Customer Obsessed

11Digital MarketingStanding Out in the Sea of Sameness

Imagine being a fashion company in the late '80s/early '90s. Global styles and brands are more accessible to the middle class than ever before; your traditional marketing mailers, magazine spreads, and television segments are touching tens of thousands of potential buyers; and your brand is well recognized and trusted as a quality clothing provider.

Now flash forward to today. People can shop the latest trends via their smartphones and compare prices across multiple brands so they can find the best deal. Your brand, established decades ago, has undergone a cultural shift that is depressing sales. This was the exact situation Burberry experienced just a few years ago.

Burberry needed to reinvigorate its brand while improving the connection between the company and its customers. They used targeted social media and digital ad campaigns to transform from an aging icon into a global luxury brand. Their most successful viral marketing campaign was (and is) the “Art of the Trench,” a social campaign where customers can share photos of themselves wearing Burberry coats, highlighting their individual styles. This served a dual purpose: brand awareness and peer-to-peer validation and evangelism. Burberry had built a highly regarded and respected brand over generations. It was determined not to let this value evaporate and took advantage of the latest digital marketing technology to reinvent itself.

Business has truly become a digital ...