Co-creation seems to be the name of the retail game. At least that was the pervading message on day one of Shoptalk, an annual retail conference taking place this week in Las Vegas, Nevada. 

Running from March 17-20, the conference has attracted the best and the brightest in the retail industry, including big names like Winnie Park, chief executive officer of Forever 21 (and Inside Retail’s latest cover star), Heidi Cooley, senior vice president and chief marketing officer at Crocs, and Tony Spring, Macy’s recently appointed chief executive officer.   

From fashion to food, one strategy these retail executives seem to agree on is listening to the consumer, no matter how unconventional or seemingly wacky their ideas and desires are, and engaging with them in an authentic and down-to-earth manner. 

Co-creation and collaboration are the keys to commercial success

Scott Mezvinsky, president of North America and international at Taco Bell, discussed the importance of genuinely connecting with consumers, especially Gen Z and Gen Alpha, through intriguing and authentic collaborations.

Mezvinksy explained that Taco Bell, which marks its 62nd anniversary this week, relies heavily on the ideas of Gen Z. 

“We want to talk to Gen Z, the cultural rebel, the muse who guides our [Taco Bell’s] brand voice and guides our community strategy guides,” Mezvinsky stated. 

One example of this is the brand’s collaboration with Gen Z-favorite pop artist Doja Cat to bring back a cult-favorite offering, its Mexican Pizza.

After a single tweet from the artist went viral, Taco Bell rolled out a multi-tiered marketing campaign that included a musical video feature starring country legend Dolly Parton.

As Mezvinsky explained, “Trying to be different but culturally relevant is something that we’ve carried on since the beginning. How it shows up today is very different obviously than when the brand first launched. But something that we really pride ourselves on is, how do we show up in a different way? How do we do things that are different?

“Most recently, we have a collaboration coming up with Cheez-it, which is Gen Z’s favorite cracker, coming out in next few months, and it just shows that we’re always looking to push the brand forward with collaborations,” he concluded.

For Crocs, listening to and respecting consumers’ desires has been key to its successful rebrand in recent years. The footwear brand’s senior vice president and chief marketing officer Heidi Cooley pointed to its first major celebrity collaboration with music artist Post Malone as an example.

The collaboration began in the most organic way possible, after the artist, happily and without any financial incentives, announced his support for the brand. The fortuitous tweets led Crocs’ social media team to contact the artist about collaborating, and the resulting partnership helped the brand’s image flip from “basic” to cool in the eyes of Boomers, Millenials, Gen Z, and Alpha consumers alike.

Cooley also pointed to unexpected product drops, such as the Crocs’ cowboy boot, and its sold-out Lightning McQueen collection, as examples of how the brand has listened to the consumers’ requests, no matter how random.

Park continued with the thread of collaboration, highlighting how brands can partner with other brands, such as Forever 21’s work with Barneys, and its unique collaboration with Barbie and online gaming platform Roblox, which enabled consumers to match their outfits in real life to the Barbie figure on the computer screen. 

“To be able to co-create is something that’s really exciting for us,” Park explained. “We love collaborations, that’s another way we tap culture and it had been our third [with Mattel] but this was the biggest one because it was before the Barbie movie.”

The secret to a successful collaboration, according to Park, involves “meeting the customer where they are”.

“I do know for a fact that relevance is about presence and engagement and it needs to be agnostic of some of the old beliefs that we have in marketing,” she said.

At the end of the session, the moderator Sarah Engel gifted Park a “retro” jacket from the first Forever 21 x Taco Bell collaboration in 2017. Earlier in the session, Cooley had given Engel, president of the marketing and analytics agency January Digital, a limited-edition pair of Crocs from a sold-out Crocs x Taco Bell collection.

And, not to be left out, it was evident on stage that Park and Mezvinsky were considering ideas for a Forever 21 x Taco Bell collection, part two.