In the past year, plaid-clad British fashion house Burberry has produced a collection of music and video content that’s helped solidify its quintessentially British identity while also strengthening its global reach. These efforts recently culminated in a hugely successful event this past week in Beijing — now home to its flagship store in Asia — wherein the company repped the rainy, cobbles-stoned street-chic fashion of foggy Londontown. What does it take to bring a UK fashion brand to an ever-widening, worldwide audience? We can learn a lot from this tartan purveyor.
Burberry’s video series as well as its long-running commitment to listening and responding on social properties like Facebook and Twitter are what laid the foundation for Burberry’s single biggest event ever. Burberry Acoustic, a multi-channel effort, lives on the brand’s website, Facebook Page, and YouTube channel. Featuring local British musicians amidst a variety of outdoor settings — no doubt inspiration here was drawn from Take Away Shows, Black Cab Sessions, etc — the acts are dressed to the nines in Burberry gear and shot through a faded, stylized lens, with every detail attendant to the underlining look and feel of the brand. The latest entry featured Brit-rock notables Keane performing atop the Great Wall of China in honor of Burberry’s Chinese invasion (the group also performed at the brand’s coming-out event in Beijing).
Keane – “Somewhere Only We Know” for Burberry Acoustic
Going international means also continually refocusing your brand — something Burberry did this past month with Burberry Brit. The concept all-Burberry boutique shop launched its most advanced store and purest brand experience yet in Covent Garden, London — just outside the Burb’s global London headquarters. Video walls broadcast Burberry content from the brand’s homebase in London, while wireless connections allow iPads access to the brand’s global platform and iPod docking stations let customers set the mood themselves. It’s sophisticated and timeless British style with all the new age fixins.
A modern case study in preparing for the world stage, Burberry has shared a distinctive sound, look, and feel across multiple platforms — platforms then used to promote the brand across multiple continents. Burberry, a long-running legacy brand, has successfully expressed itself to a younger generation by staying true to its image but keeping with the times, pushing a distinctly British form of luxury far and wide.
Burberry Beijing Event Highlights
Long term, big-picture efforts such as Burberry Acoustic and Burberry Beijing are proof positive that fashion brands can — and should — remain local when expanding globally. Because it’s all in the backstory, history, and origins, and leveraging these assets as distinguishing characteristics. And seeing as millennials tend to like to think of themselves as individuals, logic follows that distinctive, exclusive wares and goods (see: Gilt Groupe, Johnny Cupcakes, Threadless Select) that come with a backstory, a location, and context, prove all the more desirable. Jolly good, lads!
