American fashion designer
Tory Burch founded her label in February 2004, the same month that Mark Zuckerberg launched
Facebook from his Harvard dorm room.
In the fashion industry, Burch’s rise has been nearly as striking: the 45-year-old CEO has expanded her line of ready-to-wear clothing and accessories to more than 450 department and specialty stores worldwide, as well as dozens of Tory Burch boutiques in the U.S., Europe and Asia. She opened 20 new shops, including several in international cities (Osaka, Seoul, Hong Kong, Kobe and Taipai), in 2010 alone.
Much of her success can be linked to an aggressive digital strategy, says Miki Berardelli, who has served as chief marketing officer of Tory Burch since 2009. The company launched
ecommerce immediately after opening its first shop in downtown Manhattan, and
toryburch.com generates more revenue than any physical store. Burch is one of the few designers to maintain a direct, ongoing dialogue with her friends and fans on
Twitter, which she does in an easy-going and authentic manner. The company’s
blog, which is helmed by former
InStyle editor Honor Brodie, is broadly recognized in the industry as one of the leading manifestations of ongoing, brand-developed content.
We spoke with Berardelli about Tory Burch’s advancements in ecommerce and social media, and how the company is investing in what Berardelli believes is the “future of ecommerce”: namely, shopping through Facebook. A transcript of our Q&A is featured below.
Q&A With Miki Berardelli, CMO, Tory Burch
You joined Tory Burch in 2009. What drew you to the company?
I think it was really Tory’s vision to create a luxury brand that is accessible and has a sense of social responsibility — those were things that resonated with me both personally and professionally. There was also of course the people and the culture and, from a marketing perspective, the emotional connection that the customer had, and still has, with the brand.
How would you characterize the company’s marketing strategy at that time?
Tory always says that in the early years, not having a tremendous budget forced her to really think out of the box and tap into her and her team’s creativity. It was very much about editorial relationships and personal appearances, which enabled her to connect directly to the customer. Seven and a half years years later, that startup spirit is very much alive. We still have not bought traditional advertisements in U.S. magazines, although we do some display and online advertising.
How else have the company’s marketing efforts changed since you joined?
We continue to focus on all things digital. We redesigned our website earlier this year, which was very much about pulling all of the content [we have developed] into the shopping experience … [and] supporting mobile commerce. We’ve also done a lot in the social media space. Lately we’ve been focusing on the intersection of social, local and mobile, whether that’s for a new store opening in a specific market, or driving traffic into [our existing] stores. Given the rapid growth of the company, we’re also focused on analysis of our marketing efforts to ensure that they are effective.
How much of your marketing spend is allocated to online versus offline efforts?
It’s pretty even — or, I should say, it’s balanced. But everything we do, whether it’s our photography or our website, is all serving the marketing message of the company.
At what rate is your ecommerce business expanding? What percentage of your sales now occur online? What percentage occur on toryburch.com?
As we are a private company, we can’t disclose specific numbers. We are however forecasting a growth rate in the high double digits compared to last year. As for your second question, we see a slightly higher penetration of ecommerce sales to total business versus many brands that are distributed through retail or wholesale. What’s interesting about Tory is that she launched ecommerce immediately after opening [her first] store on Elizabeth Street [in New York]. Ecommerce has always been at the forefront, and
toryburch.com is our largest store.
Mobile sales is currently our fastest-growing segment. The proliferation of
iPad has definitely impacted our business, seeing a tremendous amount of traffic to our site [from users of those devices] specifically.
What have been among the biggest marketing and ecommerce challenges as you’ve expanded into new markets, particularly China?
China’s fascinating. The rate at which the Chinese sector is embracing ecommerce is unlike anything I’ve ever seen. The challenge lies in understanding the landscape and deciding what makes sense for our brand, just as we do here. We launched our first Weibo site in support of the opening of our first store in Bejing. We are currently building ecommerce-enabled sites to support the markets that we’re in in Europe and in China.
Tory Burch has made considerable investments in developing online editorial, largely through its blog. Why have you invested there? Is it paying off — and if so, how?
