Effectiveness of Social Media Marketing on Burberry's Consumers

This dissertation investigates the effectiveness of social media marketing on consumer buying decisions within the fashion industry, focusing on Burberry Plc as a case study. The research explores the evolution of social media marketing, its impact on consumer behavior, and the strategies employed by Burberry. It examines the influence of social media on consumer relationships, buying intentions, and purchasing decisions, while also identifying potential threats and challenges faced by marketers. The study employs a mixed-methods approach, including literature review, data collection, and thematic analysis, to analyze the characteristics of Burberry's social media marketing practices and assess their effectiveness. The dissertation aims to provide insights into how luxury brands can leverage social media to enhance their marketing efforts and drive consumer engagement. The research concludes with recommendations for overcoming social media marketing challenges and suggests areas for future study.

DISSERTATION
(To investigate the effectiveness of social media
marketing on consumer buying decisions in Fashion
Industry- A case study on Burberry Plc)

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
I would like to thank to my mentor who provided me direction in completing the research. I
would also like to convey my thanks to colleagues and other team members who have
coordinated with me while collecting data and analysing the same on the basis of the
research aim and objectives.

ABSTRACT
Marketing is the combination of activities that has been performed by business organization
so that they can improve their sales and profitability level. Social media is a technological
platform which is used by people in order to communicate with each other. Now a days,
companies are also using these sites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn in order to establish the
communication. Along with this, some promotional or advertisement campaign should be
established so that success can be achieved. The present dissertation is based on Burberry Plc
which perform its operations in fashion industry. They are implementing social media marketing
activities so that they can improve their performance. Here, in the present project some tools and
techniques are used by researcher so that overall research can be completed in more effective
manner.

Table of Contents
Table of Contents.............................................................................................................................4
CHAPTER -1 INTRODUCTION....................................................................................................1
1.1 Title........................................................................................................................................1
1.2 Overview of the research problem.........................................................................................1
1.3 Rationale of the study............................................................................................................2
1.4 Potential contribution of the study.........................................................................................3
1.5 Research aims and objectives................................................................................................3
1.6 Research questions.................................................................................................................4
1.7Structure of the dissertation....................................................................................................4
CHAPTER 2- LITERATURE REVIEW.........................................................................................6
2.1 Introduction............................................................................................................................6
2.2 Social media marketing strategies.........................................................................................6
2.3 Effectiveness of social media marketing activities................................................................7
2.4 Consumers buying decisions.................................................................................................8
2.5 The impact of marketing activities on consumer relationship and their purchasing
decisions....................................................................................................................................10
2.6 Threats which are associated with the social media marketing...........................................11
2.7 Literature gap.......................................................................................................................12
2.8 Conclusion...........................................................................................................................12
CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY...........................................................................13
3.1 Introduction..........................................................................................................................13
3.2 Research design...................................................................................................................13
3.3 Research approach...............................................................................................................13
3.4 Research philosophy............................................................................................................14
3.5 Data collection methods......................................................................................................14
3.6 Sampling techniques............................................................................................................15
3.7 Data analysis........................................................................................................................15
3.8 Ethical considerations..........................................................................................................16
3.9 Validity and reliability.........................................................................................................16
3.10 Research limitations...........................................................................................................17

CHAPTER 4- DATA ANALYSIS................................................................................................18
4.1 Introduction..........................................................................................................................18
4.2 Thematic analysis................................................................................................................18
CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS...................................................31
5.1 Conclusion...........................................................................................................................31
5.2 Recommendations................................................................................................................33
REFLECTIVE STATEMENT.......................................................................................................35
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................36
APPENDIX....................................................................................................................................39

