Latest / Building Brands with Fexingo: Identity, Reputation, and Long-Term Business Equity / How Burberry Rebuilt Its Brand After Losing Its Way
Transcript
- Lucas: So you can walk into any Burberry store today — or scroll its website — and the message is pretty consistent. Heritage, British craftsmanship, the trench coat, the check pattern used with restraint. It feels like a coherent luxury house. But that coherence is actually the result of one of the most dramatic brand turnarounds in modern fashion. And it didn't happen once — it happened twice. Luna: Twice? I know about the early 2000s revival under Rose Marie Bravo. But there's a second act? Lucas: There absolutely is. Let's go back to the late 1990s first. Burberry was founded in 1856 — Thomas Burberry invented gabardine, the waterproof fabric that made the trench coat famous during World War One. It had real heritage. But by 1997, the brand was a mess. Over-licensing had plastered the Burberry check — that beige, black, red, and white tartan — on everything from dog leashes to cheap plastic raincoats in discount stores. The brand was everywhere and nowhere. Its market cap had fallen to about 300 million pounds. Luna: It sounds like they'd done exactly what kills luxury brands — made the product too accessible. The check became a liability. Lucas: Precisely. Luxury brands live on scarcity and aspiration. Burberry had sold its soul for short-term licensing revenue. Enter Rose Marie Bravo, an American retail executive who had previously turned around Saks Fifth Avenue. She was appointed CEO in 1997. And her first move was to hire a young designer named Christopher Bailey as creative director — he was only 28 at the time. Together, they had to rebuild Burberry from the inside out. Luna: What did they actually do? I mean, you can't just tell everyone to stop making cheap Burberry check products overnight — there are contracts, licensees, supply chains. Lucas: They moved aggressively. Bravo terminated about half of Burberry's 50-plus license agreements within her first few years. She pulled the check back from mass-market retailers. She closed down entire product categories. And crucially, she re-centred the brand around its core product: the trench coat. The trench coat is Burberry's DNA — it's iconic, it's functional, it's British. By making that the hero product, they gave the brand a tangible anchor. They then reintroduced the check pattern, but only on linings and trims — as a tasteful accent, not the whole garment. Luna: So they turned the check from a liability into a secret signal of status. That's a smart reversal. Lucas: Exactly. It became the 'if you know, you know' mark. They also invested heavily in digital — Burberry was one of the first luxury brands to live-stream runway shows and embrace social media. By 2014, the company's market cap had grown from 300 million pounds to about 7 billion. It was a textbook turnaround. But then came the second act. Luna: So what happened? Did they lose their way again? Lucas: They did. After Bravo left in 2014 and Bailey became CEO, the brand started to drift. Bailey tried to push Burberry even more upscale — higher prices, fewer logo products — but in the process, the brand lost some of its distinctive identity. Sales stagnated. Then the pandemic hit. By 2020, Burberry was again seen as a brand in need of reinvention. Luna: And this is where the second turnaround comes in? Lucas: Right. In 2022, Jonathan Akeroyd took over as CEO. He brought in a new creative director, Daniel Lee — the designer who had revitalized Bottega Veneta. Lee did something interesting: he brought back the check pattern more prominently, but with a modern twist. He also revived the equestrian knight logo. The strategy was to re-embrace Burberry's Britishness and its heritage, but with a bolder, more streetwise aesthetic. Early results are promising — the brand feels culturally relevant again. Luna: It's fascinating that both turnbacks involved returning to the same core assets — the trench, the check, the British heritage. Almost like the brand has a gravitational pull back to its origin. Lucas: Yeah, that's exactly the lesson. Great brands often have a deep well of authentic equity that survives mismanagement. The trench coat didn't change — the way it was marketed and distributed changed. And if these conversations have moved your work forward in some small way, listener support is what keeps the show ad-free and focused on cases like this. You can find us at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. No pressure ever — just a way to keep the conversation going. Luna: And speaking of that conversation — Lucas, you mentioned the trench coat as the hero product. But the trench coat has been around for over a hundred years. How do you keep a product like that feeling new? Lucas: Great question. Burberry does it through innovation in materials and silhouette. They've introduced lightweight versions, seasonal colours, different cuts — but the core design remains recognizable. And they use the trench as a storytelling device. Every season's campaign features the coat in a new context — sometimes on a rainy London street, sometimes in a futuristic landscape. The product is constant; the narrative evolves. Luna: That's a good reminder that brand building isn't always about inventing something new. Sometimes it's about rediscovering what you already have. Lucas: Absolutely. And Burberry's story is a masterclass in that — not once, but twice.