Burberry

Company: Burberry Group PLC

Brand value: US$4,427 million

Headquarter city: London

Industry: Luxury

Year formed: 1856

Burberry is a luxury British fashion brand best known for its iconic gabardine trench coat and signature check lining, created by founder Thomas Burberry as a lightweight alternative to the heavy coats used by British soldiers in World War One. The coats – and Burberry check – are still synonymous with the brand, and are now sold in around 500 stores in 50 countries around the world. Its London flagship store is in Regent Street, Mayfair, and offers in-store monogramming as well as a restaurant with a classically British menu. Celebrities have featured heavily in Burberry advertising for many years; British model Kate Moss has had a long association with Burberry. More recently, the brand has worked with Alexa Chung, Romeo Beckham and Harry Styles. For its Christmas 2016 campaign, Burberry worked with an Oscar-winning director and prominent actors on an extended film about the life of Thomas Burberry to highlight the heritage of the brand and the life of its founder. Burberry retains a reputation for quality, design and craftsmanship, but is investing in digital innovation to stay current; in 2016, it launched a Facebook Messenger chatbot for customer service in 2016, and has since added a combination of AI and human customer service options on the Line and Kakao chat platforms and on the Burberry app. It uses Pinterest to build loyalty and personalise the customer experience. Burberry is the only global luxury brand to have joined the Climate Group’s RE100, as part of it commitment to procure 100 percent of its energy from renewable resources by 2022. Burberry is listed on the London Stock Exchange.