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Burberry Needs a Kardashian Makeover

Burberry has certainly undergone a brand transformation under the leadership of Rose Marie Bravo. When Bravo first assumed leadership, the brand was concentrated at older segment of the population and was largely viewed as stodgy and inaccessible. However, under Bravo’s leadership, the brand expanded into middle-luxury market segments to expand their brand’s visibility and accessibility to younger consumers. Burberry’s transformation at first was a success - they were able to rescue their brand from obscurity - but quickly Burberry began to spread itself very thin, competing against both middle luxury and high fashion brands to try to maintain footholds in both spaces. This has led Burberry to a loss of cohesive brand identity as it is taking on too many different brand images, to the point where its iconic check pattern is widely counterfeited and duplicated in far less expensive brands.

When I think about Burberry’s transformation, it reminds me almost exactly the opposite of the Kardashian brand transformation. The Kardashians rose to fame in the early 2010′s in part due to their reality TV show, Keeping up with the Kardashians. Kris Jenner, the matriarch of the Kardashian clan, was able to use this small about of fame to then launch a series of very random brand deals for each fo the higher-profile Kardashian sisters, including TV ads for various weight loss and anti-acne products, blenders, and even a Charmin-sponsored public restroom! They were often the target of tabloid gossip, but were never taken seriously as celebrities. 

Fast forward to 2021, and the Kardashians have a very different tone - some of the siblings are now billionaires from launching their own businesses, one is an international supermodel, many have accepted  invitations to the exclusive Met Gala, and multiple have landed the cover of Vogue. Moreover, all the members of the the Kardashian family are undeniably major cultural influencers - Kylie and Kim are two of the most-followed people on all of instagram - and have shaped beauty standards for en entire generation. And while many in older generations still poke fun at the family, the Kardashian brand is now undeniably more refined and respected. Perhaps Burberry needs to take a page out of the Kardashian playbok for its next brand revamp!

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How did the Kardashians go from tabloid fodder and advertising everything from blenders to a Charmin public restroom to building a cohesive, multi-billion dollar industry centered around their family’s fame and interests (e.g., makeup, clothing, and shapewear)?

Pictured above: Kim in 2013. Pictured below: Kim in 2019.

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Puzzling for puzzles

I come from the world of biotech, where product differentiation is much more clear cut: either your drug provides a clinically proven, statistically significant advantage, or it doesn’t - and clinical trial data informs the relative advantage. Many of Rogers’ Five Factors are warped in the world of biotech - where all decision-making among the end consumer, patients, is heavily guided by physician recommendations, national guidelines, and insurance coverage. Indeed, the “Relative advantage” of a drug may heavily outweigh any other of the factors - while you can observe others’ experience with different drug options to determine compatibility with your lifestyle, you will likely ultimately take the drug that is most beneficial to your health. And while complexity is often seen as cumbersome when applied to consumer products, more complex drugs may actually have higher efficacy than older and simpler drugs, and therefore may be more desirable.

So it is therefore extremely interesting to me to consider how product differentiation differs amongst these 5 lenses, and in particular when considering such a diverse set of products as is represented in the “Four Products” case. Using both the Five Factors framework and my own intuition as a consumer, it was immediately easy to identify PB slices as a clear flop. Not only was the interview with the founder of PB slices off-putting (who describes their customers as “lazy” in an interview?!), the product offers limited competitive advantage and does not fill a meaningful unmet need for peanut butter consumers. What is the point of having pre-sliced peanut butter if you need to get a knife out and dirty to spread jelly on your PB&J?

Between the collapsible wheel, Stave puzzles, and Polytrack, things were murkier. I can see the value proposition for each within specific niches - commuter cyclists, avid puzzlers, and elite horse racing stadiums - I believe the market uptake of each product differs greatly. Collapsible wheels seem like a practical and useful innovation, but the day-to-day awkwardness of folding and unfolding your bicycle when commuting to and from professional and social events may have trouble integrating amongst more casual cyclists (think BlueBikers). Stave puzzles clearly fills a need amongst the most elite puzzlers (with money to spare) to solve incredibly challenging but fun puzzles, and therefore may be considered a cult favorite amongst a select few. And Polytrack provides an obvious advantage for those who run horse races, but requires heavily initial momentum (enough elite stadiums need to be convinced to replace their tracks at likely a high cost) before it is adopted widely.

Ultimately, if I had to choose one to be successful within its intended customer base, I may lean toward the puzzles...but maybe I am just biased based on where Stave was founded!

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Expectations = Reality

I write this post as I unpack yet another wine subscription box full of half a dozen wines that I did not choose, but will likely enjoy. As a typical and relatively non-fussy wine consumer, I rely entirely on the recommendations of online wine quizzes and aesthetic appeal of wine bottle labels to make my drinking decisions. This heavily reflects the environmental cues suggested by the “Fine as North Dakota Wine” paper, which concludes that perception of quality is just as important - if not more important - in wine favorability. Taking experts’ recommendations are my way of ensuring peace of mind that the wine I receive has passed through some sort of “expert filter” that allows me to rest assured that I am consuming something of high quality.

