Old firms, new tricks and the quest for profits: Burberry's journey from success to failure and back to success again
从营销、文化研究和地理学角度剖析英国企业巴宝莉如何转型为全球奢侈零售商，揭示其自我呈现与盈利策略间的矛盾，并运用消费者拜物教、地方拜物教和竞争同构等概念提供批判性见解。
Here, I scrutinize the recent efforts by the British firm Burberry to turn itself into a successful global luxury retailer from a number of angles, including those of marketing and cultural studies, as well as that of geography. I especially call attention to the apparent discrepancies between the manner in which the firm presents itself to its customers and the character of some of its recent profit making and upgrading strategies. Making use of three concepts from the literature—namely, the fetishism of the consumer, the fetishism of locality and competitive isomorphism—I then provide some critical insights into the internal workings of the firm; and, in the process, through the incorporation of ideas from marketing and cultural studies, contribute to the overall efforts by economic geographers to broaden the scope and reach of the field.