|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The Anthropologist Mapping Coach’s Course Toward $10 Billion in Sales
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Good morning. Today, an anthropology-minded marketer says many brands are looking in the wrong place for insight.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Joon Silverstein joined Coach in 2014 and became chief marketing officer last year. Coach
|
|
|
|
|
|
You wouldn’t have predicted Coach’s current cultural cachet from the brand’s trajectory coming out of the 2000s, when its popularity was curdling into overexposure, discounting and “a particularly milquetoast suburban sensibility,” as the Observer once put it.
But the 85-year-old label today posts fast-growing sales among fickle Gen Z shoppers, enjoys enough brand strength to raise prices without losing customers and draws record numbers of new customers.
A large part of the credit owes to Joon Silverstein, a CMO who only began describing herself as a marketer a few years ago, Katie Deighton reports in a great new feature this morning for the WSJ Leadership Institute.
Silverstein has variously been a corporate consultant, customer experience executive, digital chief and, before all that, a Fulbright scholar studying cultural identity among second-generation North African women in France:
|
|
|
“That lens, that curiosity about understanding people, has been the lens that has shaped my entire career,” said Silverstein, who was promoted to Coach CMO last January.
More than 10 years into her tenure at the Tapestry-owned brand, she still routinely travels the globe visiting the homes of women ages 18 to 30—Coach’s target customer base—to learn their hopes, dreams, fears and wardrobe contents.
“A lot of brands mistake data for real insight,” she said. “You don’t learn about people or culture by reading research reports or by studying them afar.”
|
|
|
|
Her work has informed a Coach approach including:
-
moving away from the typical fashion playbook of setting an aspirational look and lifestyle in stone
-
developing big-sisterly campaign messages that encourage consumers to set the pace of their own lives (“On Your Own Time”) and channel their childhood bravery (“Revive Your Courage”)
-
and recruiting a wide range of celebrities and partners—like Sunnie Reads, the Gen Z-focused book club from Reese Witherspoon’s media company Hello Sunshine, for a new campaign starting today.
|
|
|
“We heard everywhere in the world that Gen Z are returning to books and long-form storytelling as a way to slow down, make sense of themselves, explore who they are and feel connected to others,” Silverstein said.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Content from our sponsor: Deloitte
|
|
|
Next-Gen Satellite Internet: Shifting Prices, Capacity, and Opportunities
|
|
Satellite connectivity is rapidly advancing, bringing new technology, potential regulatory hurdles, and enterprise opportunities to transform global broadband access. Read More
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Three Numbers I’m Watching
|
|
|
|
50%
Novo Nordisk’s promised cut to its list price for the weight-loss drug Wegovy, starting next January. The announcement escalates a price war in the fast-growing, hotly contested business of GLP-1s.
$31
Paramount’s revised offer per share to buy all of Warner Bros. Discovery, up from $30, in its latest effort to derail Netflix’s deal to buy the company’s studios and HBO Max. If Warner decides Paramount’s offer is now better, Netflix would have four days to make a new offer of its own.
6
Target age for a new generation of brands selling beauty and skincare for kids. Super Smalls founder Maria Dueñas Jacobs, a former fashion-magazine editor, described her brand as “Melissa & Doug meets Miu Miu.”
|
|
|
|
The Trouble With Going Offline
|
|
|
|
Brands are increasingly making appeals to consumers they say are tired of online culture. The trick is that they still have to reach people somehow.
Chantal Fernandez pointed out the dilemma in her excellent new dive into Lululemon in the Cut, for which she visited the brand’s global creative director, Jonathan Cheung, and his lead womenswear designer, Jo Sykes.
|
|
|
Their idealized female shopper — or “muse,” in Lululemon lingo — is a “mindful athlete” between 28 and 32 years old who owns a “Theragun and a Glastonbury ticket,” says Cheung. She’s playful, she’s fit, and she doesn’t live her life online. “They’re not part of that insecure Instagram culture where you’re constantly displaying yourself,” says Sykes. But if Lululemon is going to make a comeback, it will need someone to post about its clothes.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
“Shein can together with this dynamic land make ‘made in Guangdong’ the global standard for the fashion industry.”
|
|
— Shein founder Xu Yangtian, embracing the fast-fashion company’s Chinese roots in his first major public appearance. Shein has spent several years trying to “de-Chinafy” its image, irritating the government in Beijing.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The community where marketing leaders drop the corporate speak and share what’s actually happening. The WSJ CMO Council unites leaders from the world’s most influential brands including Adobe, Audi, Google, IBM, Intel, Johnson & Johnson, Meta, Taco Bell, P&G and Verizon.
Tap into the connections and WSJ intelligence that move careers forward and separate the prepared from the scrambling.
Request Information
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Liquid Death teamed up with Spotify on its latest promotion, a limited-edition urn with an internal speaker. Liquid Death
|
|
|
|
|
|
Liquid Death’s latest morbid marketing stunt is a $495 urn with a Bluetooth speaker inside so “you can enjoy all your favorite jams for eternity.” [Consequence]
Kim Kardashian has become a “co-founder” at Update (est. 2022), an energy drink formulated with biohacker-friendly paraxanthine, as it gets a rebrand and distribution in Walmart. [Snaxshot]
If you watched the State of the Union last night, you might be ready to play the “mentions” market, where traders on Kalshi and Polymarket place bets on what politicians, executives and entertainers will say next. [WSJ]
Disney’s top communications executive, Kristina Schake, will leave the company at the end of next month as new leadership takes over. [THR]
American Eagle became the clothing and denim sponsor of the country music festival Stagecoach, building on its endorsement deal with country musician Ella Langley. [Glossy]
Ikea says its smaller-format stores are enabling it to enter markets where its usual big-box approach wouldn’t have succeeded. A new location opens in Huntsville, Ala., today. [Modern Retail]
Why Lowe’s introduced a loyalty club for kids. [Ad Age]
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
