Well, it’s almost the end of August and it seems like we’re just ripping along into Autumn and Holiday. Have you gotten your marketing plan set up for the end of the year, or are you still considering adding more pieces to it? These days, changes seem to pop out of nowhere and it’s great to stay flexible. Here are some of the more interesting marketing headlines from the past few days that might give you a burst of inspo:
→ Holiday shopping is becoming a much longer AI-assisted research process
Google published new holiday-shopping AI related research last week that’s actually relevant for independent brands.
→ Online shoppers who use AI during their purchase journey encounter an average of more than 12 touchpoints, versus about 4 for non-AI users.
→ 75% of Google AI users say AI allows them to search more naturally, including highly specific questions and visual searches.
Tip: Your product pages need to answer common questions customers might actually ask an AI assistant: Where is this made? What does it smell or feel like? Is it the best choice for sensitive skin? Would a man like it?
Your brand website and product pages need to plainly explain what the products are, who they’re best for, what the ingredients are in straight terms (not flowery language), what makes them different from similar brands … and other common questions that shoppers might ask in person.
Keep it imaginative but on-point: product descriptions that read like dishwasher manuals aren’t what I’m suggesting → however product profiles that seem to get lost somewhere in a flower field won’t make sense to a (relatively stupid) machine, ie: “An elevated sensory experience inspired by the natural world” doesn’t tell a (again, a relatively stupid) machine much if you never get around to mentioning that your candle smells like cedar and is made with a proprietary bee and soy wax blend.
Consider that in the AI era you’re now writing product copy for at least two audiences:
Your target market which may be women in their mid 40’s;
AI … which I like to characterize as her know-it-all tween daughter who frequently misinterprets information but insists she’s right no matter how many times you correct her.
→ So, AI can find you a 60” velvet sofa, but being a silly machine it doesn’t know if it’s stylish or not.
This week, ClickZ published an interview with Sebastian Pflumm, VP of Search and Discovery at Furniture.com. Pflumm makes the point in the article that an AI agent can be great at suggesting the functional part of a product, ie: reporting dimensions, price, materials, color, scent, availability and other needs, but it can’t settle on something as personal as a shopper’s taste. See my comments above.
Prior to his role at Furniture.com, Pflumm spent more than a decade advising brands in the retail and consumer space at McKinsey - so this isn’t a new frontier for him. He recommends a brand perform enough structured groundwork and PR to ensure that there’s common knowledge of a company floating around the internet for machine models to draw a broad picture of your brand from. This will lend context to what AI recommends and provide better brand recognition to those shoppers behind the queries.
→ Brand building can be romantic
This is def. giving You Got Mail vibes. It is also underscoring the current trend in which lifestyle brands are no longer just product designers, manufacturers, retailers, and influencers → they’re also entertainment companies.
The apparel brand Rhone recently launched A Love Letter to NYC, a campaign inspired by the romantic comedies of 1990s New York.
Rhone’s CMO Bethany Evans has described the company as reaching an inflection point after years of focusing heavily on performance marketing. As the company expands through retail and wholesale, it’s putting more emphasis on upper-funnel brand building.
The Love Letter to NYC campaign stretches across video, social, print, direct mail, outdoor, retail, Citi Bike docks, a photo booth, and an integration with The New York Times’ Connections game.
Tip: Independent brands should consider the thinking behind Rhone’s move: Performance marketing answers “Where can we find someone ready to buy?” Brand marketing answers “Why should anyone remember us when they’re ready to buy?”
→ DTC isn’t dead, but the old DTC formula is
Glossy and Modern Retail held a State of DTC discussion on August 12 against a telling backdrop: once-celebrated direct-to-consumer companies are struggling. Their framing for the event was centered around the notion that direct-to-consumer isn’t disappearing → but it’s evolving.
For years, DTC marketing was no more complex than: acquire customer through Facebook or Instagram ad → send customer to website → optimize conversion → repeat.
That was never a reliable brand strategy, and I have always recommended to my clients that they work with Main Street retailers and market with a Big Tent mindset.
The old marketing model was a distribution and customer-acquisition system that made sense during a period when digital advertising economics were very favorable - and that’s no longer the case.
The model that emerged from the talk looks much messier, but healthier: DTC + wholesale + retail + PR + creators + search + AI discovery + physical experiences + community = marketing
→ The evolution of beauty retail is experiential
Heathrow Airport and travel retailer Avolta have brought back their Redefine Your Beauty campaign across all four Heathrow terminals. The campaign combines shopping with personalized beauty treatments, interactive brand activations, exclusives, and gifts-with-purchase.
For a boutique, spa, candle company, jewelry maker or skincare brand, a five-person workshop, scent consultation, styling appointment, repair clinic, meet-the-maker afternoon or holiday wrapping bar makes a shopping experience memorable.
Tip: Retailers should give customers a reason to visit their store, rather than merely another place where merchandise happens to be available.
→ The creator economy is less glamorous than it looks
New CreatorIQ research surveyed more than 5,000 creators and found that about 67% earn less than $10,000 annually from content creation, and less than 5% of those surveyed earn more than $100,000. For about 63% of the respondents, creating content isn’t even their primary source of income.
Tip: This reinforces the case for looking below celebrity and mega-influencer level. A brand may find genuinely knowledgeable creators who have highly relevant audiences and are still treating content as a side business. Product seeding, modest paid partnerships and longer-term ambassador relationships may be far more realistic than the influencer industry may suggest.
→ Ugg is recruiting art students rather than conventional fashion influencers
Modern Retail reported this week that footwear and apparel brand Ugg is launching a college ambassador program called Ugg Creative Lab. In support of back-to-school shopping, Ugg is working with students at Pratt Institute, Central Saint Martins and Seoul’s Hongik University. Students will create work interpreting Ugg products through their own creative disciplines.
→ Also this week, Sophia Petrillo’s Thrift Store Bag sold to a women in West Virginia for an amount that could easily afford a median priced house in that state.
I’ll take any opportunity to write about the Golden Girls so I absolutely discussed the marketing lesson of this amazing story on my blog here.
Carolyn Delacorte is the founder of Boxwood Co — a trailblazing PR + marketing firm that’s served lifestyle brands in the food, beauty, decor, and baby industries for more than 28 years.