1.How do Burberry's strategies change the dynamics of marketing in today's economy?Discuss.

2.How does Burberry use its online marketing strategies to offer all five types of utility to consumers?Discuss.

3.How has Burberry used market segmentation to inform its online strategy?Discuss.

From e-commerce to social media strategies, fashion brands are trying to ensure their technological efforts are as cutting edge as the hardware on their handbags. And nowhere has that focus been more profound than at Burberry, the British heritage brand founded in 1856.

In recent years, it has built its success on the backs (and arms and legs) of the under-30 ''millennial'' consumers. They engage with the brand through its large Facebook presence (14,779,038 likes at last count) and its innovative strategies, like the ones planned to coincide with Monday's autumn 2013 show: streaming the show live on Twitter (a first, Burberry says) and ''Runway Made to Order.''

The new ''Made to Order'' program allows the show's global audience to purchase outerwear and handbags off the runway for personalization. And, when the deliveries are made, their smartphones will be able to show videos about the items, including the personalization process.

Burberry's fashion range and, more recently, its luxury accessories, are big earners, with the latter accounting for approximately 40 percent of the brand's $3 billion in revenue in 2012. With more than 467 stores around the world and 9,500 employees, Burberry was the fastest-growing luxury brand on Interbrand's index last year.

The New York University research group LuxuryLab named Burberry ''the world's most digitally competent luxury brand'' last year. Angela Ahrendts, its chief executive, has been praised by the Harvard Business Review for her digital innovation, and Forbes ranked her 45th on its list of Power Women, crediting her with ''infusing the classic clothier with Silicon Valley tech savvy.''

As for its chief creative officer, Christopher Bailey, 41, his 2011 profile in American Vogue called him a ''pioneer of all things digital in the fashion industry.''

An example of the brand's efforts? Consider the Orchard bag, a large hexagonal-shaped tote, now a year old and already re-envisaged in different materials and colors for later collections in the high- fashion Prorsum line.

And from its debut, the Orchard, which sells for u295, or $456, for a small cross-body and up to u14,000 for a medium size in alligator, has become the brand's fastest-selling bag, even more so when it was updated for spring 2013 in colors like kelly green and bright tortoiseshell alongside the traditional heritage check.

Design and fabrication

''Our unique archive, spanning 157 years, provides an incredibly rich source of inspiration for so much of our collections,'' Mr. Bailey said. ''The idea for the Orchard came from beautiful vintage Burberry luggage, which inspired details like the oversized zips and luggage tags, as well as the distinctive hexagonal shape.''

''Marrying these features with contemporary materials and color palettes enabled us to design something that feels classic and luxurious, but with a very modern sensibility,'' he continued.

Burberry would not disclose whether its archive had been digitalized. And while much of the company's design process is kept under a Willy Wonka-type shroud of mystery, designers -- including Mr. Bailey -- use computers as well as pencils. Most designers are given iPads the week they join Burberry.

Sketches, which are produced both manually and by computer-aided design, are brought to life in the hands of craftsmen. Leather is hand cut and the pieces are hand stitched around a custom-made wooden form to create the bag's distinctive hexagonal shape.

Although detailing is carried out by hand by expert Italian craftsmen, a specially developed heat technique is employed to develop the characteristic large-grain finish of the leather, reflecting Burberry's heritage in fabric innovation, much of which still has patents pending.

Presentation

The Orchard was announced on Burberry's Twitter account in February 2012, moments before it joined the autumn 2012 collection on the runway. It also appeared in the spring 2013 show; while it was not part of the autumn 2013 show Monday, Burberry says more variations are planned.

The show Monday was streamed live on Burberry.com, numerous media sites, the Burberry Facebook page and Twitter (a first, Burberry believes). There were 1,500 seats in the specially built show space in Kensington Gardens in London, but the audience potentially was more than 19.3 million, the number of Burberry's followers across all digital platforms.

Runway to Reality

Most fans have to wait six months to buy something they have seen on the catwalk. But in September 2010, Burberry inaugurated Runway to Reality.

The Orchard, along with the collection's outerwear and other leather goods, may be bought on Burberry.com the week following each new season's show, bringing the collection to the consumer in just eight weeks -- part of an effort to exploit the show's exposure and gain immediate sales.

While the show is being streamed live, an Instagram feed at the side of the screen displays close-up images of the accessories, captured by the camera at the end of the runway.

Also, more than a dozen broadcast-quality digital cameras are set up in the fashion show space to get pictures of the bags, shoes and so on from every possible angle for what eventually becomes a Facebook photo album highlighting just accessories.

''Burberry's live streaming of its catwalk shows, plus inviting customers to buy directly off the screen, is a clever digital trick to democratize the brand experience without compromising on its brand vision/luxury status,'' says Jenny Dyson, creative director of Pencil, the boutique content agency based in London.

Marketing

Burberry's advertising campaign is always a star-studded affair, with one of the Orchard shoots being handled by Mario Testino, under Mr. Bailey's creative direction, at the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich. Images featuring the British actress Gabriella Wilde toting the Orchard bag were turned into print ads and short films.

There also is the usual variation on product placement, with bags going to celebrities like Sarah Jessica Parker and Emma Stone. Burberry's social media and the legion of fashion bloggers then transmit the photos across cyberspace.

Online sales

Six months after a show, the entire collection is ready for sale on Burberry.com.

Once Mr. Bailey reviews the prototype and the bag's proportion/design details, the finished bag is then photographed at Horseferry House, the brand's 160,000-square-foot, or 15,000-square-meter, Westminster headquarters. One thousand products are uploaded to Burberry's Web site every month, while 5,000 products are available online at any one time.

Does availability of a bag like the Orchard damage its desirability factor? Not according to Nick Carvell, the online fashion editor of British GQ.

''I don't think a label can be 'too digital.' Digital prowess and the quality of the label's product are two very separate entities,'' he said. ''Up until about a decade ago, you could only discover Burberry or Herms products by going into one of their stores or spotting their lavish print campaigns. Now the brand has a strong social media presence, which has allowed them to cultivate a fan base who can shop online if not near one of the physical stores or without the time to go.''

In Store

When the Orchard finally arrived in stores in Knightsbridge in London or Newbury Street in Boston, it still was in a kind of digital world.

Store newsletter subscribers had received a video of the product, telling them when it would be available.

In the store, the bag is merchandised to reflect Burberry.com -- especially in the Regent Street flagship store, whose ground floor is referred to as ''the home page.''

There, garments are fitted with interactive screens and radio frequency identification, or RFI, tags, so when customers flash the Orchard in front of interactive mirrors, they trigger videos showing how it was made and detailed. The store also has a 22-foot-high, or 6.7-meter-high, screen showing the latest collections, accompanied by custom recorded music over 420 speakers.

The bottom line

''You can't and you shouldn't just put all your communication eggs into the digital basket,'' says Ms. Dyson of Pencil. But, as the brand notes, more people visit Burberry.com every week than walk into all its stores around the world.