Analysis of Burberry's Market Positioning and Repositioning

This report provides an analysis of Burberry's market positioning and repositioning strategies within the fashion industry. It begins by emphasizing the relevance and importance of positioning and repositioning for marketers, especially in a competitive market. The report then utilizes a positioning map to compare Burberry with competitors like Gucci and Primark, illustrating its movement towards a higher market segment. Finally, the report discusses various methods Burberry can employ to achieve successful repositioning, including social responsibility and enhanced customer engagement. The conclusion highlights the potential for Burberry to gain a competitive advantage through strategic repositioning and effective marketing techniques. The report references several academic sources to support its analysis.

Individual Project

Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
TASK...............................................................................................................................................3
1. Relevance and importance of positioning and repositioning for marketers.......................3
2. Positioning map..................................................................................................................4
3. Methods for Burberry to achieve repositioning..................................................................5
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................6

INTRODUCTION
Marketing is a crucial activity for all the business types. As the concept includes countless
number of activities it comes along with various issues too (Kotler and et.al., 2017). Fashion
industry has great number of companies dealing in it and delivering various quality of products
which ranges from being targeted to mass market, premium customers and one with supreme
features which is only affordable to the higher income group people. The following report will
answer different questions that are related to the fashion industries and are in context of the
promotion concepts. Burberry will be taken to understand the idea of position, repositioning of
brands in the market are.
TASK
1. Relevance and importance of positioning and repositioning for marketers
Burberry is a huge brand in the fashion industry and is offering quality products to the
customers. It was founded in 1856 and since then added a great range to its total variety. It offers
the options in clothing, accessories, perfumes and cosmetics which shows that it is capable of
fulfilling the different demand of customers related to fashion (Phan, Thomas and Heine, 2011).
It was found that the products of Burberry were improved specially the variety of handbags as
sales for same increased 16% in the year 2017. It was a result of new additions of bridal and
buckle begs which attracted new segment of the buyers which were not targeted before. It shows
that the referred to brand is going in more up market as keeping this category at focus it is going
to plan its future product range. As the favourable results are already achieved by this brand it
shows that for markets it is important to position and reposition their products. It assists the firm
in establishing a greater competitive position in the market which is not easy to defeat by the
other brands. As it is done after analysing the demand and trends of the customer better targeting
is done which further reduces the gap between actual and desired sales.
As detailed study of needs of the market is done before actually repositioning to product
there are higher chances of getting improved sales. It will lead to greater market share and will
increase the brand recognition (Straker and Wrigley, 2016). Apart from this through the positive
shifting customer loyalty is raised which leads to effective relationship with them.

2. Positioning map
Positioning map is a tool through which it is identified that how brands are position itself
against the market situations. It defines the product compared to competing products. Marketers
often plan brand positions that give their products the highest competitive benefit in the
particular target markets, and they then design the marketing mix to create these planned
positions (Schöpflin and et.al., 2013).
(Figure 1Positioning map of Gucci, Primark and Burberry)
Figure 1: shows the position of different brands. Burberry as shown in the figure is lying
in first quadrant which shows that it was earlier using the classic approach and was delivering
goods at comparatively low price. No change in the products were made according to the fashion
and marketers emphasised on raising total sales through other tactics. Thereafter, as the figure
depicts it is moving towards the high market and soon will be part of the fourth quadrant. Here
the brands change their offerings as per the trends in the market. It will be soon a fashion brand
which has capacity to achieve the competitive advantage that will be achieved by delivering new
product range to the customers. This will result into increase in the prices of Burberry offerings.
Apart from this two other brands are also compared here which are Primark and Gucci. The
positioning map shows that Gucci is already lying in the section where change is adopted
according to the demand and trends of fashion and products are made available at high price. It

depicts that Gucci is going to give a tough competition to Burberry as both brands will have the
latest products which has equal demand by the customers.
Last but not the least is Primark. This is another brand in the same industry. The map
displays that this brand is not changing its products and services according to the alteration in the
fashion trends and is making its products available in market at comparatively low prices in
comparison to Gucci and Primark. Therefore, it is not a threat for the other two brands.
3. Methods for Burberry to achieve repositioning
There are different ways through which the selected organisation can reposition itself in the
market. In context of same spirit of giving can be of great help. In the current scenario people
favour more to the brands which are socially active and does good to the society as well. by
collaborating with more foundations or charity firms it can reposition itself in the market (Fuchs
and Diamantopoulos, 2010). Other way which can be adopted by this firm is to enhance the
customer engagement. Buyers like to get engage with the company they are dealing with and
when they are welcomed and provided with personal contact it gives more satisfaction to them
and improve customer loyalty too. Burberry can work on its customer relationship management
techniques to reposition itself successfully in the fashion industry.
CONCLUSION
From the above report this has been concluded that Burberry is leading towards an up
market as it has brought much change in its present products and services. If the repositioning is
done as per the planning, then there are greater chances for achieving the set targets and
achieving competitive advantage. In order to reposition the brand company may adopt different
strategies which includes getting more involved in social activities and working on CRM
approaches.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Kotler, P. and et.al., 2017. Marketing for hospitality and tourism.
Phan, M., Thomas, R. and Heine, K., 2011. Social media and luxury brand management: The
case of Burberry. Journal of Global Fashion Marketing. 2(4). pp.213-222.
Schöpflin, R. and et.al., 2013. Modeling nucleosome position distributions from experimental
nucleosome positioning maps. Bioinformatics. 29(19). pp.2380-2386.
Fuchs, C. and Diamantopoulos, A., 2010. Evaluating the effectiveness of brand-positioning
strategies from a consumer perspective. European Journal of Marketing. 44(11/12).
pp.1763-1786.