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Marketing communications are the mar-keting activities associated with pro-motion. Whenever marketing promo-tion is used, it is always done for the purpose of communicating with another business or customer for a particular reason. If promotional activity fails to connect with a targeted business or consumer, effort, time and, more importantly, money will have been wasted. It is therefore important for fash-ion marketers to understand the key stag-es of effective marketing communications.A brand is a name, sign, symbol, sounds, colour or design (or combination of these) that is distinctively identifiable, that rep-resents a company or product and that has meaning to a customer. Consum-ers wear some brands as a badge in or-der to make a statement about themselves to others. (Jackson and Shaw, 2009: 326)

Burberry is a traditionally British luxury brand estab-lished in 1856. The brand has modernized and adapt-ed massively over the years to appeal and adapt to changes in its target consumer and changes in the mar-ket/industry as a whole. Initially outerwear was the prime sector of Burberrys product range, with the brands staple trench coat still hugely popular today; in fact the trench coat plays a large part in the brands USP of high quality, quintessentially British tailoring.

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urberrys target consumer was initially of an older age range, typically attracted by the tradi tional high quality reputation at-tached to the brand. Today the brands tar-get market is much wider, whilst prices are still reflective of Burberrys luxury status, the brands product range is much wider including an accessories range made up of shoes, scarves, purses and phone accesso-ries etc. to a range of fragrances and cos-metics, accompanied by Burberrys core clothing collection, with emphasis still on the trench coat; all of this combined solidifying the brands status as ‘luxury lifestyle’. “The brand has also attracted a younger audience through the launch of more contemporary sub-labels such as Burberry Brit and a digital push that has made it the most successful luxury brand on social media.” (Goldfingle, G. 2012)

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The brand recently revolutionised the shopping experience for its consum-er, “Burberry has unveiled one of the most technologically advanced stores in the UK. Burberry Regent Street in Lon-don blurs the physical and digital world to create ‘Burberry World Live’, which claims to offer customers the physical expression of the brand’s most innova-tive digital launches in recent times… The store’s features include a 22ft-high screen, 500 hidden speakers and a hy-draulic stage. It also showcases RFID microchips – radio-frequency identifica-tion – in some of its clothes. This means that when a customer wears the micro-chipped clothing, they can look into a mirror that transforms into a screen,

which shows how the garment would look on a catwalk. There will also be a digitally enabled gallery and events space. (Batten, N. 2012) This suggests that Burberry is aiming to appeal to the technology focused, which is stereotypically the younger generation. Burberry also has a strong presence on social media an increasingly strong channel of com-munication within the fashion industry today. In fact Burberry again finished the year as the most followed luxury brand on Facebook with over 17 million fans. Its Twitter following grew to nearly three million and Instagram to almost 1.4 million. (Burberryplc.com, 2014)The brand produces seasonal marketing cam-paigns promoting its traditionally British ap-peal worldwide, “We are selling Britishness around the world,” said Ahrendts (former CEO) recently. “All the music we use is British, all the models are British, the design team is 80% from British design schools like St Mar-tins.” (Wood, Z. 2014) Campaigns often featur-ing ‘the models of the moment’ including Kate Moss, Cara Delevigne, Suki Waterhouse and most recently 12 year old Romeo Beckham, who is actually the face of the brands Christ-mas campaign. Inclusion of such big names in the industry attracts a lot of media atten-tion and a social buzz surrounding the brand.

“Most successful luxury brand on social media.”

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Burberry has a diversified product offering across apparel, accessories and Beauty and by gender. For 2013/14, accessories represented 36% of retail/wholesale revenue, womens 30%, mens 23%, childrens 4% and Beauty 7%.This shows the retail/wholesale revenue by product division (Burberryplc.com, 2014)

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The word Prorsum is actually Latin for ‘forward’ suggesting this is the most fashion forward of Burberrys collections; in fact Prorsum could be seen as the baseline for all other Burberry collections. This is the couture line and therefore the most expen-sive, its pieces are more suitable for the runway rather than the street. The collections premium pricing is reflective of the finest quality fabrics and exclusive distri-bution. In terms of marketing, it is this collection that stands out in terms of large mar-keting campaigns featuring top supermodels with no expense spared; not forgetting the highly anticipated presence of Burberry Prorsum at the likes of London Fashion Week. This collection targets the upper class segment predominantly due to its pricing strategy.

