Burberry, a Tarnished Brand Revived

A Brand in Trouble

In the early 2000’s Burberry, as a brand, was in trouble. The then CEO, Rose Marie Bravo, hired Christopher Bailey a former employee of Gucci, together they created numerous affordable products and intensively licensed the brand. Burberry became easily accessible to people of all incomes leading to the brand experiencing a huge increase in sales. The characteristic check pattern originally used as a discrete lining in the likes of their classic trench coat, was transformed into the predominant feature of the brand and was plastered all over one fifth of their products.

Unwelcome  ‘brand ambassadors’ such as football hooligans picked up on the new and affordable prices. Burberry became worryingly popular within these types of subcultures. It was the Euro 2000 football competition that first brought this to the public’s attention, with news clips of people rioting in Burberry earning the brand the damaging moniker ‘Chav Check’. This led to a number of bars, nightclubs and restaurants banning people from wearing the brand. Criminal gangs further tarnished the brands iconic status, by flooding British town markets with cheap ‘knock off’ imitations.

This and Burberry’s critical mistake of otherwise making their brand too accessible disintegrated their sense of exclusivity. The company lost control of their brand image and the brand became a victim of its own success.

Rescuing the Brand

This branding catastrophe forced the company to shift their style focus with the offending check now having a minimal contribution. Angela Ahrendts Joined the Burberry team in 2006 and together with Bailey they skyrocketed the brand into the digital age. Burberry grasped the social media challenge leveraging the brand on emerging platforms such as snapchat and periscope. It was the first luxury clothing brand to live stream its fashion shows while simultaneously selling directly off the catwalk. Burberry harnessed Snapchat’s revolutionary immediacy to share pictures of their collections before shows, amounting to 100 million impressions, creating a new and exceptional digital engagement with customers.

In launching “Art of the trench” in 2009, a microsite consisting of customer created content where brand enthusiasts uploaded pictures of themselves wearing the signature trench coat, the site had reached 24.8 million page views by 2015. This feature gives customers a strong feeling of involvement with the brand.

At the end of 2014, Burberry upgraded its mobile site which saw its mobile revenue triple. Customers gained access to the brand in a way that was previously unheard of in Luxury fashion. Burberry focused on giving its customers the same experience whether online, in store or on mobile. The company redesigned stores such as the one on Regent Street to reflect its website, making the customer journey seamless. Burberrys new digital efforts led to a positive reception and the company landed itself the number one spot on L2’s 2015 Fashion Digital Report.

The new focus was not only on digital innovations but a strong emphasis was placed on the heritage of the company which was reflected throughout their website. In order to take back their British image in 2009 Burberry moved their fashion shows from Milan to London. In Milan, they were in competition with dozens of super brands but in London Burberry was King. Burberry’s most recent marketing efforts are in its new advert depicting the first historic moments for the company.

In adopting this revolutionary digital marketing strategy Burberry catapulted their brand back to the forefront of the luxury fashion world. This bold action created a high-class digital presence equal to that of the leading brands across various industries.

Conor Mac Namara – LinkedIn Profile