博柏利变身高科技时尚偶像

    2006年，艾伦茨刚从美国服装品牌丽资克莱本（Liz Claiborne）跳槽至博柏利。当时，博柏利在全球各地都授权了经销店，但作为一个全球性品牌却缺乏一个具有凝聚力的形象，而且业绩也比不上奢侈品市场的平均水平。（2006年，博柏利的批发和零售销量只上涨了2.2%，而当年奢侈品市场总体销量上涨了13%。）艾伦茨到任后购回了授权许可证，然后开始为品牌寻找正确的定位。

    艾伦茨和贝利认为，在博柏利的前途问题上，公司的“英伦风”遗产和标志性的外套必须扮演一个关键的角色（艾伦茨常说博柏利是从一件外套起家的）。不过同时他们决定把目标瞄准“八零后”，这个群体往往被其他奢侈品公司忽略，但它的确是一个新兴的市场。博柏利公司的市场调查显示，发展中国家的高净值客户的平均年龄要比美国和英国等国年轻整整15岁。

    但是到底应该如何与这个年龄段的人沟通呢？“他们的语言是什么？”艾伦茨问道：“我们面面相觑，异口同声地说：‘数码’。”于是博柏利开着本着这个原则做事。艾伦茨解释说：“我们自然而然地问自己，在我们做的每一件事上，如何能让它做到更好的沟通，如何让它更加数字化？”

    她拿自己的孩子举了个例子。几周前她的侄女来她家玩，艾伦茨让女儿转告她，一个小时后一起吃饭。女儿没有拿起电话，而是跟她在Facebook上聊天。“她知道她在Facebook上，因为她们从来不会把它关掉，”艾伦茨说：“不打电话，不发电子邮件。那就是她们的语言，那就是她们的交流方式。”

    根据咨询公司Stylophane的数据，现在博柏利在Facebook和Twitter上的粉丝要比任何其他奢侈品牌都多。博柏利大概把一半的媒体公关预算都花在了数码媒体上，但它也承认，要计算这些资源带来的回报并不是一件容易的事。

    事实上，博柏利在社交媒体上的许多努力并不是为了迅速刺激销量。比如它有一个artofthetrench.com平台，这个网站主要是让人们分享自己的照片，展示自己穿风衣的照片。艾伦茨解释道：“我们经常用最有标志性的产品做一些创新的事。”另外，公司网站“博柏利世界”也不仅仅是一个电子商务网站，甚至也不仅仅是一个博柏利门店的数字化版——虽然许多零售商可能认为在线战略就是这么一回事。

    博柏利正在推进网站的多媒体体验。现如今它的网站上又增添了一个“原声音乐”部分，可以点击观看一些尚未成名的英国音乐人的MV（当然他们都穿着博柏利的衣服）。同时消费者也可以观看剪辑精美的活动视频，比如最近网站上有一段台北门店的开业典礼，它在表演和编排上都充分考虑到了在线视频观众的需求。

    When Ahrendts arrived from Liz Claiborne in 2006, Burberry, which had licensed its name around the globe, lacked a cohesive image, and was underperforming the luxury market. (Retail and wholesale sales were up just 2.2%, vs. the sector's roughly 13% the year she arrived.) Ahrendts started buying back the licenses and moved to find the right positioning for the brand.

    Ahrendts and Bailey recognized that the company's British heritage and its iconic outerwear (Ahrendts likes to say the company was born from a coat) had to play a key role in defining the company going forward. But they also decided to pursue millennials, a group its peers were ignoring. It was an emerging-markets play as well, with the company's research showing that high-net-worth individuals in the developing world were 15 years younger than in markets such as the U.S. and Britain.

    But how to communicate with this new demographic? "What is their language?" asks Ahrendts. "And that's when we looked at each other and said, 'It's digital.' " Burberry started filtering everything through that lens. "We just naturally started asking ourselves on every single thing we did, how do we make it more connected, how do we make it more digital?" Ahrendts explains.

    She points to her own kids as an example. A few weeks ago when her niece was in town visiting, Ahrendts told her teenage daughter to have her cousin meet them for brunch in an hour. Rather than pick up the phone, she chatted with her on Facebook. "She knows she's on Facebook because they never turn it off," says Ahrendts. "Doesn't call, doesn't e-mail. That's their English. That's how they communicate."

    Today, Burberry has more Facebook and Twitter followers than any other luxury brand of those tracked by consultancy Stylophane. The company spends about half its media budget on digital but concedes it isn't easy to calculate a return on the resources poured into Burberry's technology.

    To be sure, many of Burberry's social media efforts aren't designed to spur immediate sales. Take its artofthetrench.com platform, a compilation of photos that people have sent in of themselves wearing trench coats. "We always do something innovative with our most iconic product," explains Ahrendts. Likewise, Burberry's website, dubbed Burberry World, is more than an e-commerce site or even just a digital representation of its stores, which is how many retailers think of their online strategy.

    Burberry is pushing to make its website a multimedia experience. Today it features an "acoustic" section with music videos from undiscovered British artists (dressed in Burberry clothing, of course). Consumers can also view beautifully edited clips of events, such as a recent production tied to a store opening in Taipei, staged and choreographed with the online video audience in mind.