so I stumbled across the above video whilst I was researching a project at the start of the week. I’d heard about Burberry’s new Flagship Store on Regent St before, but hadn’t taken the time to explore what they’d built. in the above video the brand’s Chief Creative Officer Christopher Bailey explains what the store is about:

“Burberry Regent St is really a kind of merging of our Burberry.com site … and a physical experience. everything that we do on Burberry.com if reflected here in this space … its a place that you can come just to hang out, its a place that you can come to kind of explore and understand all of the different things that we do … Art of the Trench, bespoke, Burberry Beauty … come and visit us, and I look  forward to hearing all of your comments”

Christopher Bailey, source – above video

it’s quite the achievement and investment. I’ve written on this blog before about a Regent St flagship when I described in a Feb 2009 post National Geographic’s store on the same street. I said at the time that:

“… the National Geographic Store is everything an interactive and engaging brand experience should be … an experience grounded not in the necessity to sell, but in the discovery and exploration of why that brand pertains to exist in the first place, and what that brand’s point of view on the world is; the concept and idea of that brand made manifest. everything, in short, that a retail space in the early 21st Century should be.”

Burberry’s store is in that tradition and more so. for starters, the idea of thinking web first and store second is easily said but rarely done. I don’t think its by accident that Bailey says that “everything we do on Burberry.com is reflected in this space”: not – note – the other way around. as Tom Uglow of Google said, “the future of digital is physical” (he said that here).

the second very future-facing aspect of Burberry’s approach is in many ways captured in the above video – and is reflected in the front and centre role that content plays in their strategy. if you’re in any doubt as to how ubiquitous Burberry’s content is, just check out this screen grab of their YouTube page:

from fashion shows to advertising campaigns, taking in music sets and events on the way, its a menagerie of content that not only explicitly communicates what Burberry stands for and is producing; but implicitly communicates the design cues and high quality production quality of the brand.

an additional interesting aspect of this strategy is the extent to which Burberry are inviting comments and opinions. they are encouraging participation – careholding – of their brand.

content isn’t limited to video, a collaboration with Google sees the brand encourage people to send a digital kiss to anyone else in the world. Bailey (again) explains:

it’s all there again; the call for interaction and involvement, and – as the below screenshot from the site shows – sumptuous quality of execution. it is really rather relaxing watching live kisses fly across the world, I can highly recommend it.

featured image via million looks