# data[].attributes.body
http://linkhumans.com/case-study/burberryhttp://linkhumans.com/case-study/burberry

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
FOR Britons wondering how their country will earn its keep in a world that is tilting eastward, some sectors offer cause for optimism. Newly prosperous foreigners will probably want at least a few things that Britain supplies better than most: higher education, financial services, popular culture. Another, sometimes underestimated strength is fashion: the country boasts influential street stylists and vibrant chain-stores (such as Top Shop), plus some coveted luxury brands, such as Burberry.

On January 18th the 155-year-old label announced a 27% jump in revenue to £480m ($770m) for the last quarter of 2010. Burgeoning sales in Asia (amounting to £150m, up 68% on the same quarter a year earlier) accounted for much of this. Burberry recently bought 50 shops in China that had previously been run by its franchise partners, and would like to open more there. Latin America is another important growth area; new outlets have recently been opened in Brazil and Mexico. Even in Britain, where there are just a handful of stand-alone Burberry shops, the company's best customers are foreign tourists.

On the face of it, none of this is surprising. Many luxury-goods manufacturers are profiting from the rise of the Asian rich. But Burberry's story is more interesting than that of many posh brands. For in its own backyard, the firm has had to fight to preserve its reputation for exclusivity.

The problem dates back to the 1980s, when football fans travelling to European cities for matches took a liking to the snazzy clothes sported by the locals. By hook or by crook, they returned home with these garments: Lacoste polo shirts, Sergio Tacchini sweaters, Fila shoes and so on. Thus the "casual" movement was born: a culture of sartorial one-upmanship on football terraces, in a country where working-class men obsessed over clothes long before the rise of the metrosexual. The more patriotic of these casuals began to adopt home-grown brands, and Burberry, previously the preserve of greying executives on golfing holidays, became a favourite.

By the early 2000s the company's distinctive camel-coloured check had become the uniform of the "chav", the stereotypical white working-class delinquent looking for trouble. Bouncers and taxi drivers learned to turn away young men sporting Burberry baseball caps and jackets. When Daniella Westbrook, a soap actress, was photographed with the Burberry check adorning herself, her daughter and her pushchair, the brand's elite reputation seemed to be lost.

Painstakingly, and without much outward snootiness about its new and unexpected clientele, Burberry fought back. The check pattern began to appear less and less on its garments. The company cracked down on vendors selling counterfeit versions of Burberry clothes at discount rates. More daring designs were adopted to court opinion-formers in the fashion world (Burberry had traditionally specialised in trench coats and other well-made basics). Two American women are credited with bringing about many of these changes: Angela Ahrendts, the company's current CEO, and her predecessor, Rose Marie Bravo.

In Britain the brand has been largely mended. Abroad it was hardly tainted in the first place. Foreigners continued to see Burberry as the august outfit that clothed Ernest Shackleton for his Antarctic expedition nearly a century ago, not the favoured label of a subculture they could barely comprehend. Modern economics and technology allows Chinese, Brazilian and American consumers to buy the wares of a London firm. But it has not made it that much easier to grasp the cultural nuances of another country. Had Burberry's chav association been known abroad, the damage would have been greater, and the brand might have been harder to turn around. Burberry has benefited from globalisation, and from its limitations too.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
FOR Britons wondering how their country will earn its keep in a world that is tilting eastward, some sectors offer cause for optimism. Newly prosperous foreigners will probably want at least a few things that Britain supplies better than most: higher education, financial services, popular culture.

# data[].attributes.body
http://digiday.com/brands/burberry-became-top-digital-luxury-brand/http://digiday.com/brands/burberry-became-top-digital-luxury-brand/

# data[].attributes.body
http://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/why-burberrys-new-boss-shouldnt-chase-short-term-growth/1402184#

# data[].attributes.body
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/retailandconsumer/8687365/Class-divide-is-back-in-fashion.html

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
So is it simply a case that shops serving the middle classes are those that have been hit?

No. That's not only too simplistic but the middle classes, never a homogenous group, have become ever more fractured during the recession.

"I am always hearing about the middle classes," Harold Macmillan once famously told one of his advisers. "What is it they really want? Can you put it down on a sheet of notepaper, and I will see whether we can give it
to them?"

He was speaking in the 1950s, a few years before even the basic A,B,C,D,E socio-economic classification came about in an attempt to help newspapers define their readership. A to C1 ran from upper middle class professionals to lower middle class administrative workers, while C2 to E covered skilled manual workers to those who rely on benefits.

In recent years, however, this attempt to group people and define their social status has become far more sophisticated and it is retailers who are at the forefront of using the demographic tools in a bid to predict who will survive on the high street and who will go the way of Woolworths, Focus and Habitat.

CACI, a market research firm, runs a database called Acorn, used by John Lewis and many other leading retailers. It splits the population not into 56 separate classifications. From "wealthy mature professionals, large houses" and "villages with wealthy commuters" to "multi-ethnic crowded flats" and "old people, many high-rise flats", categories are based on postcodes.

