What Bicester Village Taught Me About Perceived Brand Value

What Bicester Village Taught Me About Perceived Brand Value

At business school I specialised in brand positioning and statistical market research. I learnt how to use statistical techniques based on brand attribute importance and perceptions to create a brand market map. It all seemed a bit abstract at the time, although very interesting, but at Bicester Village last weekend I observed how its real world application is absolutely critical commercially.

Bicester Village is amazing. A ‘must-see’ trip for all overseas visitors, especially Chinese who love luxury brands. It has pretty-much every luxury brand you’ve ever heard of or seen in Vogue or Marie Claire – all in separate small shops. So the appeal of each brand is extraordinarily visible – especially if you look at the carrier bags people have as they leave.

Bicester Village was packed at the weekend, with queues outside many of the highest profile brand outlets. Gucci had a long queue outside, as did D&G and several others. However the number of carrier bags for these brands was low, suggesting that many people look at the best known and most expensive brands, but far fewer actually buy them.

In one shop, which will rename nameless, there were extremely average dresses at a staggering ￡2,000 each; and there were racks and racks of clothing everywhere at ￡1,000 per garment – not what you might expect in a recession. Given that most of the clothing on offer can be bought at similar quality at 1/10 or even 1/100 of the price, almost all of the value in luxury brands is in the brand name and logo.

The luxury brand that seemed to have everything right was MK or Michael Kors. It is a premium brand like so many, but its actual prices, whilst still being very high, are not absolutely outrageous like some others. That seemed to be where the public is right now. Yes they want designer brands, yes they want logos, yes they will pay a massive premium for it, but they do know value when they see it, and MK offers ‘value’ within the context of this rarefied luxury group.

Reiss and Boss also did extremely well in the mid-market category. Reiss appears to be a modern version of my old favourite Austin Reid, offering well-priced clothes, but with style, good design and a definite brand cachet. And both stores were humming.

Zara was conspicuous by its absence there. They have an amazing formula, physically positioning themselves with the premium brands, but offering low-priced Zara branded copies of the latest styles that are not that easy to tell from the ‘real thing’. Their stores always seem to be packed. But clearly they are not welcome at Bicester Village.

But whilst almost all shops were busy and some had long queues to get in, some of the shops were literally, almost embarrassingly empty – and these were mostly extremely well known brands. For example it looks like Victoria Beckham’s brand is no longer perceived to offer real value as a luxury brand, as the shop was deserted.

So if you want to see the real world implications of brand perceptual mapping, Bicester Village is a great place to go, as you can tell at a glance by the queues and the brands on the carrier bags which brands have positioned themselves correctly for today’s market, and which haven’t. And the consumer is absolutely ruthless. They can tell perceived brand value at a glance, and if you haven’t got it they simply don’t waste a second on you.

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