Burberry: Technology To Brighten Fashion

Hundreds of models greeted the audience around the scene, while the relative models turned into numerous snowflakes at the moment of intersection. The "broken" model made the audience scream, while the "Somewhere Only We Know" opened in China's famous Keane band.

This is not a large-scale concert, but a 3D hologram fashion show held by Burberry in Beijing in April 13th.

In fact, only 20 million models of the fashion festival, which cost about $20 million, are full of the audience. The audience sees that more models are actually holographic images.

This is just the ultimate embodiment of Burberry's efforts to try new technologies in the past 10 years.

Burberry officially called this fashion show "the Chinese banquet of Burberry, British style, music and technology."

Once upon a time, the image of luxury goods was molded into pure handicraft products sewn by old craftsmen and stitched in the handicraft workshop, and each product was distributed with noble mystery and incomparable uniqueness.

It is like a secret word among the elite, and it is not enough to be outsiders.

But now, you can add Burberry as a friend on the happy Internet, pay attention to micro-blog, watch the show live on the official website, share the fashion trend of the same season with the celebrities.

Some luxury brands represented by Burberry landed on the Internet, opening a peep window for the masses of consumers.

When everyone thinks that the narrow masses of luxury goods are the natural enemies of the Internet, Burberry proves that luxury goods can adapt to the Internet and live better.

The addition of technology elements also made Burberry the luxury brand that evolved first in the Internet age. This is the best reward for innovators.

Initial experience of Internet Marketing

Burberry, the British luxury brand was born in 1856 and is famous for its grid pattern and waterproof windbreaker.

Edward VII often commanded his subordinates to "bring my Burberry" (Give Me My Burberry) when preparing to go out, so Burberry became the pronoun of waterproof windbreaker and became the darling of the upper class.

But in the 90s of last century, the classics were inevitably labeled as conservative and old-fashioned.

How to attract and capture the attention of the new generation of luxury consumers, this represents the upper class, and even slightly stiffer British brand is also trying to adapt to the new era background.

The most notable change is that the average age of luxury consumers has dropped again worldwide.

According to the 2010~2011 annual report released by the World Luxury Association, 75% of Chinese luxury consumers are below 45 years old, and consumers aged 18~34 are 45%.

In Japan and the UK, consumers aged 18~34 and 37% account for 37% and 28% respectively.

Every luxury brand is thinking about how to find a language and approach to dialogue with these wealthy young consumers and avoid becoming too popular.

"We are trying to shape the brand into a classic and fashion and youth."

In 2001, Rose Marie Bravo, then CEO of Burberry group, set the tone for the brand in the first 10 years of the new century.

From the signing of the famous British model Kate Moss at the time, as the spokesperson, to Christopher group Bailey of Gucci group as the creative director to adjust the product line, Burberry's ambition to make cutting-edge fashion brands began to ferment slowly.

In order to achieve this brand positioning, Burberry has chosen the Internet, a more youthful and vigorous media, for brand promotion.

And warmly embraced social media, making it a channel for close dialogue with the Internet generation.

Can you imagine that Burberry, a clothing brand that is the main luxury brand, has written the first sentence in its official website, "Digital innovation is at the heart of the Burberry brand" (digital marketing innovation is the core of the brand).

When we look back at Burberry's new media exploration in the past 10 years, we found that from the official website to the second revision, from the Facebook's brand home page to the official account on Twitter to the official video released on Youtube, Burberry has taken the lead in the social media area.

As a reward for dares to taste, Burberry has accumulated nearly 7 million of global fans in Facebook.

Last year, Joanna Shields, vice president of Facebook Europe, said, "Burberry is no longer a simple clothing design company. It's valuable that it knows how to stimulate community relations and use it to capture consumers' hearts."

Of course, Facebook is one of the biggest brands on its platform.

But there are too many brands that restrict social media to shallow brand marketing tools, and regularly update content regularly every day, but they do not spend much time digging into social media to interact with and support the core business of the company.

Burberry's attack on social media is only the first step to embrace new technology. Even you will see that Burberry has been settled in Youku and bean paste.

But as you and I both know, these "red flag" official accounts belong only to brand entry-level social media marketing.

Technology is deepening its pformation to the deeper level of luxury brands, and Burberry and other brands exploring the Internet are undergoing a new round of technological evolution.

Offline and online luxury experience

Whether it is the marketing means of variety, or the coverage of more and more physical stores, it is to promote product sales, and e-commerce has become more direct.

Many luxury official websites have added online shopping, but the luxury brand's initial conflict with the Internet is that it has lost much of its products from the offline to online migration.

If a customer wants to spend 1000 dollars on a pair of shoes, he may expect a salesperson to serve a glass of red wine and have enough attention to their needs. This process is not just shopping but a comprehensive experience.