The company estimates it has almost every person in the country on its database, a boast that can be shared by many other data companies notably its main rival Experian, which has a similar database called Mosaic. And the postcode - when tallied with other key documents such as the census, insurance documents and consumer surveys - can tell you an astonishing amount from whether you have pet insurance, the size of your monthly mortgage payments to how much wine you buy over the internet and whether you prefer Aldi or Asda.

Paul Langston, managing partner at CACI, said: "It's not just about income and spend, it's also about what brands people prefer, what they don't prefer, what magazine they will read."

Retailers, for a fee, can access these databases and use them to tailor their marketing, decide where to start a new store and also, increasingly, decide what products they should stock.

Dixons Retail, buffeted by the dire state of the consumer electronics industry, has arguably fared far better than most of its rivals. One of its key successes over the last year has been a definite shift upmarket, after it analysed its shopping data. It realised it was "fighting for the middle market" in an attempt to persuade hard-pressed shoppers to part with their cash, selling too many Amstrad products and £300 laptops and missing out on the "design driven" customers, many of whom had kept their jobs and were on tracker-rate mortgages so had benefited from the financial crisis.

Niall O'Keefe, UK marketing director at Dixons Retail, said: "We used it to build our ranges. If you don't analyse your customer base you end up filling your store with your best guess at what customers want."

Hence, it now sells more upmarket brands such as Bose, Miele, Panasonic and Sennheiser, all of which have fared surprisingly well in recent months.

CACI has in fact worked out which retailers are most likely to struggle and which ones are most likely to thrive, based on the social class of their customers.

Suits You, Argos, Dreams, Bhs, Matalan, ScS and Bonmarche are all looking in poor shape, according to the Acorn analysis. "These are the brands whose customers are being squeezed the most," said Mr Langston. They have a disproportionate number of customers from the "secure families", "settled suburbia" and "post industrial families" categories - essentially the "squeezed middle".

Monsoon, Marks & Spencer, John Lewis, Karen Millen, House of Fraser and Jigsaw, the former employer of the Duchess of Cambridge, Kate Middleton, may sound like quintessentially middle class brands, but they, in fact, have a greater proportion of customers from the "worried wealthy", "affluent greys" and "flourishing families" and are likely to emerge from the high street slowdown in good shape.

Of course, this analysis of Britain on an almost house-by-house basis can go too far. As Lord Wolfson, the chief executive of Next, who posted pretty decent sales figures last week, said: "The truth is, you can spend an awful lot of time looking at these things, when the reality is when it comes to people buying something, 'do I like this dress' is far more important."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
So is it simply a case that shops serving the middle classes are those that have been hit? No. That's not only too simplistic but the middle classes, never a homogenous group, have become ever more fractured during the recession. "I am always hearing about the middle classes," Harold Macmillan once famously told one of his advisers.

# data[].attributes.body
http://www.economist.com/node/17963363

# data[].attributes.headline
Burberry faced the branding issue when their brands iconic print habited a bad reputation after being associated with counterfeit garments popular to lower class citizens.

# data[].attributes.subject
Burberry faced the branding issue when their brands iconic print habited a bad reputation after being associated with counterfeit garments popular to lower class citizens.

# data[].attributes.body
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4381140.stm

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2004/apr/15/fashion.shopping

# data[].attributes.body
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4381140.stm

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
FOR Britons wondering how their country will earn its keep in a world that is tilting eastward, some sectors offer cause for optimism. Newly prosperous foreigners will probably want at least a few things that Britain supplies better than most: higher education, financial services, popular culture. Another, sometimes underestimated strength is fashion: the country boasts influential street stylists and vibrant chain-stores (such as Top Shop), plus some coveted luxury brands, such as Burberry.

On January 18th the 155-year-old label announced a 27% jump in revenue to £480m ($770m) for the last quarter of 2010. Burgeoning sales in Asia (amounting to £150m, up 68% on the same quarter a year earlier) accounted for much of this. Burberry recently bought 50 shops in China that had previously been run by its franchise partners, and would like to open more there. Latin America is another important growth area; new outlets have recently been opened in Brazil and Mexico. Even in Britain, where there are just a handful of stand-alone Burberry shops, the company's best customers are foreign tourists.

On the face of it, none of this is surprising. Many luxury-goods manufacturers are profiting from the rise of the Asian rich. But Burberry's story is more interesting than that of many posh brands. For in its own backyard, the firm has had to fight to preserve its reputation for exclusivity.

The problem dates back to the 1980s, when football fans travelling to European cities for matches took a liking to the snazzy clothes sported by the locals. By hook or by crook, they returned home with these garments: Lacoste polo shirts, Sergio Tacchini sweaters, Fila shoes and so on. Thus the "casual" movement was born: a culture of sartorial one-upmanship on football terraces, in a country where working-class men obsessed over clothes long before the rise of the metrosexual. The more patriotic of these casuals began to adopt home-grown brands, and Burberry, previously the preserve of greying executives on golfing holidays, became a favourite.

