Catalyzed by the digital age, artists rooted in different cultural scenes have incubated a focus on everyday experiences in popular culture, encountering in fascination and awe of nature and technology, Burberry has always been concerned about the fusion of avant-garde forces in various cultural fields.
On March 30, Burberry's offline exhibition with the theme of "Blending Boundaries" came to Chengdu, and one of the more than 20 exhibits was a huge art wall composed of more than 4,000 moss-covered tiles, "About Moss", which was particularly impressive. With the change of humidity, light and temperature, the different forms of moss have brought more diversified expression to the art wall.
Burberry is also trying to explore the boundary between real and virtual nature more deeply through this art wall, from March 31 to April 14, more than 4,000 mossy art walls in different forms were captured in real time to create a digital collection, and every day at 3 pm on the Tencent Magic Core platform limited time time free collection.
The unique digital collection condensed from 360 freeze-frame moments has successfully triggered a collection boom, and it is worth noting that Burberry's digital collection has chosen to cooperate with Tencent Magic Core and become the first luxury brand to launch digital collections within the Tencent ecosystem. Whether it is traffic diversion from the public domain to the private domain, or the innovation of communication methods, Tencent Advertising's global operation ability is increasingly seen by brands, and Burberry also takes this opportunity to further deepen brand marketing in the digital field.
As the boundaries of fashion, creativity and technology gradually converge, luxury brands are entering the digital world faster than expected, and in the process, traditional luxury brands may have to redefine their own connotation and extension. As things stand, many luxury brands are rapidly laying out the digital space, and digital collections seem to be the focus of luxury brands.
The fusion of luxury goods and digital collections seems inevitable, and digital collections have the characteristics of "non-homogenization", with the holder being the only owner, which has a natural correlation with the scarcity of luxury goods. At the same time, the main consumers of luxury goods and the main consumer groups of digital collections overlap very much, and they are relatively young, mobile, unique and social consumer groups.
Burberry's real-time change of moss form into a digital collection, this limited-edition, exclusive version of the artwork can be closer to the target consumer, between virtual reality to seize the opportunity to establish a connection with the target consumer, these attempts not only help them to open up new customer base, understand new markets, but also bring the next stage of the digital collection to upgrade the overall brand marketing new ideas.
Luxury brands are constantly increasing their digital marketing strategies, and technology seems to have become the next point of force for major brands to grab consumer groups. According to consulting firm Bain, by 2025, China is expected to become the world's largest luxury consumer market, and the technology play in the Chinese market is also the focus of major brands, but for them, the main problem is still how to find new ways to connect with Chinese consumers in these games.
Under the digital boom, digital collection platforms have sprung up like mushrooms, and the era of digital collections in China is also opening up. Burberry The platform for the sale of digital collections launched by Burberry this time is the digital collection trading platform launched by Tencent in August 2021 - Tencent Magic Core, and Burberry has become the first luxury brand to release digital collections on the Tencent ecosystem.
In addition to technical cooperation with Tencent Phantom Core, Burberry, which has triggered a boom in digital collections, has become the strongest boost for Burberry to carry out digital marketing in China based on the multi-form boost of Tencent's global operation position.
For the Chinese market, As one of the most popular social platforms in China, WeChat has become an important stage for major brands to deepen their content influence, compete for the consumer market, and carry out marketing activities.
Especially for luxury brands, in addition to the advantages of wide user penetration and lightweight use, WeChat can also maximize the retention and interpretation of brand tonality, which is the only choice to establish a connection with consumers. In November 2019, Burberry and Tencent entered into an exclusive partnership to explore the connection between these touchpoints by merging social media and in-store experiences.
In the past few years, we can also see that the brand's play form within its ecology is constantly upgrading and evolving, in addition to being a social media, its ability in brand marketing is also becoming more and more powerful. Compared with the brand's public account, video number, and mini program, circle of friends advertising provides an opportunity for the brand to reach a wider range of consumers. As an information flow advertisement, the Circle of Friends advertisement plays the role of the connection point from the public domain to the private domain in this ecosystem, while continuously helping the brand to complete the marketing plan and "pulling new water storage", while realizing the conversion and connection of public domain traffic and private domain traffic through other assets such as public accounts, video numbers, and mini programs with existing brands.
Today, through the WeChat platform, brands can not only reach existing fans in their private domain, but also reach more target audiences that match the brand's tone, or potential audiences who are interested in the brand but have not yet interacted with the brand. Brands can carry out diversified layouts within the WeChat ecosystem, and help audiences at different stages of the consumption journey by building different consumer links, and transform them in their unique way of exploring brands and recognizing brands, and output all-field business solutions from advertising to retail. For example, as early as August 2018, Burberry opened a mini program pop-up boutique on WeChat, and a month after going online, the limited edition items in Riccardo Tisci's debut were sold exclusively through the WeChat platform for a limited time of 24 hours, successfully realizing the linkage between online and offline, which immediately triggered a rush to buy.
At the same time as the Iteration of WeChat functions, various "elements" under the entire WeChat ecosystem have gradually achieved coverage of the entire consumption conversion link, and are striving to achieve the "growth" of the entire brand closed-loop marketing activities. Although subscription accounts, video numbers, circle of friends advertisements, and mini programs are the core "touchpoints" of the WeChat platform, the WeChat platform with vigorous vitality is also constantly nurturing more "touchpoints" with the changes in the market and technology. Taking Tencent's shopping entrance mini program Tencent Huiju officially launched the "Famous Products" column in August last year, Burberry, as one of the first luxury brands to cooperate with Tencent Huiju Famous Products, has explored a new "touchpoint" connecting consumers on the WeChat platform, and many brands have followed the footsteps of platform iteration and used more new ways to strengthen brand exposure and increase conversion rate.
The digital collection cooperation with Burberry is another manifestation of Tencent's strong ecological capabilities. It can be said that Burberry, which has focused more on offline exhibitions in the past, has tried to lay out online digital marketing in China this time or is not unrelated to the super ability of Tencent's ecology, and the technical support provided by Tencent Magic Core for Burberry has largely ensured the realization of multi-form gameplay in marketing activities. Through the cooperation between Tencent and Burberry, it can also be seen that the entire Tencent ecosystem relies on the integration of online and offline transaction scenarios, the linkage of traffic and user public and private domains, and the global operation position from advertising to retail to achieve three major differentiated advantages. What is more noteworthy is that the technical support provided by Tencent for digital play based on the overall ecology will further improve its ability to provide brands with digital overall marketing strategies, and the technical support that Tencent is good at will have more forms of expression in brand marketing in the future, bringing more "touchpoints" connecting consumers to brands.
According to Tencent's 2021 Q4 and annual financial reports, "WeChat Mini Programs help independent merchants thrive in their private domains, and in 2021, the total amount of physical goods traded by merchants will double year-on-year." Burberry, which is more and more closely tied to the WeChat platform, has also shown an intuitive change in performance, according to Burberry's key financial data for the third quarter of fiscal 2022 released in January this year, as of December 25, 2021, Burberry's regular-price sales in digital channels have performed strongly, and sales have achieved double-digit growth compared with the previous year.
Tencent's global operation ecological ability has increasingly become an important path for brands to carry out marketing on social media, and its platform positioning of "enterprise global operation partner" has become more and more distinct. It is foreseeable that Tencent's ecological layout throughout the whole region will play a greater role in promoting the digital innovation and development of brands and marketing. WWD
Content Planning Huayi Tomorrow Fashion Content Center
Written by Doyal
Image source provided by the brand