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Back in November 09, UK fashion house Burberry tapped social media with the launch of its very own, trench-coat dedicated social network: The Art of the Trench.

 

“We are now as much a media-content company as we are a design company.” Christopher Bailey, CCO of Burberry. Take notice of that thinking.—Edward Boches, yesterday on twitter

Take notice of that thinking

CEO Angela Ahrendts and CCO Christopher Bailey have Burberry arrive in the digital age. The ‘always on’ behavior of her three daughters didn’t go unnoticed by the mother. As brands are shifting from traditional media and traditional mass-markets and moving towards channels which are more social driven and more customer-focused, Burberry has created an easy to use brand experience. It does not necessarily make it’s customers life easier but it can certainly make your day. I use the site as radio station since I love Brits beat and the music of the Maccabees. It’s not just user generated content, it is customer generated content: Take a picture of yourself wearing a Burberry trench coat and post it. Done deal.

699,000 Facebook Fans

45,082 Followers on twitter

447,895 ranking on Alexa

16% of visits to the site are referred by search engines

184,523 traffic ranking in the UK, where about 17% of its audience is located

Compared with internet averages, the site’s audience tends to be female; they are also disproportionately childless, higher-income people browsing from work and school who have postgraduate educations.

Social media has brought Burberry into the minds of the successor generation of baby boomers

Less dependent on department stores

Direct sales have replaced wholesale as major source of income

At age 95 the Burberry trench coat is by far the best selling product

 

Can it be modded?

We all know what a trench coat is and many have come to trust that Burberry manufactures some of the finest trench coats in the world. We know for sure that it is expensive.

Now who knows what a “Dirndl” is?

Who knows what the ‘Oktober Fest’ is? There you go! With close to 6 Million visitors, it is the world’s largest and most popular “Volksfest”, drawing people, from all over the world to Munich, Bavaria every year in late September. Since the seventies, the traditional dirndl has increasingly become a must for ladies visiting the Oktober Fest.

Excuse me while I digress

A world renown fashion house, specializing in Loden coats and dirndls taylors a seasonal Wiesn Dirndl,, however the marketing department found my approach scaring and was quick to decline interest in my public offering the idea of repurposing a proven and tried marketing concept even though this is how successful marketing works in the digital age. Talent imitates, genius steals, as Steve Jobs once explained Apple’s success and Faris Yacob coined his popular marketing blog.

Dirndl obsession

With the Oktober Fest in full swing, I can’t seem to get the dirndl dress off my mind. Whenever I turn on my tv, a report about the Oktober Fest is being aired. Whenever I get to see Oktober Fest, I get to see women wearing dirndls. More often then not the reports tune in on dirndls designed by a specific label. Why? All celebrities seem to be wearing the label’s designs. And so the story goes…

It is easy to get obsessed with dirndls and Bavarian vintage. When this happens one automatically is drawn to Munich’s iconic dirndl designer label ‘Lollipop and Alpenrock. Much like I seem to have an obsession with or love for Burberry, the lovemarks effect sets in and Petra and I have come to admire her style and history, her playfulness and sobriety with tailoring modern day dirndls for demanding dames and society ladies. She obviously has a hand for public relations. No wonder as she has learned her craft from Vivienne Westwood and it shows. Her name is Lola Paltinger.

Now take the Burberry success, replace trench with dirndl and remember that wearing a dirndl is now a must when crowding in with 6 Million Oktober Fest visitors. You have all it takes to launch a modded social event which can easily be carried over to next years october event and contribute to igniting sales in the 2011 dirndl season. Once a brand occupies this space it owns the space including unmatched cognitive association of October Fest-Dirndl-Must have-brand name.

Much like Burberry is a prestigious brand best known for its trench, Lola Paltinger is the tailoring heroine for outrageous dirndl dresses favored by celebrities.

 

Paltinger, who was an apprentice of Vivienne Westwood and a designer for H&M, designs two collections per year, one for spring and one for autumn. She has made a name for herself with reinventing the vintage Bavarian dress of the farmers wife, the so called dirndl. Wearing a dirndl has become a must for visiting the Munich Oktober Fest. And wearing a Paltinger Dirndl has become a must for society ladies.
Paltinger designs cost anywhere from €1800 und €2200.
Paris Hilton, Franz Beckenbauer, Boris Becker, Giulia Siegel, Sarah Kern and Nina Ruge are popular Paltinger customers.
October 2006, Lola Paltinger became mother of a son named Lio.
Since May 2007, Lola Paltinger also sells her designs at Home Shopping Europe [HSE] under her label ‘Himmelblau [blue sky].

 

Lollipop & Alpenrock
Lola Paltinger
Tal 27
80331 München

+49 (0)89-20 11 11 4 p
+49 (0)89-25 54 67 03 f
info@lolapaltinger.com

 

SNK INTERACTIVE
c/o hybris GmbH
Nymphenburger Str. 86
80636 München

+49 (0)89 890 65 -481 p
+49 (0)89 890 65 -555 f
SOMA@SNK-INTERACTIVE.DE

 

Lola Paltinger
• Lola Paltinger—Facebook
• Search results on ‘Lola Paltinger Dirndl—Google Germany
• Lola Paltinger—Wikipedia Germany
• SNK INTERACTIVE—Lola Paltinger’s online agency
• A visit to Lola Paltinger: Munichs extravagante dirndl-designer—Lea Rieck, Two for Fashhion, a fashion blog by Otto, Germany’s largest mail order company

 

Burberry

• The Art Of The Trench—customer generated content view
• The Art of the Trench Coat: Burberry Brand Strategy—Girvin Strategic Brand Blog
• The site that’s all about the Art of the Trench—77lab
• Burberry’s Angela Ahrendts and the next generation—Grant McCracken
• Earning her stripes—WSJ
• BoF Twitter Poll | Gucci Eyeweb versus Burberry’s Art of the Trench—BoF
• A Mood-Lifting Event—Ana Andjelic
• Site information—Alexa
• The Satorialist—Photographer for the Art of the Trench

 

Modded

• Can it be modded?—Join the conversation on facebook