The Burberry transformation: platform or product?
Many books about digital transformation and many consultant's slides tell the Burberry story.
It's the story of a digital leader, Angela Ahrendts. But it's also the story of a creative genius, Christopher Bailey.
Angela Ahrendts is now with Apple. This week Christopher Bailey announced his departure too. What will happen next is interesting to follow. Burberry transformation is both a story of digital marketing and a story of fashion creation - but which one matters most?
The narrative goes like this: thanks to his digital transformation, Burberry went from medium size trench coats maker to global fashion juggernaut.
First, they put the right backbone in place to gather all customer data in the same place, then they built digital marketing outside in. Analytics fuels the virtuous circle between apps and data: more data, better insights, more apps, more data. Last, the lines between physical and digital are blurred. The millennials go back to stores that became an experience. Voila.
Great story, but ... many other brands copied that blueprint and went nowhere.
Digital connects a product to the millennial shopper. Still, someone said the first thing was to make "insanely great products". Without them, the shiny apps are drowning in an ocean of other shiny apps.
The product was the creative design. In his 17 years at Burberry Christopher Bailey found a way to express a British "essence" that was new, fresh, and original. Then he connected with music stars who were also looking for something new and different.
As the New York Times puts it, he "positioned Burberry as a conduit of Britishness to the world, working with actors, musicians, and artists to amplify his fashion message into one of cultural leadership."
Bailey created hundreds of new products all connected to that unique powerful identity - like Lagerfeld did with Chanel. Ahrendts had a good idea to connect to millennial their way and executed it perfectly, but without an "insanely great product", would it matter?
What happens next is interesting to follow. Already we have an idea of what the shareholders think. Phoebe Philo is often mentioned to take the job.
She is a British creative genius.