Overview of a Luxury Fashion Brand - Essay Example

OVERVIEW OF A LUXURY FASHION BRAND AND WHY IT HAS BEEN AND CONTINUES TO BE SUCESSFUL Introduction The fashion industry is very competitive. Company that venture in fashion should therefore have a proper marketing strategies that will make it have competitive advantage over the other companies. Most companies engaging in fashion have therefore turned to luxury brands being that there is global interest in fashion. Based on the environment that the businesses operate, the target markets and product attributes as well as marketing methods, the companies have embraced luxury brand management and fashion marketing strategies that have made them be on top of the fashion industry. This paper looks at one Burberry as a luxury brand that has been successful despite the challenges that have existed in the fashion market. In this paper an overview of Burberry is given based on its success in the industry. The brand has been outstanding and is defined by the Britishness, independent luxury positioning and heritage as well as history. Compared to other brands in the fashion industry such as Prada, Zara and Ralph Lauren, the brand has been doing fairly well. Brand’s Brief History Burberry is a distinctive global luxury brand that was founded in 1856. The group has a British background. Over the years the company has built a strong and outstanding reputation for innovation, design, and craftsmanship (Haig, 2004). The group has much focus on outwear, best known for its trench coats. The company designs, produces as well as sell products under the Burberry brand. The company based in London sources its raw materials from UK and other external suppliers it forms network with. The content of marketing as well as marketing programs; analogue and digital, are internally designed to promote the brand and product features to the consumers. Being that its products are sold globally through proprietary retail shops as well as third party wholesale customers, the brand needs a strong fashion marketing strategy to counter the competition in the fashion world. Marketing is in fact one of the core corporate functions that keeps the brand at par. The brand has also embraced digital marketing as one of the method it uses to remain competitive in the market that is dominated by other super-brands in the luxury fashion industry ("Group Overview," n.d.). Brand’s Product attributes and Target Market The brand being inclined to British lifestyle has a range of products that targets men, women and children of different social status in the society. It is best known of shawls, scarves, and ties that are classified as soft accessories. On the other hand the brand has also classified small leather shoes, handbags, wallets, umbrellas, and wristwatches as hard accessories. The products are also tailored to meet individual needs (Tungate, 2009). For example the brand also classifies products as seasonal and continuity. Continuity includes the iconic trench coats that are durable whereas the former refers to the short lived products such as responsive fashion trend that covers a limited season. The multilevel brand strategy of the company is organized at six major brand levels. First off, the high fashion range that serves the fashion shows and editorial coverage, which is produced in small quantities to satisfy the customers’ exclusivity, demand. This range targets the affluent customers and is distributed through Burberry flagship stores and other prestigious stores in America and London such as Barneys and Harrods. The second range is the London line that is a ready to wear range that is presented in two collections based on the four seasons. Women’s wear usually has more lines compared to menswear. Menswear has also been tailored to meet sportswear accessories such as towels, shoe and bags as well as swimwear ("Group Overview," n.d.). There is also the Thomas Burberry range that targets the youths between 15 and 25 years of age, customer group. This group falls under diffusion brands and is available in Spain, UK and Europe. The other two diffusion brands are Burberry blue and black that is for the Japan fashion market. They are also targeted for younger male and female professionals. The multi-brand model of the company has provided maximum market exposure and extensive consumer demand. The second benefit of the model is that, it has provided elasticity and market awareness evidenced by the brands that target specific countries. Additionally, the approach of having broad category of products range and differential pricing options have provided a marketing move for the company since the customers have accessed it on that account as well as enable the trading up and down of the brand levels ("Group Overview," n.d.).. The brand is known for its trench coats that target the young audience. The product has been marketed through websites such as artofthetrench.com and celebrity endorsement (Grieve, Idiculla, & Tobias, 2013). Distribution channels of the Brand The brand is exclusively done through the operation of company stores, licensee agreement, and third party stockists. The company has a retail chain that comprises of four formats. These include designer outlet stores, department stores, regular retail price and flagship stores