MINTEL Fashion Accessories Report: Burberry Positioning Analysis

This report, focusing on MINTEL's fashion accessories, examines Burberry's positioning and repositioning strategies. It begins with an introduction to positioning and repositioning, highlighting their importance for marketers in adapting to market changes, promoting brand loyalty, designing promotional strategies, attracting customers, and launching new products. The main body of the report analyzes the relevance and implications of these strategies, including how successful repositioning can improve customer service and influence business attitude and risk. A positioning map illustrates Burberry's current market position and potential shifts due to repositioning efforts, such as targeting the luxury sector. Finally, the report explores two key repositioning methods: the head-to-head positioning method, which emphasizes direct comparison with competitors, and the differentiation positioning method, which focuses on creating a unique selling proposition. The report concludes by emphasizing the importance of these strategies for adapting to market trends and fostering business growth, supported by references to academic sources.

MINTEL FASHION
ACCESSORIES REPORT

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................3
Relevance and Importance of positioning and repositioning for marketers. Implications in case
of successful business move........................................................................................................3
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................4
Map demonstrating position of Burberry and the change in its position if Positioning or
repositioning is carried out..........................................................................................................4
TASK 3............................................................................................................................................5
Two methods for Burberry to achieve repositioning..................................................................5
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
Positioning and Repositioning are those strategies which can rejuvenate the present
position and marketing conditions. These help any organisation in targeting their customers in a
different way so that they can expand its customer base. Burberry is a British luxury fashion
house which is having its headquarters in London, England. It serves over a number of counties
having its store in 498 locations. In this report various strategies of Burberry brand and its
different implications have been highlighted.
MAIN BODY
TASK 1
Relevance and Importance of positioning and repositioning for marketers. Implications in case of
successful business move.
Burberry Group Plc is an international company and it regularly needs to uplift its present
practices and policies to retain the present position and aim higher. For this purpose, it is
essential for an organisation to continuously position and reposition itself by formulating regular
strategies.
Importance of Positioning and repositioning :- For marketers, it is necessary to regularly update
their methods and for this purpose, they adopt positioning and repositioning strategy which has
following importance (Sethi, Kaur and Wadera, 2018).
Coping with market changes :- After placing any product in the market, marketer has to
regularly monitor the changing trends in the market to observe the significant changes and how
they can accommodate these changes in the product positioning.
Promoting consumer goodwill and loyalty :- Regular positioning and repositioning strategies
keeps the company in news continuously and popularizes the brand name. This helps in
enhancing the goodwill and increasing customer loyalty.
Designing Promotional Strategy :- To promote the product, its strategy depends on the present
positioning and repositioning of brand. The various advantages and disadvantages of the strategy
are also determined (Acharya and Gupta, 2016).
Attracting different types of customers :- Positioning strategy helps the consumers in
identifying those markets or products which are best serving their needs and hence helps in
attracting the customers for marketers.
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Launching New Products :- Positioning strategy helps in launching of new products and along
with that it also facilitates communication of new ad varied features which are added to the
present or already established products.
In case the positioning and repositioning strategies adopted by the company, Burberry in
this case, are successful; then it will create following implications on the business performance :-
Improved customer service :- Successful positioning strategies will help in improving the
customer service as the targeting of customers will be much easier and better and direct.
Positioning as per the market norms and requirement will integrate the service provided to the
customers along with their culture.
Attitude and Risk of Business :- Successful business strategy helps in improving the attitude of
business operations i.e. the methodology used for targeting the customers. It also increases the
risk level as positioning product in an entirely new market might be successful or may come out
to be a failure (Wright and Ann Williams, 2017).
TASK 2
Map demonstrating position of Burberry and the change in its position if Positioning or
repositioning is carried out.
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At present, the Positioning of the products marketed by Burberry have been plotted on the
second quadrant i.e. having both medium prices and medium quality level in their production
level (Mu, Liu and Lennon, 2018). Hence, the products cannot compete in the premium market
segment with the established brands in that sector like Givenchy, Celine, Gucci etc. However, if
the Burberry brand carries out and implements the positioning and repositioning strategies that
they have planed, they can change their present position. They plan to target the luxury sector
goods by extending their price architecture and reducing the supplies of their products made to
local whole sellers and retailers. They also plan on focusing mainly on leather handbags as they
have proven to be a good market area. Adopting such repositioning strategy will place the
Burberry brand in the first quadrant in position mapping i.e. having both Higher price and Higher
quality of the products manufactured by them. Thus, this will improve the present level and also
increase the competition level as Burberry would be competing directly with the top brands
(Acharya and Gupta, 2016).
Gucci and Primark are both established brands and they can be located in the first quadrant on
the position map i.e. having both high priced products as well as excellent quality levels of the
product.
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Illustration 1: Positioning map
Source : Position/ Perception Maps, 2017

TASK 3
Two methods for Burberry to achieve repositioning.
There are many methods to achieve repositioning but the two main methods that
organisations lie Burberry can use for repositioning are :-
Head-to-Head Positioning Method :- In this method, the marketers try to advertise themselves
by comparing their present products or position with those of their competitors. Here, the
emphasis is on creating something better and emphasizing this as the selling point by creating a
difference in the market between the brad and its competitors. E.g. : An ice cream manufactures
making ice creams through his own hands can use it as a selling point for attracting customers as
compared to his competitors using processing machines for production. Similarly, Burberry by
using those raw materials which do not affect the environment negatively can use the Head-to-
head positioning method.
Differentiation Positioning Method :- Under this marketing strategy, the marketers try to attract
customers by creating a unique selling point which differentiated their product from their
competitors. It is adopted with an aim to provide something new to the customers (Marti, Iacono
and Tittarelli, 2018). Here, the targeted market is an entirely new segment and the customers are
influenced by the new or innovative technology rather than developments in the already present
market. Burberry, by expanding its market through successful launching of its innovative leather
bags which are multi-purpose can utilize the benefit of Differential positioning.
CONCLUSION
After going through the research conducted in above report, it can be concluded that it is
very important to adopt correct positioning and repositioning strategies so that the environment
and positioning of business and its present environment can be regularly updated as per the latest
market trends. It can also be concluded that by adopting some repositioning strategies adopted by
the organisations can help them in growth.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Marti, P., Iacono, I. and Tittarelli, M., 2018, August. Experiencing sound through interactive
jewellery and fashion accessories. In Congress of the International Ergonomics Association (pp.
1382-1391). Springer, Cham.
Acharya, A. and Gupta, M., 2016. Self-image enhancement through branded accessories among
youths: A phenomenological study in India. The Qualitative Report. 21(7). pp.1203-1215.
Mu, W., Liu, W. and Lennon, S.J., 2018. Top Online Luxury Apparel and Accessories Retailers:
What are They Doing Right?.
Wright, S.A., Ann Williams Group LLC, 2017. Tool and method for creating fashion
accessories. U.S. Patent 9,677,203.
Sethi, R.S., Kaur, J. and Wadera, D., 2018. Purchase intention Survey of Millennials towards
online fashion stores.Academy of Marketing Studies Journal.
Online
Position/ Perception Maps. 2017. [ONLINE] Available through
:<http://www.sanandres.esc.edu.ar/secondary/Marketing/page_63.htm>
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