over the Chinese web sites for free download (despite what I just said about the Chinese paying premium for luxury goods). It will become a viral experience.
Nice marketing, LV.
Steven
This is great news.
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