By the early 2000s the company's distinctive camel-coloured check had become the uniform of the "chav", the stereotypical white working-class delinquent looking for trouble. Bouncers and taxi drivers learned to turn away young men sporting Burberry baseball caps and jackets. When Daniella Westbrook, a soap actress, was photographed with the Burberry check adorning herself, her daughter and her pushchair, the brand's elite reputation seemed to be lost.

Painstakingly, and without much outward snootiness about its new and unexpected clientele, Burberry fought back. The check pattern began to appear less and less on its garments. The company cracked down on vendors selling counterfeit versions of Burberry clothes at discount rates. More daring designs were adopted to court opinion-formers in the fashion world (Burberry had traditionally specialised in trench coats and other well-made basics). Two American women are credited with bringing about many of these changes: Angela Ahrendts, the company's current CEO, and her predecessor, Rose Marie Bravo.

In Britain the brand has been largely mended. Abroad it was hardly tainted in the first place. Foreigners continued to see Burberry as the august outfit that clothed Ernest Shackleton for his Antarctic expedition nearly a century ago, not the favoured label of a subculture they could barely comprehend. Modern economics and technology allows Chinese, Brazilian and American consumers to buy the wares of a London firm. But it has not made it that much easier to grasp the cultural nuances of another country. Had Burberry's chav association been known abroad, the damage would have been greater, and the brand might have been harder to turn around. Burberry has benefited from globalisation, and from its limitations too.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
FOR Britons wondering how their country will earn its keep in a world that is tilting eastward, some sectors offer cause for optimism. Newly prosperous foreigners will probably want at least a few things that Britain supplies better than most: higher education, financial services, popular culture.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
By Claire Bothwell
BBC Money Programme

The former face of Burberry faces tabloid allegations of drug-taking

For a top luxury fashion company like Burberry it is the ultimate nightmare.
Their distinctive beige check, once associated with A-listers, has now become the uniform of a rather different social group: the so-called Chav.

With UK sales falling, Burberry cannot afford to become a laughing stock in their own backyard.

But just how does a top designer label shrug off a damaged image?

Only five years ago, Burberry was the darling of the fashion world after undergoing one of the most envied brand reinventions of recent years.

"It really tapped into a sense of the early years of the millennia," says Andrea Cockram of Verdict Research.

But all too quickly, the brand became a victim of its own success.

Label-conscious football hooligans started to adopt the distinctive check.

"It was associated with people who did bad stuff, who went wild on the terraces," says Peter York.

"Quite a lot of people thought that Burberry would be worn by the person who mugged them."

Tabloid jokes

Burberry might have been appalled, but worse was to come.

The brand became something of a national joke when photos of former soap star Danniella Westbrook and her baby were splashed all over the papers.

Both were dressed from head to toe in Burberry check.

The issue refused to die down.

The Essex girl look was adopted all over the country, fed by a flood of counterfeit Burberry check at market stalls across Britain.

Britain discovered Chavs, and the association of Chavs with Burberry spawned a thousand tabloid jokes.

Chavalier for sale

Last summer there was more bad news for Burberry, when pubs and clubs across the country began to ban customers who dressed in the label.

Burberry started to fight back.

I cried when they said you've got to destroy the car. What's next? Taking Rupert the Bear to court for having trousers that looked like Burberrys?

Goldie Lookin' Chain band member Eggsy.

They removed the checked baseball caps from sale and reduced the visibility of their distinctive pattern.

Three years ago it was on a fifth of all products. By 2004 it was on less that 5%.

Burberry is now cracking down on the fake goods that allow what they might consider to be the wrong sort of people to look like they are wearing the brand.

But even this has had unexpected consequences.

Welsh rap band, Goldie Lookin' Chain were given a Vauxhall Cavalier with a distinctive Burberry check paint job.

Nicknamed the "Chavalier", the car was being auctioned off on EBay until Burberry's lawyers got in touch demanding that the car be destroyed for infringing their copyright.

Burberry is moving away from its traditional check

It was not only the car that was crushed, says band member Eggsy.

"I cried when they said you've got to destroy the car. What's next? Taking Rupert the Bear to court for having trousers that looked like Burberrys?"

There was more bad news earlier this year. Kate Moss, whose recent high-profile campaigns to promote the brand made her into the face of Burberry, is now facing tabloid allegations of drug-taking.

UK phenomenon

Burberry's Chief Executive Rose Marie Bravo is stepping down next year in favour of fellow American Angela Ahrendts, and the Chavs issue is likely to be near the top of her in-tray.

But there is reason for hope.

Most of Burberry's sales are overseas, so although sales in the UK have been sliding, international profits for last year reached over £160m.

Ms Ahrendts must be hoping that Chavs don't become a global phenomenon.

The Money Programme - Burberry versus The Chavs: broadcast on BBC TWO at 7pm on Friday 28 October.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
BBC NEWS | Business | Burberry versus The Chavs

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
How Burberry is trying to move away from an image of being the Chav's uniform.

# data[].attributes.body
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4381140.stm