Magic and luxury have many things in common, not least that they both excel in the art of creating lasting wonder. The “Magician of Luxury”, Laurent Beretta, exploits this common ground through his science of the customer experience, whether in his shows or in the service of brands and companies.
Giving life to a historical cultural heritage, transcending the product, giving the spectator a role in which he or she is the hero, and propelling him or her into a bygone era as if in a daydream – this is what marketing can learn from its distant cousin, magic. This is exactly what Laurent Beretta offers with his Soirées Fantastiques.
In the prestigious and intimate setting of the Alfred Sommier mansion, a stone’s throw from the Place de la Concorde, the magician – bilingual like few others in Paris – devotes an evening to reviving the memory of the most famous French illusionist of the 19th century: Robert Houdin.
A corporate magician and lecturer specializing in customer experience for the past 15 years, Laurent Beretta is unique in that he trained as much in illusionism as in marketing, seeking to understand the emotional underpinnings of his magical effects.
In these times of profound uncertainty, Laurent Beretta proposes to reconnect with an extraordinary power rooted in every human being: his or her capacity for wonder.
From illusionism to customer experience
With his impeccable attire, infectious good humor and spellbinding diction, Laurent Beretta is a born storyteller. Behind him, like a stage screen, stands one of the two bookshelves in his home, filled with rare, old and cosmopolitan works on magic, of course, but also – more surprisingly – on the customer experience.
The magician’s background is impressive: scientific baccalaureate, then business school in Lyon, bachelor’s degree in finance in Boston, option marketing and branding; MBA in management at Sup de Co Montpellier; short course in neuromarketing at ESSEC; training in customer experience with Forrester Research… But always with magic as the common thread.
Winner of the Monte Carlo Magic Festival (2004), he followed in the footsteps of his childhood idols by appearing on French TV shows Patrick Sébastien’s Le Plus Grand Cabaret du Monde (from 2002), before being voted Best Magician on La France a un Incroyable Talent (2011). His performances with the major Maisons of the LVMH group, as well as Hermès, Chanel High Jewellery, Porsche and Cartier, have earned him the title of “luxury magician”.
Today, the maestro also performs for insurance companies, construction and public works firms… in short, for both BtoC and BToB audiences.
The art of prestidigitation burst into his life at the age of 9, and has never left him since.
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Featured Photo: © Les Soirées Fantastiques
