Burberry VS Chavs

Looking at Burberry, it is pretty obvious that they are doing very well in the fashion business. As the brand of the future, Burberry uses amazing technology online and in stores to communicate with their audience. But it wasn't always this way, as I found by watching a BBC documentary from 2006 entitled Burberry vs Chavs.

Burberry, a traditional British heritage brand became a household name when they became the first brand to design the trench coat. As this iconic clothing item became more and more popular, so did the brand. However, during the 1980's, Burberry went downhill as it lent its name to products such as whiskey, becoming disassociated with its British heritage. In an attempt to boost sales, a new chief executive was appointed, Rose Bravo, who made the brand more appealing by hiring Kate Moss the new cover girl for Burberry, the hottest supermodel of the time! Rose Bravo also added accessories and premium brand labels to the company whilst employing Gucci's designer, Christopher Bale, to add a new fashion edge to the products. All of this work combined caused an uplift in the brand, where the classic Burberry check became an iconic fashion figure with all the top a-listers wearing it.

 

 But as a fashion brand which aimed to be both aspirational and affordable as a cross-generation label, with a price ranging from £15 to a checked bandanna, to £2000 for a premium shirt, issues began to arise. Football hooligans began to wear this respected check symbol as a way to out dress their opposing teams, and at the 2000 euros, the famous check was splashed all over the front papers by these troublemakers, giving the Burberry check it's first bad press. By 2001, there were fake items all over British markets. 

From then onwards, things only got worse! Michael Carrol, so-called king of the chavs, became famous after winning nearly 10 million pound on the lottery at 19. He was rough and tough, but found an immediate love for Burberry. In 2006, he estimates that he spent over £3000 on the brand, and this chav character was not the ambassador the brand wanted. Daniella Westbrook, former Eastenders soap star and cocaine addict (who lost half her nose), was also captured wearing head to toe of the checked brand, which immediately caused Burberry to instantly be associated with thugs, chavs and tack. Burberry knew that something had to be done, especially when the recently a-list brand was becoming banned from pubs and clubs around the country. But there was still hope. Sales were only falling in the UK, with a global profit of £150 million, as it was only in Britain where this association was becoming a huge deal.

In order to try to save the brand, Burberry stopped selling their cheaper option, the checked hat, and adopted a less is more approach, having only 5% of the checked symbol on the catwalks, as appose to 20% the year before. The company also began to employ people to detect fake products sold online, however this did not stop markets from flogging fake goods, even the discontinued hat remained a top seller!

Burberry continued to fight the issue, and today have pushed most negative stereotypes to the side, using a much more minimalistic styling in order to disassociated itself with these chav representatives. In my opinion, Burberry has changed its whole approach, now targeting a much younger target audience, becoming much more upmarket by using technology and digital media in order to create a wow-factor. Burberry began to use digital language to communicate with its younger target audience, in order to add personality, be more visual and create energy surrounding the brand. Using music, an aspect which is very important to this particular type of customer, Burberry created a section on their website called Burberry Acoustic, which showcased new British talent and streamed this live to their virtual stores across the UK. This created a sense of quirkiness and uniqueness to the brand, giving it a whole new identity, which is now much more respected that the old, tacky one. 

 I think that this whole re-branding and a new fresh faced model, Cara Delevingne, allowed Burberry to start fresh, and has really turned them from a zero brand to a hero brand. They are now one of the top designers at fashion weeks across the globes, and are back to being aspirational, exactly where they have wanted to be since their disasters began in the early 2000's.

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