Burberry as a Global Brand - Case Study Example

Reinventing the Burberry Brand: Case Study

How were the clothes bearing the Burberry mane Augmented to “Create” a brand before the 1980s?

Regarding product, in 1856, Burberry proposed men's clothes or gentlemen's outfitters with high-quality clothes. He then thought that it was better to sell clothes that were ready to be worn. There were small collections, but the sales went up. According to the case study, Burberry sold trench-coats during the First World War to the British Army and other customers. In 1920, the check was introduced, and it became quite famous. Regarding price, Burberry at first targeted only the upper-class, but after some time, it began attracting the middle and upper classes. Regarding place, Burberry targeted the domestic market before the 1980s. Burberry established a gentleman's outfitters in 1856 before developing his organization and supplying trench-coats. The Great Universal Stores purchased Burberry in 1955 and enabled it to expand its market. Regarding promotion, the brand's reputation grew since it proved its significance to the national cause. The fact that the war was worn by the British army increased the great image of the brand. Various actresses in some of the movies wore Burberry brand and became very famous. To emulate this, people who loved fashion began buying the same clothes. In other words, clothes bearing the Burberry name were augmented using the marketing matrix to create a brand before the 1980s. The organization target the 4Ps including promotion, place, price and product.

Burberry led the brand to success by using the marketing mix strategies through the development of product diversification, adoption of a new promotional campaign and the expansion of a new distribution network. In spite of this success, Ms. Bravo remained concerned on the means of keeping the track record while sustaining the exclusivity and prestige of the brand. She also remained concerned about how the brand could strategize in its marketing efforts and general business management to meet the dynamic demands of the challenging business environment (Chadha & Husband 2010, p.23). The name was augmented to create a brand by operating in the same niche where it produced the outerwear of men including boot and raincoat to cater for sportsmen and travelers needs through the use of a high-quality garment, as well as serve the purpose as comfortable and weatherproof. Finally, it aligned itself to be a distinctive and prestigious product because of the niche market targeting the upper class including the politicians, celebrities, and family.

What element of the brand-building factors discussed in the chapter has been used by Burberry to rebuild its brand?

Regarding the brand positioning of the company's product mix, it has placed itself between leading brands including Armani Exchange and Polo Ralph Lauren. The various product lines appealing from the conservative 60-year-old man to the hipsters has enabled the organization to position the brand in consumers' minds, and become a functional luxury which can satisfy the various population segments. The ability of the organization to produce product mix with two major groups, continuity, and fashion, as well as its capacity to position itself among top luxury goods, makes the brand sustainable and competitive. The company has adopted a consistent theme across all its accounts and has remained technology savvy in its undertakings to enhance the way it connects with its customers. It has been a pioneer in incorporating technology within the fashion industry and been at the forefront in the creation of a social media experience for the fashion fans. It has fully embraced the social media strategy as a way of reaching fans and customers (Westerman, Bonnet & McAfee 2014, p.52). All its platforms have a uniform theme, and despite the content being similar in all the sites, they are clued to the content that works on particular sites.

The business further embraced innovation to rebrand and continually create better products. Burberry moved into digital space aggressively at a time when many organizations in the fashion industry depicted elaborate websites as liabilities. One of its notable innovations was the digital campaign called ‘Art of the Trench Coat.' This was initially launched in 2009 and attracted the attention of many fans of the brand globally. They got involved through the contribution of personal photographs with the Burberry trench coat trademark. They were shown on the Art of the Trench website. This campaign was at first designed to be an independent social media platform rather than being hosted on any existing platform, implying the business controlled the aesthetics of the site instead of being confined to a specific format (Westerman et al. 2014, p.53). The campaign has been adopted across various social media platforms, especially Twitter, Pinterest, and Twitter thus helped reinvent the brand.

A crucial strategy that has enabled it to rebrand is the vertical integration business model. This strategy is structured by product, channel as well as core corporate functions and enables it to sell products through retail. Change management in the organization was also carried out appropriately and resulted in the recruitment of American Rose Bravo as the organization's new CEO. He sought to improve the image of the business to a better range of products, thus made the Burberry brand to start appearing on many products and expanded the sales base of the company. The adoption of an aggressive advertising strategy was also instrumental in rebuilding the brand (Westerman et al. 2014, p.56). Baron and Baron recruiting agency was recruited to emphasize the new credentials of the brand without interfering with its classic roots. The other crucial strategy was the sorting out of distribution. Furthermore, international expression was also a major priority of Bravo when he opened the flagship stores in 2002. The Art of the Trench service particularly placed the brand on the global map as it enabled customers to access made to measure trench coats. Before being opened, the brand was perceived as less fashionable and was less popular. However, its launch along with the Barcelona store was perceived as instrumental in aiding to reposition the brand in Spain. It can, therefore, be argued that the business has not entirely used a single strategy in rebuilding its brand over the years. In other words, it has used a variety of brand building factors to rebuild its brand.

