Burberry Integration Into A Single Main Brand Is The Main Reason For The Downturn In The Luxury Sector.

Faced with the global slowdown in the luxury goods market, luxury consumption and the Asian market downturn, the major luxury groups have been restructuring, hoping to boost the market. A few days ago, Burberry announced that it will carry out a new round of product strategy changes, including cutting off three major sub cards and integrating all product categories into the "Burberry" main brand.

Not only is Burberry, but in fact, many luxury brands have made similar product strategy adjustments in recent years. Industry experts believe that too complex brand lines lead consumers to have a cognitive obstacle to product line positioning. If mismanagement occurs, they will face the risk of dilution of the entire brand value. Only by consolidating the main line of image can the situation be reversed.

Not only is Burberry, but in fact, many luxury brands have made similar product strategy adjustments in recent years. In the first half of this year, Marc by Marc Jacobs came out of the way after merging with the main line. Marc Jacobs also announced the merger of Marc by Marc Jacobs into the main line brand. Its brand CEO Sebastian Sur said that nowadays people are shopping online, and it is meaningless to distinguish products, and consumers will always be confused by different names.

The light luxury brand Kate Spade has gradually shut down its 19 sub shops, Kate Spade Saturday, and 12 shops of Menswear Jack Spade. Michael Kors, another lightweight luxury brand, has reclaimed its Kors by Michael Kors. The reason is that its existence will cause consumers to worry about the location of the main line and sub line, thereby affecting the overall image of the brand.

Christopher Bailey, CEO and creative director of Burberry company, has announced that the three major brands of Burberry Prorsum, Burberry London and Burberry Brit will gradually withdraw from the stage of history before the end of 2016, and all product categories will be integrated into a single "Burberry" main brand.

Christopher Bailey said in a public statement that the brand of the sub line was cut off to meet the needs of the market. "The establishment of the sub line was due to the dependence of Burberry on wholesale channel sales. However, considering the current situation, Burberry regards brand consistency as the top priority." He believes that this will make the brand more intuitive and easy to understand, and make the operation of the company more efficient and productive.

Reporters learned that Burberry has a series of sub cards, of which Burberry Prorsum, which was founded in 1904, is the most high-end secondary brand, with the highest price in positioning high-end fashion customers. Before and after 2009, in order to get more consumers and get rid of the influence of department stores, Burberry began to operate Burberry London, which is located in daily wear and commuter clothes, and a sub line of Burberry Brit based on weekend casual wear, and opened an independent store for Burberry. Among them, Burberry London is only distributed in the United Kingdom and some European countries, the red label and the traditional blue label Burberry London series, the red label price is slightly more expensive. As the lowest product line of three existing secondary lines, the average price of Burberry Brit is the lowest, with coat, jacket, Water cowboy, etc. Leatherwear Men's wear is basically a single product.

In fact, Burberry's sub line brands are not only that. 45 years ago, Burberry signed a licensing agreement with SANYO chamber of Commerce in Japan, limiting the launch of the young sub line marking the black/blue label in the Japanese market, promoting the popularity of Burberry in Japan. Because of the localization of designers and production, these two products are more suitable for Asian people, so they are welcomed by consumers including China. But because the design of these products is completely separated from the rest of the world, pricing is also more low-end, contrary to the luxury positioning of the brand, which was closed by the group in June this year. In addition, Burberry has also produced a series of golf ready-made products for the 18-24 year old Sport group and the product of golf age.

Burberry's adjustment to product strategy is largely due to the overall industry. Boom degree The decline and its poor performance. According to its previously announced results as of September 30th this year, the Asia Pacific region is in a poor state of operation, and sales in mainland China and Hongkong have dropped by about 20% and 5% respectively, and sales in this part of the sector have only increased by 1%. After the release of the news, Burberry shares fell 12. 5%, and the market value evaporated 700 million pounds.

There are different opinions about the integration of Burberry into a single main brand. There is a view that brand merger may be a danger signal for Burberry, because all brands in the early stage have invested a lot of money, and rich brands can create a more diverse design style and flexible price range. Zhou Ting, a luxury goods industry expert, believes that too complex brand lines make consumers have a cognitive obstacle to product line positioning. If mismanagement occurs, they will face the risk of dilution of the entire brand value. Only by consolidating the main line of image can the situation be reversed.

Christopher Bailey said that the new brand named Burberry after the reunification will focus on the British roots of the company and emphasize the design and development in London. "We believe that this will provide our customers with a more concise and intuitive image. This is not just a facade effort, it is a tremendous change. " It is reported that while cutting off the secondary line brand, Burberry also moved part of the classic windbreaker production to the mainland and invested a new manufacturing plant in Liz, England.

In September of this year, Burberry The launch of the music channel with Apple has become the first luxury brand to appear on Apple Music. Christopher Bailey said that music can attract more young people to help disseminate the core information of the brand.

Since the 1981 Giorgio Armani tried to create a sub line brand Emporio Armani, quite a number of fashion and luxury brands have launched the corresponding sub line series. Under the aura of the main brand, the secondary brand lures young consumers, but the economic capacity is not enough to afford the consumers of genuine luxury goods. On the other hand, the rapid development of fast fashion brands has made the "high cold" luxury brand extremely jealous, and has to put aside its stance.

The ability to earn money from luxury brands can not be underestimated. Italy's luxury brand Dolce&Gabbana's subsidiary line brand D&G has reached 400 million euros in 2011, or even more than Dolce&Gabbana, while the United States luxury brand Marc Jacobs set up a secondary line Marc by Marc Jacobs in 2001, which contributed more than 70% to the whole brand. However, in the book "luxury strategy", the view is: "brand extension is a good marketing strategy in the short term, but in the long run it is likely to seriously affect brand image."