CHAPTER -1 INTRODUCTION
1.1 Title
“To investigate the effectiveness of social media marketing on consumer buying decisions
in Fashion Industry, A case study on Burberry Plc”
1.2 Overview of the research problem
With the advancement of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), the
business world has encountered a new phenomenon in the cyber world called social media
communication. Emergence of web 2.0 technologies is considered as the major advancement in
the history of commerce that came along with the social media networking channel. Such
revolutionized development had fostered the online communication; facilitate interaction,
content and video sharing and cooperation (Chitra and Sasikala, 2016). It had brought
significant changes in the traditional marketing channels, mediums and approaches that were
used by the marketers earlier. It shifted the power from the firms to the consumers because social
media democracy allowed all the users to keep in touch and contact each other via information
exchange regarding different products and services (Kaur, 2016). It encouraged marketers
changing their traditionally applied marketing and promotional strategies through the use of
social media sites and thereby matches new needs of consumers through regular online
communication. It had significantly changed the buying behaviour of users through social media
advertisement and word of mouth publicity as well. It has totally changed the relationship
between companies and stakeholders. Social-Media marketing (SMM) is totally different from
the traditional marketing because advertisement is the one side communication channel, in
which, marketers just provide necessary information regarding their offerings such as quality,
price, discount offers, availability, color, size and others, consumers have no option to
communicate with the firm whereas under SMM, both user and company can communicate with
each other hence, it is a two-way marketing communication channel (Borah and Tellis, 2016).
Social-media has multiple of types such as weblogs, social media networking like
Facebook, sites for sharing videos like YouTube, micro-blogs like Twitter & others. Due to the
stronger connectivity, social media gains a high popularity in the world and enable firms to
popularize their commercial brand in the global market. Referring United Kingdom (UK), in
January 2017, the total active social media users were reported to 42milion (64% of population)
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and active mobile social media users were 37million (57% of population) (Social media users,
2017). The progressive use of web 2.0 technology is not only evidenced by the users but also
used by the companies as an advertisement tool for promoting their product portfolio. People use
social media sites for varied purposes such as for obtaining and transferring information so as to
make excellent purchasing decisions. SMM plays a great role in the marketing functions of
fashion industry wherein companies use different social media sites under its promotional
campaign, so that, they can access majority of consumers (Gainous and et.al., 2016). Burberry
Plc is a British firm that designs, manufacture and offer luxury fashionable cloths to the men,
women and children. It offers various products such as apparel, accessories, leather handbags,
watches, cosmetics and beauty products to the customers. It operates through its departmental
stores, franchisee, fashion outlets and online platform. In order to survive in the tough
competitive era, its marketing strategies have been turned towards use of social media rather than
traditional methods like print media, paper advertisement and others. It uses SMM to identify
buying intentions along with the stimuli and identify the impact of social-media marketing on
such factors so as to favorably influence the users and change his buying intentions into actual
purchase. Pictures of designer and fashionable clothing items, attractive advertisement, consumer
feedbacks and post-buying experiences of the users enable potential buyers to make right
purchasing decisions whether to buy a particular item or not to meet their own expectations
(Godey and et.al., 2016). Thus, the key objective of the study is to reveal that how effectively
social media marketing enable Burberry to influence the buying intentions of the consumers. The
research highlights the effectiveness of SMM on the users purchasing behavior to assess that
how social media sites encourage & motivate people buying preferences and choices to match up
their own needs and desires.
1.3 Rationale of the study
In the era of e-commerce, luxury fashion houses actively use social-media sites to
promote their goods offering all over the world and to millennial consumers. Numerous research
studies have been conducted by the scholars to investigate the effectiveness of social media sites
on the consumers shopping experiences & buying choices in different sectors such as retail,
fashion and others, still, none of the study had investigated its effectiveness for the Burberry
fashion house. Thus, by this way, the research mitigates such gap by examining that how well
social media can be used as an effective promotional tool by Burberry Plc to gain brand
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popularity all over the world. Rising popularity of social sites encourage scholars to investigate
the issue through an in-depth research. The study will examine both the favorable and negative
impact of its use on the Burberry’s performance. The research also addresses the key challenges
faced by companies in social-media marketing like security and others. Thus, conducting such
investigation will enable investigator to create an excellent marketing plan integrating social
networking sites to maintain strong relationship with the customers and attract more and more
users to buy the offered goods.
1.4 Potential contribution of the study
In the period of e-commerce, luxury fashion brands invest a huge capital in their
promotional offerings to gain crowded audience. Burberry’s social media marketing focuses on
gaining actively the attention of users towards its designer, unique and fashionable goods and
other items so as to achieve success. Thus, the current research will be extremely significant for
the marketers of fashion houses to examine the usefulness of social media marketing in their
promotional success. Moreover, they can make decisions to effectively promote their goods and
services offerings through social networking channels and overcome the possible challenges that
might be the results of unforeseen changes in the market. With the assistance of the study,
organizations operating in the fashion industry will be able to make smarter decisions to
accomplish high level of success through online promotion. Further, the current research study
will serve as a secondary source for the upcoming scholars and will provide a conceptual base to
their study in concerned field.
1.5 Research aims and objectives
Aim: To investigate the effectiveness of social media marketing on consumer buying
decisions in Fashion Industry, A case study on Burberry Plc.
Objectives:
 To examine the properties of British luxury fashion house’s social media marketing
 To investigate the impact of Burberry’s social media marketing activities on consumer
relationship, buying intention & their purchase decisions
 To investigate possible threats faced by fashion house marketers in their social-media
marketing practices
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 To suggest the best strategies to British luxury fashion retailers to overcome the social
media marketing challenges
1.6 Research questions
1. What are the characteristics and features of luxury retailer’s social media marketing practices
in UK?
2. How does the social-media marketing channel affects buying preferences, purchasing