What is fascinating about the wine industry is how much consumers are influenced by certain “inherent” qualities of a wine - namely where the wine was produced and price as a proxy for quality - and yet how little consumers are actually able to differentiate the quality of different wine products. This phenomenon is fueled in part by the lack of brand-pushing in wine marketing. In fact, I don’t recall ever seeing or hearing an advertisement for wine (beyond wine box subscription services), and particularly not for higher-end wines. And beyond boxed Franzia, I doubt there is a single ubiquitously recognizable wine brand that consumers across the U.S. would recognize. And Franzia is undoubtedly a low-priced wine that would likely struggle to penetrate a higher-end market given its consistently low-price branding. 

Concha y Toro faces a similar dilemma, in which they are struggling to break out of their historically low-cost and low-quality brand perception. As I consider their situation, I can’t help but wonder how more traditional marketing tactics that the rest of the wine industry tends to ignore, like celebrity endorsements or more aggressive social media advertising, would work. In particular, celebrity endorsement in the form of Snoop Dogg in the 19 Crimes wine series comes immediately to mind as a brand that is often referenced (and purchased) based on branding alone. Perhaps a campaign to rebrand Chilean wines as high-class, with emphasis on the results of the "Berlin Tasting” on full display, would help Concha y Toro. Building on the conclusions of the “Fine as North Dakota Wine,” the company could also consider negotiating with distributors for better shelf space next to higher-end French and Italian wines or placement on wine lists in a similar manner, to paint the subconscious picture of Chilean wines being in the same category of wine quality.

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Choice Paralysis and the Personalization Conundrum

The “Consumer Behavior Online” article perfectly outlines my own online shopping behavior. Specifically, choice paralysis and following peers’ purchase trends easily defines my experience as an online consumer. As a “Type A” personality, when I shop for goods online, I obsessively compare products across a handful of online retailers and consult family and friends to ensure full understanding of which products are of both high value (highest quality for a price point) and highly recommended, often sinking hours into blogs, sale aggregator sites, and emotional swirl. To the article’s point, the wealth of information available to me is almost overwhelming.

It is interesting, therefore, to think of hyper-specialized brands that have emerged in the last decade that take away the need for choice by offering a single flagship product with few modifications. Allbirds’ flagship comfortable walking shoe. Quip’s single electric toothbrush option. Peloton’s one-model-fits-all exercise bike. These companies have successfully capitalized on consumers’ desire to purchase the “default” option, so long as it is deemed “best” in the marketplace by like-minded peers. In addition to offering a limited selection of highly curated or flagship items, these brands also excel at using some of the other tactics mentioned in the article. Clean, sleek, and modern user interfaces on Allbirds and Quip websites attract users and make for a seamless online shopping experience. Comparisons to costly and loud traditional electric toothbrushes or low-quality bikes without built-in classes on demand allow Quip and Peloton to capitalize on the power of selective information display. And all of these companies have used social media marketing campaigns to push products on their target demographic - millennials with a lot of disposable income who are susceptible to thinking their social media ads display personalized recommendations.

As online shopping and e-commerce continue to evolve and incorporate personalized recommendations, one must wonder how also wonder how brands will try to use this information about consumer shopping behaviors to not only further their own sales, but also in turn continue to shape consumer behavior. As personalization algorithms on social media get smarter, and as companies collect more and more information about consumers in an attempt to continually differentiate and personalize (similar to the article’s reference to using an “Avatar” to guide shopping), how much information will companies have about their consumers, and how will they use that information? And ultimately, at what point does it become a privacy breach for companies to hold this much information about their consumers?

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The Corona Brand: Fun, Beachy, and Memorable

The iconic clear bottle with a lime perched on top says it all: Corona is the no-frills light beer for summer, for beaches, and for fun. From advertisements focused on vacationing to Shwayze and Cisco Adler’s 2008 hit “Corona and Lime,” the Corona brand image evokes a sense of relaxation and merriment in a way that no other beer brand in the US has managed to consistently achieve. The consistent and efficient messaging of Corona advertisements, coupled with a consistent low pricing strategy and strategic expansion in heavily Hispanic areas of the US, allowed Corona to rapidly gain market share against import beer market incumbents like Heineken. 

On the other hand, as I reflect on Heineken’s branding to me as a consumer, I feel very disengaged and unsure of what the beer represents. Heineken blends in well with other cheap light beer options - Bud Light and Michelob and Yuengling come to mind - but doesn’t differentiate itself meaningfully from the pack in any specific way. While everyone knows that Corona is brewed in Mexico and should be drunk with a lime, Heineken beers do not evoke specific feelings or images, and therefore tend to be drunk when it is the default or on sale option at a bar or liquor store. This is likely why Heineken’s strategy of trying to position themselves as a “high quality” light beer fell short - if your beer can’t truly be picked apart in a blind taste test, a convincing (and importantly, consistent) marketing push is the only way to sway consumers in an otherwise elastic and price-sensitive market. Heineken’s methods were neither convincing nor consistent - there was little substance to back their claims, they only began a more directed marketing campaign when sales began to dip, and company faced numerous personnel changes in its marketing and advertising functions.

And yet - despite all the good press for the Corona brand throughout the years, one must wonder - how in the world did people believe that Corona was contaminated with urine, or confuse Corona beer with coronavirus?