Chapter 2: Strategic Planning for competitive Advantage

Burberry is a elite fashion brand for both males and females who's products showcase premium quality. great style and elegance. They sell a huge variety of accessories and clothing such as trench coats, watches, scarves, umbrellas, and more. Burberry has a product line that has great depth and that can be suitable for many reasons. Burberry received the Contemporary Design Collection of the year award which illustrates how diverse the burberry brand is. They are constantly creating more and more products to give the people what they want. Ever since the 70s burberry became a very classic, chic, and high end brand. Before these times the company was linked with football and the customers no longer wanted to be associated with them.

Burberry operates under 4 separate brands

• Burberry Brit
• Burberry Sport
• Burberry london
• Burberry prosrum

 Burberry has many competitors that include: Gucci, Giorgio Armani, polo, Prada, etc.  Burberry has positioned themselves to be the greatest in what they do.  Burberry is also creating a new customer experience by combining traditional british fashion with cutting edge technology. Many of Burberries outlet stores now have things such as Touch screens and iPod docking stations. This is a great mix for luxury shoppers today who value tradition, but at the same time appreciate modern technology and lifestyle. Burberry didn't only embrace technology in there stores they also set out to do this on the web. They created social media accounts and sites to market there products.  Burberry began streaming live 3d broadcasts of there runway shows with ran from five cities around the world. Burberry also has an app.                                    (Video on Burberry's social story)                                  


Burberry has a 30 million dollar budget for their digital strategy. This covers all 500 plus stores they have and for creating the app. They allocated 60 percent of all marketing money for digital media. This shows how much they care about the peoples needs.

Target Audience -  Burberry was originally designed for men but despite that, the company has a female dominated market. Men from ages 26 and above with a high disposable income are the people shipping here. The brand also has a childrendswear line so this appeals to parents as well who are looking to buy clothing's for there kids. Burberrys main garments such as coats and dresses that are very expensive target celebrities around the world. The brand doesn't appeal to only the high end people, they have fragrances that are priced well which target the whole world.

Pricing strategy - Burberry uses competitive pricing as there strategy. This means that they base there price off of the competitors. If they see for example Gucci priced there shoes at 400 dollars they will try and match that or even beat it by making it lower. Burberry cannot lower there products girastically because people would start thinking that maybe they have lower quality goods and ultimately stop buying from them.

  

                       Burberrys store in London                                      
                         

 

Place Distribution- Burberry currently owns 475 stores in a total of 8 countries. All of these stores are placed in the most popular cities for it to receive customers. When opening these stores in cities that are wealthy in gives them a higher chance on making a profit and they get to appeal to the right audience. If they put a burberry store in a poor country the Company would lose its value so they try to keep it in large cities. There are 11 stores in london only.




SWOT ANALYSIS- A swot analysis is a method used to write down the strengths, weaknesses, opportunity and Threats of a company

Strengths

• well established brand
• High price point causing high desirability from people
• Celeb Endorsements
• Great brand presence and advertising in all of europe
• One of the biggest fashion houses in the UK offering what they offer.

Weaknesses 

• Not acceptable to the working class who are not as wealthy as others
• Low couture presence
• Brand has to much english appeal so they can't diversify into ever day fashion.

Opportunity

• After collaborating with other brands, they are trying to make the company more affordable and fashionable without changing a lot.
• Social media is bringing a lot of attention to them.
• They could open more stores worldwide.
• can sponsor more events.
• Could cater for a wider age range.

Threats

• Threats from competitors in terms of pricing
• Customers have a higher bargaining power and low switching costs.
• Threat of still being associated with football and violence
• Small cities don't have enough stores