decisions and consumer relationship?
3. What issues and challenges often faced by Burberry’s marketers to promote their products and
services using social networking sites?
4. What strategies and actions do luxury fashion brands marketers needs to undertake to
successfully grow their business using SMM?
1.7Structure of the dissertation
Chapter: 1. Introduction: Every study starts with the investigating the area of interest by
well presenting the research problem. It develops an initial idea in the mind of reader that what
the whole dissertation tells and in which direction, it has been carried down. This section clearly
presents the interest of the researcher with the targeted aims & objectives due to which the study
was conducted earlier.
Chapter: 2. Literature review: This is the second chapter which critically reviews the
relevant historical researches by researching number of articles, research papers, publications
and other secondary material. In this, various studies will be compared with each other to carry
out a comprehensive & informative investigation. Seeking out the existing or past researches
helps to avoid replication and provide an academic context and conceptual theoretical base to the
proposed study to mitigate the loopholes in the previous studies.
Chapter: 3. Research methodology: Following LR, the methodology section of the thesis
present the tools applied as a research philosophy & approach. Besides this, the techniques used
for obtaining sufficient amount of data for the purpose of detailed analysis & investigation will
be presented.
Chapter: 4. Results, analysis and findings: This is one of the most crucial section that
provides highly realistic and relevant information regards to the area of the study that is
interpreted and examined by the researcher to find out the materialistic information about the
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impact or effectiveness of social media marketing on the users buying choices, preferences and
decisions.
Chapter: 5. Conclusion: At the end of the thesis, all the strands or key findings from all
the chapters will be combined to give a justified and convincing answer to the problem
investigated. Proper justification is really important with full reasoning and with proper
evidences as well to ensure its reliability. Besides this, potential future areas or developments for
the current research topic will be presented where upcoming scholars can take interest to
investigate the issue in more detail.
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CHAPTER 2- LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Introduction
The purpose of this section in dissertation is to provide a review on previous literatures so
that understanding about social media and consumer behaviour can be gained. Here, at this stage
different opinion of authors are gained on the same topic. Along with this, the data can also be
gathered from different secondary sources such as internet, journals, books and so on. The
research can be conducted in more efficient manner as information is collected through some
theoretical literature and investigations. In the present study, researcher is focused on the
effectiveness of social marketing strategies and changing behaviour of service users in fashion
industry. The gap between present and past research can also be reduced so in this manner it can
be identified that how social media marketing strategies can influence the consumers purchasing
decisions. The critical discussion has been done in the current dissertation so that in depth
understanding can be increased about the field of study.
2.2 Social media marketing strategies
Marketing is the combination of some activities that are performed by an organization so
that goods can be exchanged between seller and buyer. By adopting these kind of approaches, an
enterprise will be able to enhance their brand image at the marketplace as compare to other
rivals. According to the views ofKim and Ko (2012) there are two types of marketing (direct and
indirect) which are performed by companies so that they will be able to attain their targets.
Direct is more effective strategy as through this an entity can directly reach to their target
audience. On the basis of these, fashion industry can promote their services into the market in
order to grab the attention of people from all over the world. Ashley and Tuten (2015) says that
social media is tool which play a more significant role in today’s modern era. On the basis of
these, companies will be able to communicate with their customers directly so that they can
identify their needs and demands. When the firm post any advertisements and blogs on sites then
through these people get to know about benefits and features of different services.
As per the views of Scott (2015) there are some methods of social media which are used by
an enterprise in order to communicate with their consumers. Some of these are like social
networking, websites, multimedia sites, user-sponsored blogs, podcast and so on. There are some
networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Yahoo etc. If the firm post any
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advertisement on such sites, then customers will be easily knowing about the products. On the
contrary, it has been stated by Hays, Page and Buhalis (2013) that there are some traditional
media such as television, radio, magazine, tax press and so on. In the early time, industries were
using these in order to communicate with their end users. But due to some limitations of these,
companies started using modern social media marketing so that specified goals can be achieved
more effectively. Along with this, more information is available on internet so it becomes easy
for service users to search for the goods as per their choice and in flexible prices.
According to the Castronovo and Huang, (2012) now a day’s people spent lot of time on
internet in order to access the products before purchasing. So, through this online purchasing can
be increased at global level and this may help the firm in achieving the success at marketplace. It
has been analysed that social media marketing is a kind of strategy which is used by organization
in order to build relations with the public. Through this, they will be able to improve their brand
image and fulfil all the requirements of people. Solomon (2014) says that social media is a kind
of platform where different individuals can share information in the form of images, videos and
talk with others. When two-way communication is get established then through this the gap can
be reduced and the perceptions that people have regarding to the products of particular industry
are get changed.
2.3 Effectiveness of social media marketing activities
Sashi (2012) stated that companies will be able to get some benefits after implementing the
social media marketing activities at their workplace. The main benefit which is gained by firm is
the reduction in cost as through this fashion industry can promote their products online. They can
reach to their customers without investing money so in this way they will be able to generate
higher profits. The information regarding to the services can be reached to large population in
less time. Apart from this, there are various limitations that are associated with the social
networking strategies and this may also affect the consumer’s perceptions. It will take some time
and efforts to implement such kind of activities at the workplace. If service users post their
negative experience on company’s website, then this may affect their brand image directly.
Along with this, if somebody share confidential information of firm on such sites then they will
not be able to achieve competitiveness as other competitors will get to know about their
strategies. So, in this way these can affect their performance in negative manner.
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