Burberry Body

On the first of September, Burberry launched their latest fragrance, 'Body'. As opposed to solely relying on the 'traditional' route of glossy advertisements in magazines, Burberry have really upped their game with the latest campaign. Last month they launched an innovative sampling campaign via Facebook. If you 'liked' the Burberry Facebook page (and an extra 500,000 people did in the space if a week!) and entered your details, Burberry offered you a sample of the new perfume. They even posted a video of the company's Chief Creative Officer, Christopher Bailey inviting Facebook fans to sample the fragrance. And apparently 250,000 people worldwide took him up on the offer.

Now I don't know about you, but in the past I've requested a sample of a perfume only to be sent a cheap looking postcard with a small tab of the perfume on the back. In my opinion, samples like that are hardly worth the effort, on the company's part or mine, and so now I never bother to complete my details when offers like that pop up.

However, Burberry's sample could not have been more different. Not only was it a 4.5ml sample, but it also came in really nice packaging with a 'thank you' note from Burberry.

Burberry often reference the company's heritage in their product packaging, e.g. incorporating the check design they are famous for in some way. I think this has been done with varying degrees of success in the past. However with Burberry 'Body' the reference is really subtle, with a check design on the gold top of the bottle, which is encased in glass.

The perfume has top notes of absinthe, peach and freesia with floral heart notes of rose absolute and iris enriched with sandalwood. The base notes are cashmeran, vanilla, amber and musk. I haven't had an opportunity to wear this fragrance properly yet, but just from smelling the scent on my wrist I really like it. I will let you know my thoughts once I've worn the fragrance a bit more.

In addition to the Facebook campaign, Christopher Bailey also directed a video of the campaign's face (or should that be body?), Rosie Huntington Whiteley which was debuted on YouTube. If only looking like her was as easy as donning a trench coat and spraying myself in this scent.

To me it makes perfect sense for brands to be communicating with their consumers via social media. More and more people are engaging with brands on Twitter and Facebook and so if a brand is using those channels then they are more likely to connect with consumers than with just a host of advertisements in a magazine.

Did you get one of these samples? If yes, what did you think?