Luxury companies also spend a lot of money on staff training and store design, in order to turn shops into places where brands are more intimate with customers.

But all of these have been lost in the migration from offline to online.

With a few mouse clicks, you can place the order, the value-added service is useless, the store scene can not be moved to the Internet, and luxury goods that have always been proud of service and brand culture are frightened by the virtual world after leaving the store.

How can technology compensate for the lack of these experiences?

How to highlight the soft power of luxury brands on the Internet?

Burberry uses more details to prove its attention to user needs.

In the display information of ready to wear goods, there are dynamic diagrams showing the partial static map of the products and the demonstration of the upper body effect by the real models.

This is not a technical problem that is hard to achieve, but whether the brand wants to meet the needs of users in the Internet world.

The famous wedding dress brand Oscar de la Renta chief executive Alex Bolen said in an interview, "we never thought that the evening dress with a price tag of $4000 would be successfully sold on our website. Although users usually buy two products of the same number at the same time, they will return one piece after trying out, but this is a great encouragement for luxury brands.

I believe that one day, the Internet will become the first big entrance to buy famous brand goods.

In the 2010 London Fashion Week, Burberry once again pushed the combination of Internet technology and luxury goods to the limit of imagination.

At that time, Burberry released a iPad application called "Retail Theater".

Through this application, users can watch live show of the show on line, and at the first time, they are scheduled to purchase the new products just appeared on the T platform.

This is no longer a simple new media marketing, but a new experience incorporating many functions such as marketing and retailing.

Online, 25 flagship stores also broadcast the show live in the store and accepted the reservation.

With technology, Burberry has found the unique experience of luxury goods online for its core consumers.

In 2010, Burberry's global image spokesperson was replaced by Harry Porter Watson, the actor in the movie "Emma".

Burberry uses this more youthful face and more convenient technology to sweep away the traditional brand image and become an icon of "fashion" and "cool" in the minds of young consumers.

At the same time, in the process of continuous technological evolution, the genes of luxury brands have changed.

The Internet world leads luxury companies to use social media for marketing, using technology to support sales, and ultimately to turn them into content makers.

The most proud brand culture of luxury goods companies will have more opportunities in the virtual world.

Next stop, content creator.

The Internet provides a new platform for the luxury brand, but it also raises new challenges.

With the increasing use of social media, when Burberry finds that it has become a self media with a large audience, it has become a pressing matter of the moment to prepare enough content for the audience.

Among the luxury goods that currently open accounts in Facebook, Burberry is ahead of Gucci and Chanel ranked two or three in terms of nearly 7 million fans.

Christopher Bailey, the chief creative director who knows exactly what this number means, issued a sigh on Twitter last year. "Now, we are a design company and a media content company, because these add up is the overall test of users," Burberry said.

So, on the Burberry page of Facebook, in addition to pushing photos of activities and releasing new product information, there are many Burberry sponsored music MV, and Keane, which is singing in Beijing, is also among them.

This is the "Burberry Acoustics" project jointly conducted by Burberry and many British musicians. Its location is mostly selected in London, in order to embody the perfect combination of the British style and the music of the brand.

At the same time, these music MV contributed 23% fans participation to Burberry.

The emergence of an elite image is the choice of many luxury brands to enrich their own content and enhance their brand image.

At the beginning of this year, Johnnie Walker asked director Jia Zhangke to take a series of "Lu Lu" series with 6 young directors to capture the 12 inner feelings of pioneers.

But whether by elite or using cool technology as the leading role, luxury brands are already on the way from simply producing products to producing content.

And how to find a sustainable way of content production is a bit clumsy with huge investment. Sometimes it can lead to unexpected results by guiding users to create content.

BMW group's content operation on Facebook seems to be more than 42.

Many brands have a headache even though they have made exquisite content, the activity and participation of fans are still low on social networks, because in addition to praise and appreciation, individual users can not participate in it.

But BMW launched the "One Origin, Two Originals" activities, so that every fan has the opportunity to participate.

The aim is to find twins with similar appearance but different personalities as the protagonist of the new BMW advertisement.

BMW provides users with the tools to quickly upload photos to Facebook and make short films to other friends.

In the 5 weeks since the launch, twins from more than 80 countries have submitted 26 thousand photos and 400 short films to become BMW's new season advertising hero.

And this kind of high participation is what every brand wants.

In the process of continuous technology, luxury companies are facing not only the constant challenge of product design, but also the dilution and luxury of luxury goods brought by the Internet.

In the Internet world, it is the threshold for every luxury company to build its own brand and reputation.

Any fear or escape can only accelerate the arrival of misfortune, and wisely is to boldly throw into the arms of the Internet and boldly experiment.

As the former CEO Bravo, who led the Burberrry digital marketing pformation in the 90s of last century, said: "between commerce and artistry, there is always a thin line between the masses and the minority, and we have been walking along the same line as a cable."