4.1 Case study---Burberry

Case study---Burberry

According to Wikipedia description that “Burberry Group PLC (LSE: BRBY) is a British luxury fashion house, manufacturing clothing, fragrance, and fashion accessories. Its distinctive tartan pattern has become one of its most widely copied trademarks. Burberry is most famous for its iconic trench coat, which was invented by founder Thomas Burberry. The company has branded stores and franchises around the world, and also sells through concessions in third-party stores”.

There was old news, “China success takes Burberry shares higher”, April 20^th, 2011 was posted on Want China Times, the writer said “Fueled by sales in China, Shares in Burberry reached an all-time high on Tuesday (Apr. 19), reporting a 30% rise in revenue to 860 million pounds in the second-half of the fiscal year”. Showing that the current rise of Burberry is not a coincidence but rather something achieved through strategy will surely be of interest to firms struggling with lack of brand power or those looking to boost brand power.

When Burberry enters into the Chinese market, they pay special attention to the cultivation of brand awareness. Purchase Burberry is not only the product, but also a work of art which has become a symbol of a quality of life. From Jerry Clode, associate director of brand development and marketing explain that “it is a very different Britain that Burberry presents to Chinese audiences. Chinese consumers can’t distinguish Britain from the rest of Europe, but they do recognize London through Western popular culture, such as film stars” (Griffith 2012).

Moreover, Burberry on the use of social media strategy is also very impressive, it is worth learning from other brands, which has established a good relationship with the customer (Messieh 2012). The new Burberry.com website began at the end of 2011, with the site live in six languages and transactions across 45 countries by the year end. The site, known as Burberry World, is the ultimate expression of the Burberry brand, allowing customers globally which connect with all aspects in Burberry. It is also providing the ultimate online luxury shopping experience through a personalized customer service offer that includes the ability to Click to Chat and Click to Call in real time and in 14 languages. The site provides a powerful locus for ongoing efforts to build the Burberry community around the world (On Burberry 2012).

It is fact that Burberry have their own social media site that allows people to post pictures of themselves in Burberry trenches and comment and like pictures of others. According to Colleen Cheng, senior vice president and national business director said that “Many of China’s shoppers rely on blogs and other forms of social media for information about brands.”(Burberry stores in China get high-tech 2011)

“Burberry posted a warm note about a 3D fashion show in Beijing via Sina Weibo, which generated 854 retweets, 104 comments and achieved a total exposure of over 3 million netizens. From the below tweet diffusion model, Burberry can identify effluences performance and evaluate their effectiveness in the spread of brand’s tweet”. Via these a serious campaign, Burberry is effectively locking the main consumers in China which is young generation (The Voice of Luxury: Social Media and Luxury Brands in China 2011). Therefore, it is the key point to affect brand owner which is engaging in these channels through influencer engagement and conversation management.

Furthermore, Burberry has not ignored the management and control of product quality. Outerwear is still the core of the Burberry apparel business, from innovation of modern styles to a timeless of the eternal landmark works was born. A key growth driver, outerwear accounted for over half of mainline retail apparel sales in the year. Due to Burberry pay more attention to product quality and direction innovation, and own e-business website becoming more perfect, which establish effective barriers for counterfeit products, it is difficult to find substandard product in authority routine quality examinations for luxury brands.

Reference: 

Burberry stores in China get high-tech. 2011. http://www.wantchinatimes.com/news-subclass-cnt.aspx?cid=1302&MainCatID=13&id=20110415000005 (accessed March 20, 2012).

Griffith, G. 2012. How Burberry conquered China. http://www.londonlovesbusiness.com/business-news/bric-countries/how-burberry-conquered-china/1515.article (accessed March 20, 2012).

Messieh, N. 2012. How luxury brands are using social media. http://thenextweb.com/socialmedia/2012/03/20/luxury-brands-using-social/ (accessed March 20, 2012).

On Burberry. 2012. http://brandburberry.wordpress.com/assignment-1-brand-identity/ (accessed March 20, 2012).

The Voice of Luxury: Social Media and Luxury Brands in China. 2011. http://www.fccihk.com/files/dpt_image/5_committees/Luxury%20Committee/The_Voice_of_Luxury_Social_Media_and_Luxury_Brands_in_China.pdf  (accessed March 20, 2012).