What Did Fashion Brand Burberry Do To Revolutionize How Marketers Use Social Media?

Executive Summary: In 2009, British luxury brand Burberry, like its competitors, was still unsure of how to build a valuable presence in social media. This case study looks at how it somewhen capitalised on the new medium - without eroding the exclusive, aspirational qualities that are core to the world of luxury.

In 2009, mode house Burberry was feeling the force per unit area of the economic downturn, even though its financials had been stiff over the past decade. Acquirement growth dropped from 18 and 15 per cent in the previous two years to seven per cent that year, excluding the impact of foreign exchange rates, while operating turn a profit margin shrank from nearly 15 per cent to nine.8 per cent. In this harsh retail surround, Burberry recognised the potential value of the digital media. In March 2009, with 175 million users on Facebook and 600,000 more joining it each day, Burberry began allocating marketing and public relations spend and dedicated personnel to pursue tech-age marketing. Building a social media presence seemed critical, but the question was, "how"?

Burberry was founded in 1856 when 21-year-old Thomas Burberry, a former draper'southward amateur, opened his ain outdoor apparel store in Basingstoke, Hampshire, England. Soon later, the company introduced the gabardine, a water-resistant but breathable fabric, and started producing the trench coats that would become famous in England and around the world. By the end of the 20th century the make was going through difficult times, equally the company'due south strategy had not been consistent with the Burberry brand identity. In 1997, Rose Marie Bravo, former president of Saks Fifth Avenue, was named CEO. She and her team initiated a series of changes that repositioned the make, targeting a younger and higher-end audience, and raised it back to the pinnacle of the fashion world.

Burberry introduced the gabardine, a water-resistant just breathable material, and started producing the trench coats that would make them famous in England and effectually the globe

In 2006, Angela Ahrendts causeless the CEO's position subsequently Bravo retired. She and Christopher Bailey, Primary Creative Officer, focused on digital media as one of Burberry's main strategies to continue strengthening the brand.

Burberry had already joined Facebook, but Bailey wanted to do something more, something distinctive and unique to the brand. Burberry'southward luxury sector competitors may not have yet fabricated any major waves in digital media, simply Burberry's executive squad had never been also focused on its peers. Instead, information technology looked to other iconic brands such as Nike, Apple, and Google. These brands were hit social media hard, and Burberry wanted to follow adapt. The mandate was simple: to develop a campaign that was innovative and would appoint younger consumers.

The Burberry make was democratic and fashion frontwards. No product better reflected this than the iconic trench, which over the grade of its history had been worn by soldiers, royalty, celebrities, and the working class, each group wearing it with its ain mode and flair. In recognising this unique status of the trench that encompassed Burberry's brand pillars of democratic luxury, function, and modernistic archetype way, the team was on to something. It likewise recognised that street style photography had become a hot trend, and worked well with the trench look. These ii pieces came together in one big idea: why not leverage existing Burberry customers, who personify the make, to generate content that appeals to them and to their peers?

In the year after the launch of the Art of the Trench in November 2009, Burberry's Facebook fan base of operations grew to more than a million, the largest fan count in the luxury sector at the fourth dimension

With that revelation, the idea for the Art of the Trench entrada was born. The team envisioned a website where existing customers could share photos of themselves wearing their Burberry trench coats, giving them their '15 minutes of fame' as models on the site, and assuasive other customers to adore their sense of fashion.

The Art of the Trench site was designed advisedly to walk the fine line between highly-seasoned to Burberry'due south high-end customer base and also generating interest in the new youthful, aspirational future client. For this reason, the campaign was designed as a standalone social media platform, instead of being hosted on an existing platform. This ensured Burberry had command over the look and feel of the site that existing platforms such every bit Facebook could not offer. The initial idea centred on the trench and the squad opted to stick with this limited focus rather than include other clothes.

To boot off the entrada and fix the tone of the images, the team brainstormed about getting a partner and finally chose Scott Schuman, as well known every bit The Sartorialist, after his street style fashion blog. Schuman was a pioneer and a leader in the fashion blog world, with his site averaging around 13 million page views per month by 2011.

To engage both existing and aspirational customers, the Art of the Trench offered two levels of participation. Customers could upload photos of themselves in their Burberry trenches, and customers and "aspirationals" alike could annotate on them, 'like', and share the photos via Facebook, electronic mail, Twitter, or Delicious. Users could also sort photos by trench type, colour, gender of the user, conditions, popularity, and the where the photo originated (user submitted, Sartorialist, fashion), and click-through to the Burberry site to brand a purchase.

Rather than explicitly marketplace the Art of the Trench, Burberry opted to rely largely on public relations and word of mouth generated through The Sartorialist and users sharing their submissions on Facebook and Twitter. This tactic allowed the Art of the Trench to accept an exclusive 'in -the-know' feel that appealed to the luxury consumer. Following on the launch, Burberry hosted events to continue driving excitement around the trench in various markets including Bharat, France and Brazil.

