Dive Brief:

• Burberry is promoting its new Mr. Burberry men’s fragrance and grooming products collection via social media platform Snapchat.
• Burberry’s dedicated in-app Snapchat Discover channel features a short video directed by Steve McQueen, the filmmaker behind the Academy Award-winning “12 Years a Slave,” alongside articles and interviews spotlighting tailoring and grooming tips. The channel will run for 24 hours.
• Burberry and Snapchat also are partnering on Snapcodes—scannable in-store promotions that enable consumers to unlock Mr. Burberry-themed content using mobile devices.

Dive Insight:

Burberry is the first luxury brand to roll out a campaign using Snapchat Discover, which offers consumers access to dedicated content channels curated by media partners. Burberry previously leveraged Snapchat to promote its London Fashion Week show in addition to a print advertising campaign shot by photographer Mario Testino. 

The Burberry/Snapchat partnership is also the first Snapcodes campaign used to unlock fragrance and grooming content at retailers, the companies said.

Burberry’s digital efforts vaulted the brand to the top of think tank L2’s 2015 Fashion Digital report, released in late 2015. The annual index, which ranks fashion brands on their digital commerce and marketing prowess, placed Burburry above 82 rivals on the strength of its mobile platform improvements, social engagement and brand visibility.

“Digital is a fundamental and integral part of who we are—it’s central to our way of thinking,” Burberry CEO Christopher Bailey told Digiday last year.

While brands like Burberry, Chanel, Michael Kors and Louis Vuitton have made splashes with Snapchat campaigns, not all luxury brands are convinced of the platform’s marketing viability.

Speaking last month at the South by Southwest Interactive (SXSWi) event, Gregory Pouy, CEO of LaMercatique (a marketing firm that works with luxury brands like TAG Heuer), said Snapchat's signature video clips, which do not exceed 10 seconds and disappear from device screens once they are viewed, can’t beat YouTube’s searchable content, even with millennials.

Pouy and other SXSWi panelists instead cited Instagram as a particularly effective platform for luxury brand marketers, who often take advantage of its magazine-like photo spreads and shopping functions to offer exclusives to diehard fans.