Blurring the lines between physical and digital

I have been off for several days now. Certainly getting sick has not helped me with my assignments or my beloved E2.0 blog. But, I am feeling better now and it is time to catch up. So, here is the first blog for Portfolio #2.

The title of this post is borrowed from Angela Ahrendts, former CEO of Burberry and now Retail Chief at Apple.

Founded in 1856, Burberry is a global luxury brand with a distinctive British identity. The company designs and sell fashion and accessories for a diversified network of retail, wholesale and licensing channels worldwide.

Angela Ahrendts in the Burberry's Social Enterprise video states: "You have to be totally connected with everyone who touches your brand." And the iconic, fashion brand embraces the Web and social media to extend the brand and engage with customers and followers in entirely new ways. I think is better to start with this brief video so you can understand which 'ways' I am talking about.

Does this make you want to do a little shopping? Because it definitely makes me, want to break my piggy bank. But most importantly, it amazes me with all the innovative ideas that came from the heads of Angela Ahrendts and Christopher Bailey, Creative Chief Officer, to bring back what was thought as an old brand, described as just "British and plaid" by Maureen Mullen, the director of research and advisory for L2, a think tank for digital innovation, which named Burberry the top-ranked brand in its Digital IQ Index for two years in a row. "That brand now, in the minds of consumers, means British, plaid - and innovation", she stated for the Burberry, entrenched in the digisphere blog post.

I created this graphic with a summary of the Burberry strategies and the value levers to which I think they apply. Let's discuss how the social technologies are applied to the McKinsey value levers from two main areas, Marketing and Sales, and Customer Service.

One of the ways Burberry uses social technologies for Marketing and Sales and Customer care is with social media. It is the most followed luxury brand on Facebook, with over 17 million fans, and the numbers keep growing for the other 'usual' social media sites. But besides them, Burberry has created profiles to attract the Chinese market with an estimated audience exceeding 11 million users, according to Luxury Society.

All these social media buzz is monitored with technology provided by its partnership with Salesforce, which in my opinion, was what started it all. We can see here the sketch drawn by salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff on how Burberry could be a social enterprise overlaying Salesforce (CRM), SAP, Twitter and Facebook. The goal was the total integration among the company, its employees, its customers, and the brand. And they are succeeding at it. 

With Burberry Bespoke, they are deriving the customer insights on new ideas for their trench coat models, and also they provide assistance to the client that requires it, either with the live chat, or one can even make an appointment in the moment to make her dream trench a reality. Art of the trench and Runway to reality are initiatives in which Burberry is building the loyalty of customers using technology to make them feel closer to the brand. With their own social-networking site, they are engaging their customers and having them constantly thinking about the brand. 

The Burberry Kisses is an application I actually used a few years ago, and I thought it was the most adorable idea. To send an email to a loved one and actually see the travel of your card with Google technology was incredible, and I remember telling everyone I knew about it. So, for some this may have no actual impact on Burberry, but I think it was a way to put their name into my mind and build a sort of 'relationship' with me as a user.

Finally, customer care is provided but all the previous strategies, but what stands the most I think is the Burberry World Live. How incredible is that Burberry truly tried to blur the lines between physical and digital and create a store designed just like their site.  

These are all ways in which Burberry has embraced the social technologies for marketing, but also to interact and connect not only with their customers but also with people like me, who wait until the day we can afford a Burberry trench coat.

Did you enjoy this story? Don't you think that Burberry is really going for the social technology here? 

PS. During my sick days I gave my blog a more sophisticated look and included my social media, feel free to follow me on Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and even LinkedIn; and don't forget to leave me some feedback.

Want to read more?

Burberry on Salesforce
How Burberry Does Digital
Burberry, the digital enterprise
Burberry: entrenched in the digisphere
How Burberry's digital strategy is boosting brand value
Burberry Struts Ahead With Tech Transformation Begun By Apple's Angela Ahrendts