A Burberry customer in her trench coat

By the stop, the team had crafted a site it felt would come across its goal of engaging younger consumers in an innovative and exciting way.

In the yr following the launch of the Art of the Trench in November 2009, Burberry'due south Facebook fan base of operations grew to more than one one thousand thousand, the largest fan count in the luxury sector at the time. East-commerce sales grew 50 per cent year-over-twelvemonth, an increase partially attributed to higher web traffic from the Art of the Trench site and Facebook. The site had vii.5 million views from 150 countries in the start twelvemonth. Conversion rates from the Fine art of the Trench click-throughs to the Burberry website were significantly college than those from other sources. By all metrics, quantitative and qualitative, the campaign was a success.

The success of the Fine art of the Trench affirmed Burberry's strategic focus on digital. By 2012, Burberry had moved lx per cent of its marketing budget to digital. Information technology as well had the most number of Facebook fans and Twitter followers in the luxury sector. CEO Bailey described Burberry as being "as much a media-content company as a pattern company".

Burberry has executed many other digital innovations, setting the bar for online client engagement. Each of these initiatives has built on the digital strategy Burberry kicked off with the Art of the Trench, and has led to the brand's pre-eminent status every bit a tech-savvy make.

Ahrendts and Bailey have been applauded for their pioneering moves, and Burberry has been recognised as "the industry leader when it comes to technological sensation," achieving "genius" status in the digital IQ study by Luxury Lab, a call back tank on digital innovation.

Financially too, the strategy seems to be paying off, with company sales more than doubling and stock growth of nearly 300 per cent since Ahrendts's arrival in 2007. Rivals take tried to keep pace with varying levels of success, but none take gone full throttle like Burberry.

Despite Burberry'due south success, there are those who doubt the sustainability of the brand's digital strategy and wonder if letting fashion have a backseat may lead to the company'south downfall. Sales, profit, and share toll growth have all begun to slide this year. Growth in Cathay, Burberry's largest market, has been hitting hard.

Ahrendts has defended her strategy. "I've seen what happened to brands similar Kodak that did not go on upwards with digital change. That's a lesson in what to avert," she has said. So, is the strategy responsible for Burberry's return to market leadership and the clear path forward? Or is it a strategy blindly, excitedly pursued that may be besides bully a deviation from the company'due south core business?

{mosimage}'Enhance Experience Of Social Media Users'

The case report highlights 3 interesting lessons. First, marketers are wary of the new social media earth considering, compared with traditional media such equally TV, information technology offers relatively less control over the message and the potential target. Who knows who will share the message, with whom, and with what commentary? Further, the metrics to ascertain the success of the entrada are not as clear for the marketer. Burberry cleverly designed a campaign that overcame these two obstacles with social media.

Second, many social media campaigns, especially on Facebook, are truly reminiscent of going from the equus caballus carriage to the motorcar. Since the horses were in front, the engine was placed in front end of the car. Similarly, all these exposure-based ads on Facebook are irritating for the user and ineffective for the marketer. Who cares how many likes a brand has, except perhaps to boast to other competitors?

It is totally unimaginative. To be effective on Facebook, marketers must come up up with campaigns that raise the social feel of the Facebook user. For example, using your Facebook account to sign into the Amazon website so that it notifies your friends birthdays and advise gifts based on their activity. The Burberry campaign was very good at leveraging the social aspect of the new media.

Third, luxury marketers tend to be product-oriented. If one thinks of the client, segments go apace apparent. There is the buyer who consumes the store equally part of the brand experience, though fifty-fifty this is changing with decorated professional person women. However, there are other buyers who merely desire to buy a gift. They simply want the purchase executed at the click of a mouse. They will exchange it if they do not like information technology!

Nirmalya Kumar, Professor of Marketing and Manager of the Aditya Birla India Middle at London Business School

{mosimage}Employ of Digital Engineering in Style Will Improve

Learning from iconic brands such as Nike, Apple and Google and applying that noesis to an industry where use of digital media, and more than specifically social media, is seen more than as a distraction than a timely adaptation, is a bold pace that has ready Burberry autonomously.

Burberry kept 'Customer Experience' at the core of its strategy and it needs to sustain that. Information technology ensured entertainment, engagement, and interaction that appealed to both high-finish and newgeneration consumers. Information technology gave a unique experience to its customers by connecting stores digitally, providing online shopping solutions, developing social media applications in association with relevant partners (Facebook, Twitter, The Sartorialist etc). This use of co-cosmos has helped to drive make awareness and the convenience of digital applied science has given a new dimension to customer engagement.

Time being a abiding challenge in today'southward earth, the demand for instant, accurate and exclusive style content, along with the convenience of digital technology, will only increase. The success of Burberry may seem piece of cake to imitate to other style brands, just they might fail as Burberry'south arroyo requires a consummate transformation of the process. Using social media should not be an alternative to accessing data about the product, merely an integral part of the value chain.

Rubaba Dowla, Chief Service Officer, Airtel People's republic of bangladesh

(This case study is from the Aditya Birla Republic of india Middle of London Business School.)

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