Industry observers contend that luxury brands tend to fare better than the mass market brands in economic hardship periods. Luxury products are based on basic products and exceed the satisfaction of the customer applying extra attributes. Brands can play roles such as symbolic, functional, intangible or emotional depending on whether the service performance is suitable for the required demand, or the brand representation to express their views via the brand choice. As a result, convincing clients regarding product or service related benefits is significant for any brand strategy to be successful. The main elements of Burberry's brand-building factors are high-quality clothing, consistent marketing matrix, stretching range to a wide range of products and positioning by the idea of accessible luxury (Huang & Sarigöllü 2014, p.115). The other elements are positioning as an exclusive and up-market lifestyle brand which appeals to the younger consumers, brand values including design and quality, as well as brand heritage including the high-class British heritage and brand domain. Regarding the brand domain, the design and range of products were changed to make it more attractive to the younger generation. The brand also lowered gift prices to enhance accessibility to the younger individuals, store traffic, and increase sales.

What problems might arise in trying to build Burberry into a global brand?

Various problems could arise in the company when it tries to build into a global brand. The business is fashionable but fragile. Building on the success it has had it a daunting task. It has to strengthen its still fragile new image while trying to expand its product line geographically (Casadesus-Masanell & Ricart 2010, p124). Amid all the frenetic activity, there is the problem of overstretching the brand beyond its limits. The company's plaid has been splashed on all things including coasters and umbrellas. This has been successful, but could backfire in case it is perceived as being more common than chic. There has been increasing concern that the brand is un-established enough to stretch easily across new categories, including accessories and house-ware like shoes and perfume. This is where many luxury goods make huge profits. The other problem is that its appeal is not tested on the global scene. It has undoubtedly been successful at home, but it has not penetrated other markets as 50% of its sales come from only two nations, Japan and Spain (Moore & Birtwistle 2004, p.415). Furthermore, its operations as an independent organization place it at risk. This is because small luxury product organizations with a single label are increasingly becoming an endangered species within an industry dominated by global branded powerhouses including Gucci and LVMH. It could be pulled from the obscure depths of a single conglomerate, only to be swallowed by another.

What are the dangers inherent in Burberry’s strategy since 1997?

Brand religion is an inherent problem in its strategy since 1997. The company is among the few luxury organizations whose creative directors are at the top. This partially explains why the organization prioritizes the brand in its moves, and business comes second. It is reasonable to inquire about some of the extravagant cost commitments as well as strategic decisions which have been taken on brand worship. The phasing out of Brit, London, and Prorsum lines will unify the product offering of the organization under one label by the end of the year. This can make strategic sense and strengthen the brand in the long term. On the contrary, in the short term, the move is commercially risky as it could result in the loss of trading space as well as large scale wholesale account sales. The other danger inherent in its strategy is desirability within the United States market (Casadesus-Masanell & Ricart 2010, p126). In China, its significant upgrade of the retail network has been gradually dwindling over the last five years. Burberry is also still grappling with copyright and trademark problems. Some countries have canceled trademark protection for its tartan print arguing that it did not utilize the design since 2010. In case the organization fails, its competitors will be at an advantage of producing the design. Some of the criticism and inherent problems highlight that the organization is facing stiff competition, and is still grappling with brand sustainability.

Recommendations

To tackle the issues Burberry faces, it is vital that it adopts some of the measures proposed in this paper to restore its glory and attain a sustainable advantage. First, it should revisit its marketing communications mix. It has engaged few established celebrities to carry out the advertisements, which resulted in the entire rebranding and repositioning of the organization. It enabled the brand to transform its image from the contemporary and old outlook to the fashion-oriented, modern and youthful image. Burberry should advertise in cinemas to achieve great results, and focus on the Internet to reach the younger audience. To attract attention to the various products that the company has, it should deploy coupon sales through discounts, or introduction of contests that have lucrative prizes to enhance the awareness of the categories of its brand. Burberry should also have tie-in promotions with other established organization including Marks & Spencer, Peter Jones to improve its pulling power (Moore & Birtwistle 2005, p.270). Plans such as the organization of fashion shows in a compelling way could tackle the outreach on the non-target consumer issue, and introduce the check patterns. There has been an increase in Cause-Related Marketing which enables organizations to form strategic alliances with charitable companies. The organization can work collaboratively with the National Heart & Lung Institutes and contend to donate a certain proportion of sales to the corporation. This could attract the consumers and eliminate the bad reputation of the business. It can also gain by adopting interactive marketing including E-catalogues and E-shopping as they can enhance the brand positioning sustainability (Polidoro & Toh 2011, p.370). It should further carry out a study on the supply chain management in existence to tackle the shortfalls and remedy the problems. This can go a large way in ensuring that potential rivals to gain an advantage on its weaknesses and remain sustainable in its brand positioning. Finally, it should consider the Lean Six Sigma to eliminate eight potential wastage that the model identifies including waiting, defects, inventory (Baird 2013, p.34), overproduction, motion, transportation, extra processing provision of services and goods and non-utilized talent.

In conclusion, this paper argues that the implementation of the measures recommended will help the brand to establish a cohesive vision, maximize customer value, and attain a sustainable competitive advantage that should be possessed by luxury goods retailers. Some of the strategies the organization has deployed have been instrumental in improving its image, but some of its practices still prevent it from expanding globally. In this regard, this paper suggests that the company can be able to outshine all its other competitors if it carefully implements the recommendations provided. It could be a daunting task initially, but worthwhile in the long-term.

Reference List

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