Few brands own a symbol as recognisable as Burberry’s.
A beige, black, white and red pattern is enough to evoke the British house, the trench coat, London and a certain idea of elegance.
Such recognisability might seem the end point of any strategy. For Burberry, however, it also became one of its hardest crises to manage.
When a visual code circulates faster than the company’s ability to govern it, awareness keeps growing and meaning can fragment. The public then recognises the sign and begins to attach to it values that the company controls less and less. Burberry went through this at the end of the twentieth century. Then, years later, it met another form of distance: the pursuit of a higher position in luxury, which took the brand away from the categories and codes in which it held authority.
In short, the Burberry case tells of two different drifts.
The first, the result of uncontrolled diffusion. The second, of an ambition that outstripped perceived strength. On both occasions the solution came when product, price, distribution and image returned to a coherent direction.
This is the full case, analysed by Bliss.
Before luxury, a function
Thomas Burberry founds the company in 1856. In 1879 he invents gabardine, a breathable, weather-resistant fabric that becomes the basis of the house’s outerwear.
This origin holds a decisive part of Burberry’s identity: utility, textile innovation and British culture. The luxury grows around the authority of the product. The check first appears as a raincoat lining in the 1920s and becomes progressively more visible from the 1960s.
In 1967 a buyer at the Paris store uses the check to wrap luggage and create an umbrella cover. From then on, the code increasingly lives beyond the trench coat.
When the symbol becomes bigger than the brand
Between licences, an ever-growing number of categories, accessories and counterfeits, the check soon ends up everywhere. Its spread generates sales and recognition, while at the same time reducing the company’s ability to decide in which contexts the symbol should appear and which tier of value it should represent.
Academic research has shown how international licensing and the loss of control over distribution helped to weaken the exclusivity and coherence of the Burberry brand between the 1980s and 1990s (Robinson and Hsieh). And so, by the late 1990s, Burberry is highly visible but barely desirable relative to the premium territory it wants to defend. A clear example of very poor Brand Governance.
The first recovery: scaling back to become desirable again
From 1997, under Rose Marie Bravo, Burberry embarked on a radical transformation.
The company regained control over licensing and distribution and worked to become a fashion house once again. The arrival of Christopher Bailey in 2001 strengthened the reading of British culture through product and creativity. The trench coat returned to centre stage, the check was used with greater discipline and the brand found a more coherent voice.
In the Angela Ahrendts and Bailey years, the transformation continued through direct retail, global consistency and digital innovation. The most interesting aspect, from a strategic standpoint, is the orchestration: creativity, distribution and heritage codes were managed as parts of the same industrial project.
Here, then, is a first lesson: when a symbol has been worn out by excess, repositioning demands discipline in its use. Recognisability creates value again when the company regains control of the contexts in which the code appears.
The second drift: modernity without authority
In the years that follow, Burberry changes leadership and creative direction several times, seeking a higher position in the luxury hierarchy. Under Riccardo Tisci and then Daniel Lee, the language becomes bolder, more urban and more fashion-led. Ambition also grows in leather goods, a category central to the margins of the major houses.
Daniel Lee arrives in 2022 after his work at Bottega Veneta. Logo, codes, palette, campaigns and assortments all change. Prices rise, especially in leather accessories, while the luxury market slows and Burberry’s perceived strength in the new categories remains lower than the strength built up over almost two centuries of outerwear.
In November 2024 the company openly acknowledges part of the problem. The Burberry Forward strategy starts from a very clear diagnosis: inconsistent execution, insufficient focus on outerwear, prices out of line with the brand’s authority in each category, and brand signifiers less familiar to customers.
Burberry Forward: returning to where authenticity is strongest
Joshua Schulman became CEO in July 2024 and presented Burberry Forward the following November. The direction is summed up as “Timeless British Luxury” and puts the trench coat, outerwear, scarves, Britishness, London, the English countryside, the check and the Equestrian Knight Design back at the centre.