located in nearly all the major cities in Europe and London. The whole sale stockists include the prominent department stores, duty free shops and specialty fashion retailers. The brand also operates Showrooms in London, Milan, and Hong Kong among others. Additionally, the brand also employs the use of agents who make direct sales to the wholesale customers so as to increase sales of the products as well as encourage the sale of the products at the marked prices ("The luxury-goods market: Disillusioned hedonist shoppers | The Economist," n.d.). The consistency of visual merchandising of the brand as well as its store presentation of the brand is maintained through a shop-in-shop strategy that is implemented in department stores. The company maintains relationship with its wholesale customers by making accessible brand offer and other brands. Additionally, they engage in collaborative marketing action with the important clients (Haig, 2004). Through this the wholesale consumers are able to have access to allowances following the advertisement of Burberry brand products. In a nutshell, the licensee distribution engages two license partners that are jointly tinged with the duty of wholesale distribution. The licensed partner firms are responsible for visual merchandising and sales agents. The distribution channel has been advantageous of the brand. It provides the presentation of the brands products in diverse and important markets. The model also allows for the return on investment since none of the profit is lost in paying franchise partners and other partners. Marketing methods The gabardine which was water resistant and meant for the military outfits made the brand famous not only in England but also all over the world. Having been hit by economic downfall, the marketing department had to strengthen its strategies so as to boost its sales. To keep at the level of other brands it had to focus on digital media as one of its core strategies (Grieve, Idiculla, & Tobias, 2013). The company benchmarked other well established brands such as Apple, Nike and Google, to establish a unique and distinct model for the brand. Using these iconic brands it was able to use the social media with the aim of developing a campaign that was innovative and inclusive of the young consumers. The brand was outstanding, fashion forward and autonomous. This was and is still recorded in its trench coats that are iconic and are fond for the soldiers, celebrities, and working class (Grieve, Idiculla, & Tobias, 2013). The unique status of the luxury brand was built upon the unique product; the trench coats. Additionally, most street photography has recognized the brand from the same. In 2009 most people were aware of the brand and about a million making it the largest luxury brand in the fashion industry at that time ("Digital marketing case study - Social media case study: Burberry encourages customer participation with ‘Art of Trench’ - Digital Training Academy," n.d.). The idea of the social media gave a revelation of the Art of the Trench campaign. The brand established its website where it was very easy for the customers to share their photos wearing products from the luxury brand. This was a form of reaching more customers who would visit the website and admire those photographs. Coupled with the partnership with Scott Schaum; a fashion blogger, the brand was able to amass a mammoth of consumers within a short period of time. The photos could be liked and shared by both customers as well as the potent customers. The digital campaign placed the brand over others in the luxury sector. The success of the campaign boosted the e-commerce sales by almost fifty percent making the company to allocate more of its resources in digital marketing (Hill, 2014). Apart from social media, the brand also uses advertising, fashion stores, and editorial placement as its core marketing channels (Hines & Bruce, 2001). They have an advertisement strategy that is launched twice every year. The advertisement campaigns are more focused in the leading fashion and lifestyle publications such as fashion magazines. The brand has cut its expenditure for media advertisement (Hines & Bruce, 2001). The ads focus mainly on the brands history and heritage. The emphasis is well placed on the company logo, trademarks. The adverts not only feature individual products but also aim at presenting the whole brand image demonstrated through diverse brand product range (Hill, 2014). The fashion shows are also marketing channels for fashion. As a marketing move, Burberry appreciates the fashion shows as marketing plans that serve to inspire the luxury grade of the brand (Uss, Cipperly, & Videofashion Network, 2008). The shows are held in different periods depending on the brand. For example, the fashion shows are held twice a year in Milan. The city is well known for its luxury fashion heritage serves to market the brand internationally. Apart from establishing the fashions credibility, the shows also ensure international press representation (Chevalier & Mazzalovo, 2012). In London there is a fashion week every season in all designated London showrooms (Cooke, 2014). Editorial coverage aims at reinforcing the luxury brand positioning as well as creating brand awareness (Chevalier & Mazzalovo, 2012). Burberry