Digital Marketing Transition for Luxury Industry Under the New Coronavirus Epidemic - The Case of Burberry

Abstract

With the prevalence of digital marketing, the luxury industry no longer serves a small group of people as it did in the previous hundred years but is gradually moving into the lives of more ordinary people. However, the sudden epidemic has put a damper on the luxury industry's growth by limiting travel and consumption. There has not been much research on finding breakthroughs through developing digital marketing in the epidemic context. This paper aims to analyse luxury brands in the epidemic context, using quantitative and qualitative methods to determine the epidemic's impact on luxury brands and give sound recommendations. We selected Burberry Group as a sample for this study. We applied DuPont analysis and Porter's Five Forces model to analyse the financial and management data of Burberry for the last three years. Firstly, our quantitative analysis reveals that the main reason for Burberry's weaker operating position in FY19-20 compared to the previous year was the decline in both retail and wholesale revenues due to the impact of the epidemic. Secondly, from a qualitative perspective, Burberry's strategy of developing its digital marketing could be effective in helping it to open up markets as well as quickly return to its pre-epidemic revenue levels. Still, As the epidemic gradually comes under control and digital marketing continues to evolve, the total revenue will return to steady growth in 2024. The findings of this paper provide a new theoretical research context for digital marketing, namely the COVID-19, on the one hand, a practical basis for the digital transformation of companies.