“While the voice is consistent across all platforms, we treat each one differently because they are all unique.”
Tory wanted to tell the brand story in a more editorial way, and that led to hiring Honor Brodie from
InStyle, who is now our creative director. She built a team that focuses on the
Tory blog, which is expression of all the things that inspire and entertain Tory, whether it’s an artist or author or even another designer. The blog doesn’t talk much about Tory, but about other things, and I think that’s what’s unique about it.
Honor and I [have] worked together to integrate the blog and commerce. We’ve brought in all the content into the shopping experience so that the customer can explore and connect with the brand while they’re browsing product. We do look at the analytics of customers who explore content, and have found that they are a more highly engaged customer across the board, not only in how much time they spend on website, but in terms of their purchases and loyalty as well.
What does your current investment in social media look like?
We’re currently on
Facebook,
Twitter, Flipboard,
Tumblr,
Foursquare,
YouTube, and Weibo in China. [Those accounts] are run by a small team of two people, except for
Twitter, which is run by Tory herself, and Weibo, which is run by our team in Shanghai, in partnership with our editorial team in NYC. [Tory has] always embraced social media, and if it feels right for our brand, we’ll launch it, test our way into it, learn quickly and make adjustments as appropriate.
What about video?
The film genre is very important to Tory. We believe it’s a dynamic way to tell the brand story, we do all different types of films — behind the scenes during a seasonal photo shoot, or filming Tory on one of her trips where she gets inspiration for her designs. It’s a pretty varied mix of content, and we’re continuing to learn what is successful.
With so many platforms to choose from, how do you decide where to invest your time?
I can’t think that we’ve ever scaled back any of our efforts anywhere. We do make sure when pooling resources to manage another social platform that we do it well, that we take our time and think through how to do each platform differently. On
Tumblr we do one strong image and a letter, and on
Facebook we do more behind-the-scenes content. With
Foursquare, we focus on the location element. While the voice is consistent across all these platforms, we treat each one differently because they are all unique.
What sort of return on your investment have you seen? And how do you measure it: sales conversions or engagement?
We measure both. Although we have a very strong and growing Facebook and Twitter community, we [also] want to have a truly engaged community. In terms of metrics, we look at
Klout score, amplification and responses. We pay close attention to what types of messages we post and how they are received, and that informs our thinking going forward. It’s truly a constant learning process.
You’ve recently begun experimenting with Fcommerce by offering discounts on certain items through Facebook. Why have you pursued that strategy in particular?
We’re testing some concepts now, including exclusives on Facebook. It’s more of a surprise and delight for our Facebook community, and so far it’s been successful in driving excitement and sales. Consumers who are fans of a brand on Facebook have a certain appropriate expectation that there should be an exclusive benefit just for them. [Our exclusive discounts] are about tapping into that sensibility.
Do you think Facebook will ever become a major sales channels for you? If not, what value does it offer you as a company?
We believe that social shopping, or Fcommerce as everyone is calling it now, is the future of ecommerce. The demographic skews younger on Facebook compared to our core customer, so we see it as a really important way to connect with that consumer. We’re embracing [Fcommerce] with our Facebook shop and our exclusives early on so we can learn quickly. I don’t think we’ll import our full catalog to Facebook. My hunch is — and Honor and I talk about this a lot — that the experience should be curated in some way, and we’re testing some ideas and concepts with that in mind. We love
Google Catalogs, the idea of taking our traditional printed formats and bringing it into a digital space, but I think — as we were mentioning earlier about social platforms needing to be slightly differentiated — that is true of social shopping as well.
Does the same potential exist for other platforms?
They’re all so different. I think about Flipboard and being able to create your own personalized content, but it’s hard to say. Facebook is certainly the destination where social shopping is being most closely integrated, both on Facebook Pages and on retail sites.
Are you planning to set up a Google+ page?
Yes, we’re excited.
What advice would you give other brands — fashion or otherwise — going forward?
I think it’s about being yourself. In the social space it’s just as important to stay true to your brand and your brand’s lens just as you would anywhere else.
