A raincoat, a trench, and two reasons for a fall

How, the notes ask, did Burberry come through a crisis and bring a brand back to life? They answer: by a core-value strategy that Burberry is the trench coat, and by a 6-6-6-6 supply system. Thomas Burberry, they write, began with raincoats; in a rainy climate the firm became the house of a practical trench coat. The coat was made as a military garment in the First World War — trench, they add, comes from the trenches — and in 1919 the firm became a royal warrant holder, a British emblem with more than 150 years of tradition and a check.

The first cause of crisis, they say, was clinging to traditional style. Similar checks and a narrow range turned the young away, counterfeits multiplied, and a luxury image faded. In the late 1990s a new designer was hired — the notes do not name that designer — and the Burberry Prorsum line, with handbags and accessories, grew sales. The second cause was a loss of brand unity. Global recognition rose, but licences were over-issued, countries produced on their own, and the image in Europe and in Asia drifted apart. Lines had separate designers, the range grew too wide, and there was no strategy aimed at a particular customer.

A coat at the centre, and six weeks four times

To find a core value again, they write, Burberry set a strategy that Burberry is the trench coat, and rebuilt every plan around it. Against the share of core products at Louis Vuitton and Gucci, the trench’s share looked poor; no rival, they add, was marketing the trench as its core item, so distinctiveness was available. The 6-6-6-6 system is a rule of six weeks on the shop floor, six weeks in the shop’s own warehouse, six weeks in production, and six weeks of raw-material storage, so that a selling cycle can be controlled and stock-outs do not lose customers.

A training programme told sales staff that a trench coat is a work of more than a hundred processes and three weeks, and sales incentives were meant to raise the coat’s share. iPads were used for stock checks and product information, and younger staff, they write, were well satisfied. Millennials — people born between 1980 and 2000, at ease with IT and social media but with little spare purchasing power in this telling — had not been a target for other brands. Burberry redesigned the trench, widened the colours, and took digital channels as its main marketing, to shed a fusty image. Those years stay as the notes record them.

An icon revived, and staff taught the same story

In the course of growing large, they conclude, the core product and its value had lost meaning, and identity had shaken; the return of the icon brought the brand’s energy back. Staff training passed on craft, artistic value and history, so that customers and staff would both be absorbed in the brand. Recasting the trench into something familiar, they write, was a distinctive way of managing a crisis. The same Korean report, at fuller length, is on CampusDown.

Sources

1. The notes, a student brand report on Burberry’s crisis and the return of the trench coat, with the 1919 warrant, the Prorsum line, and the 6-6-6-6 rule left as the notes record them.

Last updated: 15 November 2026