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Brit is the most accessible of Burberrys collections, pricing is lower yet still reflective of the brands luxury status. Brits style is much more casual and suitable for everyday wear with wide distribution making this line popular with Burberrys younger target consumer. The marketing of Burberry Brit has a slightly more urban, youthful feel, likely to appeal to its younger target market. Previous campaigns have featured the likes of actors Jamie Campbell Bower and Douglas Booth, so not your typical supermodels but figures that may be more instantly recognisable to a wider target audi-ence rather than just the fashion focused. Burberry Brit is targeted at the younger middle class consumer based on its more accessible pricing and the essence of it product lines.

Burberry London could be seen as a bridge line between Prorsum and Brit, both pricing and quality are average in comparison to the other two collections. London is the more conservative of the collections, its pieces are clean cut and sophisticated and is likely to be worn as work/business wear. The marketing of this collection is of a much smaller scale than Prorsum, like the line itself marketing campaigns are much more minimalistic yet still evoke the premium luxury status of the brand and all of its collections. Its marketing campaigns are very much reflective of the sophisticated style of the product lines and their intended use. This collection is likely to appeal to both middle and upper class consumers.

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High fashion. Italian style. Traditional craftsmanship. Gucci em-bodies all these characteristics, producing exquisitely crafted luxury goods with a thoroughly modern sensibility. (Gucci.com, 2014) This puts Gucci in competition with Burberry whose brand depicts a similar message of tradition-ally British high fashion. Gucci also provides similar product ranges to Burberry, from wom-ens, mens and childrens wear to beauty and a range of accessories including bags, scarves, jewellery and shoes. Not forgetting the fact that Gucci has its signature GG print, a print instantly recogniz-able to the brand, similar to the Burberry check. Gucci provides multiple collections includ-ing the bamboo, soho and flora collections however these are only related to their accessories ranges. With accessories being their core collection in terms of targeting the largest consum-er segment. Gucci similar to Burberry also produces large seasonal marketing campaigns from their Gucci Cruise ads to beauty and fragrance and fall/winter, spring/summer etc. As a brand Gucci is known for ‘giv-ing back’, it is associated with the likes of chime for change, Unicef and the green carpet challenge in which Gucci introduced a new line of signature handbags; the world’s first bags certified as zero deforestation from Amazon leath-er, the Florentine House furthers its commitment towards eco-logical consciousness. This conveys Gucci’s mission to interpret the modern desire for sustainable products in a responsible way.

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As a brand Armani has multiple diffusion ranges, these stem from Giorgio Armani to Emporio Armani, Armani Colezioni, Giorgio Armani Privé, EA7 and Arma-ni Exchange. Not only this but the brand also acquires its own hotels, restaurants, florists and chocolatiers as well as beauty and home décor ranges. This shows that Armani takes the idea of being a luxury lifestyle brand to the extreme as they cover almost every aspect of consumer lifestyle.Giorgio Armani is the flagship label of the company and the base for its other collec-tions, thus reflective of Burberrys Pror-sum; whilst Emporio Armani is most sim-ilar to Burberry London and Armani Jeans similar to Burberry Brit. This shows direct competition in terms of pricing and prod-uct range between the two luxury brands.In terms of marketing the definition be-tween the marketing strategies of each diffusion range at Armani is fairly mini-mal, it seems to be a case of allowing the styling to convey the desired message. Marketing campaigns are very high fash-ion, editorial, and depict a minimalist feel.Armani is another luxury brand with high-ly anticipated Fashion Week Shows, with Giorgio Armani himself unofficially named the headmaster of Milan Fashion week.

