Burberry Group plc (www.burberry.com) is a British luxury fashion house, distributing outerwear, fashion accessories, sunglasses, fragrances and cosmetics.
Its distinctive tartan pattern has become one of its most widely copied trademarks. Burberry is most famous for its trench coat, which was designed by founder Thomas Burberry. The company has branded stores and franchises around the world and also sells through concessions in third-party stores. Burberry has more than 500 stores in over 50 countries.
Angela Ahrendts joined Burberry in January 2006, and took up the position of CEO on 1 July, 2006 replacing Rose Marie Bravo. The company value rose during her stay in Burberry from £2 billion to over £7 billion.
Burberry is nearly 160 years old; its coats were worn in the trenches of World War I by British soldiers, and for decades thereafter they were so much a part of British culture that the company earned a royal warrant, making it an official supplier to the royal family. Sir Ernest Shackleton wore a Burberry during his Antarctic expedition. Movie legends wore them on the silver screen. For more than a century, the Burberry trench coat was cool.

But then in the 1990s and beginning of the 2000s, the Burberry trench coat became uncool. Angela Ahrendts and the rest of the team decided to reinforce their heritage, their Britishness, by emphasizing and growing them into core luxury products, innovating them and keeping them at the heart of everything that they would do. Trench coats are now among the most expensive items Burberry sell (many of them are priced at over $1,000), but the staff are least equipped to sell them.

The company transformation paid off. Today, 60 per cent of their business is apparel, and outerwear makes up more than half of that. At the end of the fiscal year 2012/13, Burberry’s revenues and profit (before taxes) had doubled over the previous five years, to £2.0 billion and £350 million, respectively.
On 15 October, 2013, it was announced that Ahrendts would leave Burberry in spring 2014 to join Apple Inc. as a member of its executive team as Senior Vice President of Retail and Online Stores. She was followed in spring 2014 by Christopher Bailey.
In 2017/18, the revenues were £2.7 billion and the profits (before taxes) were £467 million.
Questions
1. What are the main motives behind the product line extension from the original Burberry trench coat into other product areas?
2. Please describe the brand transformation process of Burberry. What were the main reasons why Angela Ahrendts was so successful with this brand transformation?

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