This blog post will  discuss Burberry’s unique online email marketing strategy Burberry Kisses (Figure 1.) and how this indirect marketing initiative has added value to the brand, through the support of academic resources and my additional theoretical perspective on this innovative marketing strategy. Although the company uses other method of digital marketing, I will only be looking at its email marketing initiative.

Figure 1.

Source: Burberry

About the brand

A British brand founded in 1856, Burberry Group plc is a luxury clothing company that distributes cosmetics, fragrances, sunglasses, accessories and outerwear. (Burberry, 2015) Burberry has 443 stores worldwide that include 56 third party franchise stores, throughout 80 countries. (Thomson, 2012)

Burberry’s digital strategy

Burberry has recently reinvented their online digital presence in an attempt to remove the negative “chav” connotations associated with the brand (Figure 2). (Jones, 2008) The company’s strategic development now focuses on creating a digital culture that implements various social media campaigns that encourage consumers to interact and engage with the brand, through electronic customer relationship management (E-CRM) mediums that encourage consumers to share their interpretations of the brands collections, through their websites and social media platforms.(Bunz, 2009) E-CRM is a method that involves the use of digital communication technologies that are used to increase sales and encourage the use online services and could include; (Chaffey and Ellis-Chadwick, 2012)

• Customer services
• Personalised web messages
• Databases
• E-mail and social media marketing

Figure 2.

Source: Daily Mail

Burberry Kisses

Burberry’s most recent digital marketing initiative Burberry Kisses campaign falls under the e-mail and social media marketing  sub-sector of E-CRM and could be applied to a customer to customer marketing (C2C) model. C2C marketing is an extension of customer to customer interaction but with the additional focus on the creation of a service or product that has a specified promotional strategy that encourages consumers to share company content or services online from consumers who perceive a companies product value, with other consumers. (Chaffey and Ellis-Chadwick, 2012)

Burberry partnered up with Google to create the Burberry Kisses campaign, which is an interactive email experience that allows consumers to send sealed virtual kisses to loved ones, friends and even strangers. The product takes a digital print of the users lips and provides them with option pick a favourite colour from the companies Burberry Kisses lipstick collection.(Swinton, 2013) The digital strategy was created in an attempt to humanise the concept of consumption, through technology that encourages loves and  affection, allowing the brand to engage with new consumers and spread awareness.(Swinton, 2013)

The technological features of this campaign included:

• Double click rich mead display
• Google maps street view location detector
• Mobile advertisements
• Social sharing via google plus
• Web and mobile device applicable

In terms of its effectiveness the campaign was made with intent to create brand exposure and received over 253,000+ search results for “Burberry kisses” on Google, 13,000 cities used the campaign within the first 10 days and the “kisses” travelled over 109 million miles within the first week. (Burberry, 2014)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRiZMVEIhas

 

How does a strategy like this increase the companies customer value proposition?

The concept has received many critiques, with people asking how this new concept can be connected to the value chain of the brand or convert into sales. Now ex CEO Angela Ahrendts calls it “the million square foot store”, she goes on to discuss the importance of consumer interaction, implying that  every experience a customer has with the brand will determine their next, regardless of the channels that the consumer wishes to use to engage with the brand through.(Jessica Swinton, 2013) Burberry’s campaign  statement additionally when on to say “We were able to deliver a magical, creative experience at scale in a true “build once, run everywhere” fashion. By creating a personal yet shareable experience that appeals to everyone, this campaign built a connection to the Burberry brand without feeling like a traditional ad.”(Burberry, 2014)

The concept of customer value proposition was analysed through a paper entitled Identifying competitive customer value proposition in retailing, the paper provided a framework that could be used identify a consumer value proposition based on influential factors of economy, function, emotion and symbolism. (Rintamiki, 2007) Based on the perceived intention of this campaign, I felt that Burberry’s customer value proposition was influenced by emotion; this particular framework focuses on the idea that customers are motivated by the experiential aspects of  shopping from retailers that create emotional value within their consumption experience. Emotional value can be defined as the “perceived utility derived from an alternative’s capacity to arouse feelings or affective states” (Sheth et al, 1991)