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BURBERRY 1856

rue premium sports wear is something not widely viable today, this creates the oppor-tunity to diffuse both fashion and sport to create a high quality diffusion range that takes Burberry back to its roots. The brand was founded in 1856 (the origin of the name of this diffusion range) and at this time outerwear was the prime sec-tor of Burberrys product range. Thomas

Its product range will be made up of products specific to both skiing and horse riding, these both stereotyp-ically hobbies for the middle to upper class c o n s u m e r ; the key target customer for Burberry as a luxury brand. The diffusion range provides Burberry with opportunities in terms of both market and product development in the sense that this range is likely to appeal a large segment of the brands current target market with-out detract-ing custom from the likes of Prorsum, London and Brit as the products have completely dif-ferent purposes; whilst Burberry 1856 is also likely to appeal to a new target mar-ket of the active, health focused individuals.Much of the product range will take influ-ence from Burberrys core products in terms of style and fit to ensure the USP of high quality, quintessentially British tailoring is pursued, whilst adapting these designs so that they are fit for purpose. Products will

Burberry provided outerwear for those par-taking in the likes of Antarctic expeditions in which clothing and tents were supplied by the brand, to traditional ski suits, clothing for aviation voyages as well as the uniforms for the British women’s Olympic team in 1964. Burberry 1856 will provide its consumer with sportswear depicting the brands core USP of high quality, quintessentially British tailoring.

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vary from outerwear, to general clothing, footwear and accessories specific to both

sports; with monogrammed pieces available in order to fur-ther the brands USP. This range will put Burberry in a new com-petitive position with both Arm-ani and Gucci providing sports related diffusion brands. (Arm-ani with EA7 and Gucci with its own equestrian range) there is also the likes of Hermes and Bogner providing competition in this sector. Burberry however has the competitive advantage in the sense that this is where the brand originated implying this ought to be what the brand should be able to do best.

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n traditional Burberry fashion the brand will initially release a press re-lease featured on the brands website burberryplc.com, in order to inform and educate the media about Burber-rys new diffusion range Burberry 1856. This will provide a brief background to the range and discuss the exciting events to come regarding the official launch. This will create an initial buzz and get the media talking about Burberry 1856.

I Burberry 1856 will initially be released in the flagship Regent Street store which will host a launch event, with attendees including celebrities already linked to the brand includ-ing models such as Kate Moss, Cara Delevigne etc. as well as well-known professionals as-sociated with the equestrian and skiing worlds in order to depict the idea that Burberry 1856 products are of top quality in terms of both fashion and function. An area of the flagship store will be allocated specifically for 1856

products and the 22ft-high screen will be used to showcase behind the scenes footage of the shooting of the advertising campaigns, with the highlight of the night being the premier showing of a pre-record-ed fashion show. This footage will then go on to be premiered world-wide via the Burberry website, promoted by Burberrys massively successful social media outlets.s

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1856 products will be exclusive to the Regent Street store for the first week of trad-ing, after this products will then be available to purchase world-wide via burberry.com; this cre-ates a sense of anticipation for the consumers to which Regent Street is not viable. Burberry re-cently launched personally mono-grammed products to their current ranges from scarves and ponchos to perfume bottles; this design aspect fits particularly well with skiing and equestrian clothing and will be available for free on orders within the first week of on-line trading as a promotional offer. This not only promoting the dif-fusion range but its USP of quintessentially British tailoring, as the tailor made aspect is highlighted.

The regent street store event will be covered by magazines such as Vogue and Elle resulting in coverage of the range in the form of articles regarding the event and the inclusion of images from the advertising campaign, thus broadening the reach of the brand further to the consumer who is not so technology focused.

