Up until about a decade ago, fashion brand Burberry was underperforming significantly against its peers in the luxury sector. Following the appointment of Angela Ahrendts as CEO (now Senior VP of Retail and Online Stores at Apple), Burberry underwent a transformation that revitalized the brand and dramatically boosted its performance. In its quest to develop a well-defined and modern brand identity and design an excellent customer experience, Burberry has turned to digital as a core element of its customer strategy, making it a digital winner in the luxury space. Indeed, it stands out in this sector as a pioneer in integrating digital with its traditional physical and brick and mortar business and in integrating technology more generally in a fashion business.<\/p>\n
As it made choices about how to revitalize its somewhat outdated trench coat brand, Burberry decided to target millenials, and recognized the need to embrace digital to do so. Burberry was able to create an outstanding online consumer experience, both through social media and its website. It was one of the first luxury brands to use Facebook, and has maintained an active presence on the site, as well as on Twitter (used both as a marketing tool and a customer service channel) and YouTube. Burberry has used social media in innovative ways to engage its consumers, particularly via a long-standing partnership with Twitter which has allowed viewers to access live-streams of runway shows, receive personalized photos from shows and buy products via the social media site. Its social media presence, which has seen consistent and well-thought-out content, has allowed the brand to develop a strong community following and relaunched brand awareness and popularity amongst younger consumers.<\/p>\n
In parallel, Burberry built a sleek website which includes digital content and drives ecommerce. Burberry has also designed unique digital content to allow consumers to interact with the brand, to provide customization opportunities and to go beyond fashion and become a tastemaker for its young customers. The brand created Art of the Trench, a community where users could upload photos of themselves wearing Burberry trenches, which positioned consumers at the center of the brand and attracted thousands of users. Through Burberry Bespoke, consumers could design and order a customized trench, and Burberry Acoustic featured up-and-coming British musicians performing while wearing Burberry items. Its strong online presence — more significant than many of its competitors’ — was built out to respond\u00a0to the needs and interests of Burberry\u2019s target customers.<\/p>\n
Burberry’s use of technology didn’t just stop online. It has\u00a0also made an effort to use digital to enhance the physical experience, with its flagship store in London laid out to mimic the online website experience, and RFID tags on some of its products which give access to interactive digital content.\u00a0On the back end, Burberry developed a global ERP program to align internal processes and leverage global data.<\/p>\n
Burberry\u2019s approach to digital was innovative and, perhaps more importantly, completely aligned with its strategic goals as a brand and a company. It has managed to develop a consistent digital presence in order to build a strong and recognizable brand, while also being smart about using particular platforms for particular types of content \u2013 e.g. Twitter to maintain an active community and market around key events, Instagram for visuals, etc. Its approach to engaging consumers via digital has been well-adapted to its chosen target audience. And it embraced digital transformation on the inside to drive more aligned global processes, thus improving brand uniformity. In the past decade, Burberry has seen sales skyrocket, and has emerged as a true beloved luxury brand and a recognized digital fashion leader. It is great to see a brand that has managed to view digital not as an obligation in this day and age, but as a real strategic tool to build brand value and connect with consumers.<\/p>\n
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Seeking to revitalize and harmonize its brand, Burberry became a digital leader in the luxury fashion space.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":118,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","categories":[74,76,75,7],"class_list":["post-264","hck-submission","type-hck-submission","status-publish","hentry","category-burberry","category-digital","category-fashion","category-winner"],"connected_submission_link":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-digit\/assignment\/digital-winners-and-losers\/","yoast_head":"\n