Burberry Case Study Essay

1. The Burberry trade name has be come a symbol of two luxury and durability. The brand has been repositioned to a niche marketplaceplace between cutting-edge expression apparel, like Armani, and clean fashion apparel, like Polo Ralph Lauren. Burberry has in like manner excelled in the accessories market, positioning itself between the Coach and Gucci brands. Burberry does not want to be cutting-edge fashion and at the same time, does not want to be viewed as just incorrupt, as this market is already saturated with other brands. Burberry represents accessible luxury, meaning they were fashion adequate, but also functional. Burberrys competitive position is sustainable over the long-term providing that the industry itself remains stable. Burberrys competitors, like Ralph Lauren, develop proven that they can maintain their position over the long-term in both low-end traditional and noble-end fashion markets so I believe Burberry has the capability to do the same. Burberry mai ntains its position of fashionable and functional. If they can do this, the parapet to entry for this niche should remain too high for competitors to enter.2. Since her arrival at Burberry, Rose Marie Bravo practise out to make Burberry great from a global perspective. She attempted to do this by implementing treble key changes to the Burberry brand. These changes include repositioning the brand, updating the point of intersection line, establishing flagship stores, expanding the brand portfolio, and promoting the new brand image. Bravo was able to reposition the Burberry brand into the category of luxury brand. She did so by filling an empty gap in the market, between that of classic fashion and cutting-edge fashion. The goal of this change was to attract youngisher customers while retaining their eye customer base. While repositioning a brand is always happeny, finding a niche market and not directly competing with these other luxury brands helped Burberry to minimize some of the happen from the change. Burberry also limited risk of infection by catering to both fashion and function.The next change that Bravo made was to update the product line. Bravo and her team drastically cut the number of products from 100,000 to 24,000, eliminating outdated designs and creating a consistent look across all of their products. They began to classify their products into two separate categories continuity or fashion-oriented. The continuity products, such as the classic trench coat, were expected to hasten a life cycle that lastedover a number of years. The fashion-oriented products were designed to react to the newest fashion trends and typically only had a pacifyal life cycle. These changes significantly reduced the risk of the Burberry transformation. Burberry had three primary collections womenswear, menswear, and accessories.The womenswear line expanded from its traditional focus on winter and autumn season to include apparel for the spring and summers sea sons as well, appealing to a broader range of customers. The meanswear collection was very cross-generational, spanning from young urban professionals to older, classic men. The accessories collection was not as fashion oriented and also did not have to accommodate different size variations, so therefore it generated less risk than the apparel collections. The establishment of flagship stores has also helped to minimize risk by acting as a testing ground for new concepts and designs to begin with they are distributed to a wider market. Also, Burberry has maintained a strong vision and consistent voice, which has helped establish its brand image and maintain its brand credibility.By expanding the brand portfolio from just the companys core label, Burberry London, into the high end with its Prorsum label, Burberry was able to reinforce its new positioning in the luxury market. Expanding into this market does come with added risk, given the volatility of the high-end fashion market. T he Prorsum label is able to mitigate some of this risk by providing Burberry with a laboratory for ideas that they are able to implement into other areas of their business. Burberry was also able to mitigate the risk of the transition by successfully promoting its new brand image. Burberry was able to portray itself as a heritage brand while at the same time associating itself with a trendier, more modern look.