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text References1. Batten, N. (2012) Marketing Magazine ‘Burberry Regent Street pilots interactive technology’ http://www.marketingmagazine.co.uk/article/1149851/burberry-regent-street-pilots-interactive-technology accessed (21/10/14)2. Burberryplc.com, (2014). Group Overview. [online] Available at: http://www.burberryplc.com/about_burb-erry/group-overview [Accessed 5 Nov. 2014].3. Burberryplc.com, (2014). Leverage the Franchise. [online] Available at: http://www.burberryplc.com/about_burberry/our_strategy/leverage-the-franchise?WT.ac=Our+Strategy [Accessed 5 Nov. 2014].4. Goldfingle, G. (2012) Retail Week ‘Analysis: Burberry’s brand revitalisation continues in bid to attract new customers’ http://www.retail-week.com/analysis-burberrys-brand-revitalisation-continues-in-bid-to-attract-new-customers/5040531.article accessed (21/10/14)5. Gucci.com, (2014). Gucci - about gucci. [online] Available at: http://www.gucci.com/uk/about/show [Ac-cessed 4 Nov. 2014].6. Jackson, T. and Shaw, D. (2009). Mastering fashion marketing. Basingstoke [England]: Palgrave Macmillan.7. Wood, Z. (2011). Burberry hopes Brit brand can win over shoppers worldwide. [online] the Guardian. Available at: http://www.theguardian.com/business/2011/may/13/burberry-bribrand-launch [Accessed 22

Oct. 2014].

Image references1. 10 Magazine, (2013). HERMÈS SKI COLLECTION AUTUMN WINTER 2013 - 10 Magazine. [online] Available at: http://www.10magazine.com.au/women/hermes-ski-collection-autumn-winter-2013/ [Accessed 26 Nov. 2014].2. Alpinestyle56.com, (2014). Fashion | AlpineStyle56 | Page 2. [online] Available at: http://www.alpinestyle56.com/category/fashion/page/2/ [Accessed 14 Nov. 2014].3. Armani.com-Online Store, (2014). Brand - Armani.com Online Store. [online] Available at: http://www.armani.com/gb/brandpage_section [Accessed 12 Nov. 2014].4. Burberryplc.com, (2014). About Burberry. [online] Available at: http://www.burberryplc.com/about_burb-erry [Accessed 28 Oct. 2014].5. Burberryplc.com, (2014). Group Overview. [online] Available at: http://www.burberryplc.com/about_burb-erry/group-overview?WT.ac=Group+Overview [Accessed 28 Oct. 2014].6. Fashion, B. (2014). Heritage | Burberry. [online] Uk.burberry.com. Available at: http://uk.burberry.com/heritage/#/heritage/heritage-1800-1 [Accessed 28 Oct. 2014].7. Fashion, B. (2014). Women’s Clothing | Burberry. [online] Uk.burberry.com. Available at: http://uk.burber-ry.com/womens-clothing/ [Accessed 28 Oct. 2014].8. Globalfashionreport.com, (2014). Miranda Kerr Covers Harper’s Bazaar August ‘12. [online] Available at: http://www.globalfashionreport.com/a383484-miranda-kerr-covers-harper-s-bazaar-august-12 [Accessed 10 Nov. 2014].9. Gucci.com, (2014). Gucci - world of gucci. [online] Available at: http://www.gucci.com/us/worldofgucci/mosaic/this_season/ad_campaigns [Accessed 12 Nov. 2014].10. Men Style Fashion, (2013). Equestrian Fashion - David Gandy for Massimo Dutti - Men Style Fashion. [online] Available at: http://www.menstylefashion.com/equestrian-fashion-david-gandy-massimo-dutti/ [Accessed 10 Nov. 2014].11. Shop-us.bogner.com, (2014). Woman Luxury Wear | Women’s Outerwear, Sportswear for Women | Bogn-er Woman. [online] Available at: http://shop-us.bogner.com/women/specials/woman-luxury-wear.html [Ac-cessed 23 Nov. 2014]. 11.