has a strong public relations tactic that focuses on trade and fashion press. The strategy is inclusive of the whole world editorial coverage and annotations that are for the support of the brand. This ensures proper placement of the brand as the leading brand in fashion, trade, business and publications (Easey, 2009). Another important marketing coverage is the brochures that are unleashed every season to market the collections to the consumers and wholesale as well as retail customers (Easey, 2009). The brand also has a website that further creates its awareness. The website that is up to date provides a brief history of the brand, the current images of the product, and the adverts representing the brand ("Leverage the Franchise," n.d.). In the fashion show marketing, the brand has had a unique way of hitting the market. Recently in the London Fashion week, it made it possible for its customers to stream the fashion show live in 2010. This makes it the first brand to go live in 3D all over the world. As evidenced by the proper use of technological inventions that have placed the company above the other competitors, other brands in the fashion industry should embrace the same method to stay up in the market (Cooke, 2014). As a move of embracing technology Burberry also launched it mobile site in 2010 making it possible for the customers to interact with the products from their smart phones, ipads and tablets. This has continuously expanded its customer base globally being that most consumers use the same in communication and shopping at the same time (Strutta, 2013). The marketing model of the luxury brand has made it recognize the importance of advertising in the creation of the brands image. The brand is widely known both in London and all over the world because of its unique advertising campaigns. Conclusion The brand has come up with outstanding marketing strategies that have targeted various audiences. This move makes it do well in the luxury sector since they are unique and exclusive for the brand. The target market of the goods is well defined through the products and the fact that they can easily reach the goods at their convenience makes it easier for the company to make huge profits. Luxury brand management spurs almost over all the actions of the company form production, distribution, marketing and sales. Burberry as a luxury brand, have taken into consideration all the aspects of fashion marketing embracing the methods of marketing that assure large outreach such as the social media. The social marketing technique not only creates awareness of the brand but also creates a channel through which the company can interact with its customers and be able to get their feedback. This is then followed by swift analysis and mechanism implementation to meet the customer demands. In a nutshell, the paper has focused on what has made Burberry become one of the most recognized and successful luxury brands in the world of fashion market. Reference List Chevalier, M., & Mazzalovo, G. (2012). Luxury brand management: A world of privilege. Singapore: Wiley. Cooke, J. (2014, September 16). The brands at London Fashion Week: how Burberry leads the way on the innovation catwalk | Marketing Magazine. Retrieved from http://www.marketingmagazine.co.uk/article/1312283/brands-london-fashion-week-burberry-leads-innovation-catwalk Digital marketing case study - Social media case study: Burberry encourages customer participation with ?Art of Trench? - Digital Training Academy. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.digitaltrainingacademy.com/casestudies/2013/07/social_media_case_study_burberry_encourages_customer_participation_with_art_of_trench.php Easey, M. (2009). Fashion marketing. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. Grieve, J., Idiculla, A., & Tobias, K. (2013, February 3). How Burberry capitalised on the social media revolution - Business Today. Retrieved from http://businesstoday.intoday.in/story/burberry-social-media-initiative/1/191422.html Group Overview. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.burberryplc.com/about_burberry/group-overview Haig, M. (2004). Brand royalty: How the worlds top 100 brands thrive and survive. London: Kogan Page. Hill, C. W. (2014). International business: Competing in the global marketplace. Hines, T., & Bruce, M. (2001). Fashion marketing: Contemporary issues. Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann. Leverage the Franchise. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.burberryplc.com/about_burberry/our_strategy/leverage-the-franchise The luxury-goods market: Disillusioned hedonist shoppers | The Economist. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.economist.com/blogs/schumpeter/2014/02/luxury-goods-market Strutta. (2013, October 18). What Burberrys Doing Right in Online Marketing and Social Promotions. Retrieved from http://www.strutta.com/blog/burberry-online-marketing/ Swire, R. (2014, April 28). Burberrys Digital Strategy. Retrieved from https://parall.ax/blog/view/3047/why-is-burberry-s-digital-strategy-so-good- Tungate, M. (2009). Luxury world: The past, present and future of luxury brands. London: Kogan Page. Uss, E., Cipperly, J., & Videofashion Network. (2008). Burberry Prorsum. New York: Videofashion Network!. Read More