The official strategy sets out four pillars: Timeless British Luxury, leadership in outerwear, coherent distribution and a high-performance culture. The point is to use the categories in which Burberry holds the most authenticity as a foundation for building authority in adjacent areas as well.
Pricing is also realigned. The earlier elevation had pushed some bags beyond the level that part of the market regarded as credible for the brand. The new architecture restores more entry points and ties price to the actual strength of each category.
In stores, product density and the visibility of heritage categories increase. Scarf Bars turn a recognisable category into a more prominent destination. At organisational level, the plan strengthens the link between creative, merchandising, commercial and customer experience.
From this we can draw a second lesson: the core of the brand can become a foundation for innovation. The territory in which the market already recognises authority offers a criterion for judging how far to go.
The results: a recovery still to be consolidated
In the financial year ended March 2025, Burberry reported revenue of £2.461 billion, comparable sales down 12% and adjusted operating profit of £26 million. In FY2025/26 revenue was £2.420 billion, stable at constant exchange rates, comparable sales returned to growth of 2% and adjusted operating profit rose to £160 million. The preliminary results of 14 May 2026 describe FY25/26 as a significant turning point, while remaining cautious about the macroeconomic context.
The recovery is therefore real and still under way. Revenue remains far from the ambitions stated in previous years, and the global luxury market continues to be fragile. Burberry Forward has, however, already produced a more legible direction and a shared criterion for assessing product, price, creativity and distribution.
What the Burberry case teaches CEOs and boards
We can draw some lessons from the Burberry case and its failed attempts at repositioning.
First, let us always remember that awareness requires control. A sign can be known by everyone and still accumulate meanings at odds with the value the company wants to build.
Next, let us bear in mind that heritage must guide choices. History creates an advantage when it shapes product, price, experience and innovation, not just campaign imagery.
Category authority has to be built: this too is essential. Entering a new area takes the time the market needs to grant the brand the right to command a certain price.
Perhaps the blame for what happened did not lie with the various creative directors, but even so: creativity needs criteria. A creative director can set a direction when the strategic territory is clear enough to guide choices.
Above all, though: governance protects transformation. Licensing, distribution, visual codes, pricing and decision-making responsibilities must remain legible while the brand evolves.
A repositioning of this scale requires Brand Advisory capable of setting the direction before execution. Its resilience over time can then be monitored through Brand Governance KPIs, so as to catch deviations before they turn into a new phase of dispersion.
Burberry has learnt a similar lesson twice: value grows again when a brand regains control of what makes it recognisable and uses that heritage to choose its next step.
How much can your brand change without losing what gives it value?
If product, price, audience or positioning are evolving, the point is to understand which elements can change and which continue to underpin the brand’s authority.
The Abercrombie & Fitch case: an example of successful repositioning
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How can you tell whether a brand has strayed too far from its positioning?
The signal comes when product, price, communication or distribution begin asking the market to grant the brand an authority it has not yet built. This can happen when entering new categories, moving rapidly upmarket, or abandoning the codes and products in which much of the brand equity is concentrated. In such cases awareness can remain high while desirability and the ability to sustain price begin to weaken. Bliss addresses this kind of problem through Brand Advisory and Brand Governance, weighing market perception, distinctive assets, categories, pricing and strategic direction against one another. The point is to establish how far the brand can evolve without losing the authority that makes the next step credible.
Why did Burberry need repositioning?
Burberry has gone through two distinct phases. Between the 1990s and 2000s the check had become overexposed through licences, applications and counterfeits. More recently the brand pushed prices and categories beyond the level of authority the market granted it, reducing the legibility of its strongest codes.
Does a return to heritage limit innovation?
It can, when history is treated as a repertoire to be repeated. In Burberry Forward, heritage is used as a criterion: starting from the categories and codes in which the brand holds the greatest credibility in order to build contemporary interpretations and new extensions.