My Theoretical opinion

“Brand equity could be used to define a companies potential to reach a customers value proposition. Brand equity is the commercial value, derived from consumer perception of the brand  rather than from the product or service itself (Business dictionary, 2015) combining this notion with  C2C marketing, consumers are given a connection to an established famous brand (Burberry) from a source they know and trust, that knows the brands value. A concept like this not only has the potential to increase brand value in existing consumers eyes but it also has the potential to create it to the receiving recipient”

Critical analysis: There is no defined target audience

Fundamentally, my only critique would be that the concept of Burberry Kisses was created around the companies Burberry Kisses product line (Figure 3), stating that this campaign was made “to appeal to everyone” is a broad statement that inconclusively projects the notion of a undefined target market for the brand, which could cause the brand to attract similar attention that caused them to be associated with chav culture, in the past. A blog post entitled Why Cosmetics Brands Must Embrace Age-Specific Marketing, discusses the concept of target marketing produce to age specific demographics (Emily Saka, 2012) based on its potential to craft marketing concept of direct relevance.

Figure 3

Source: Burberry

In conclusion this innovative email marketing strategy has the potential to change the way consumers view email marketing, specifically if the content is presented in a non traditional format that encourages customers to inadvertently  interact with the brand.

 

References

Burberry. (2015). BRAND BUSINESS CULTURE. Available: http://www.burberryplc.com/about_burberry/brand_business_culture. Last accessed 19/04/2015.
Rebecca Thomson. (2012). Burberry: A great British success.Available: http://www.retail-week.com/burberry-a-great-british-success/5034635.article. Last accessed 19/04/2015.

Business dictionary. (2015). brand equity. Available: http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/brand-equity.html. Last accessed 19/04/2015.

Burberry. (2014). Think Insight. Available: http://www.google.com.au/think/campaigns/burberry-kisses.html. Last accessed 19/04/2015.

Chaffey, Dave; Ellis-Chadwick, Fiona (2012). Digital marketing: strategy, implementation and practice. 5th ed. Harlow: Pearson Education. 19/04/2015.

Emily Saka. (2012). Why Cosmetics Brands Must Embrace Age-Specific Marketing. Available: http://blog.salsify.com/why-cosmetics-brands-must-embrace-age-specific-marketing. Last accessed 19/04/2015.

Jessica Swinton, (2013) How Burberry’s digital strategy is boosting brand value, The Guardian, http://www.theguardian.com/media-network/partner-zone-brand-union/burberry-digital-strategy-brand

Liz Jones. (2008). The luxury brand with a chequered past, Burberry’s shaken off its chav image to become the fashionistas’ favourite once more Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1023460/Burberrys-sha. Available: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1023460/Burberrys-shaken-chav-image-fashionistas-favourite-more.html. Last accessed 19/04/2015.

Mercedes Bunz. (2009). Burberry checks out crowdsourcing with The Art of the Trench. Available: http://www.theguardian.com/media/pda/2009/nov/09/burberry-art-of-the-trench. Last accessed 19/04/2015.

Ryan Goodrich. (2013). What is Crowdsourcing?. Available: http://www.businessnewsdaily.com/4025-what-is-crowdsourcing.html. Last accessed 19/04/2015.

Sheth, J.N., Newman, B.I. and Gross, B.L. (1991), “Why we buy what we buy: a theory of consumption values”, Journal of Business Research, Vol. 22 No. 2, pp. 159-70.

Timo Rintamäki, Hannu Kuusela, Lasse Mitronen, (2007) “Identifying competitive customer value propositions in retailing”, Managing Service Quality: An International Journal, Vol. 17 Iss: 6, pp.621 – 634