On the final day of Shoptalk Fall in Chicago last week, executives discussed how to retain customers and what the best leaders in retail today are doing differently. 

Some of the speakers on day three included Rene Federico, head of marketing at Primark US, Sara Kleinman, general manager for Ruggable North America, Bennett Fox-Glassman, senior vice president of customer journey at Macy’s, and Candan Erenguc, COO of Anthropologie. Here are the key takeaways from their panels.

Building retention in times of change

Retail veterans Rene Federico, head of marketing at Primark US, Sara Kleinman, general manager for Ruggable North America and Bennett Fox-Glassman, senior vice president of customer journey at Macy’s, discussed their strategies for optimizing consumer retention levels. 

Federico emphasized the importance of not only establishing a strong brand identity through visual marketing but also building a strong connection between the brand and the consumer. 

“Our brand experience is a full manifestation of our brand values,” said Federico. 

“Does your response reflect your values as a company?” she asked the audience. “If not, you need to explore where the disconnect is.”

Federico added that once a brand has established a strong brand identity and is able to demonstrate that strong connection with the consumer, they are less likely to be forgotten. 

Fox-Glassman agreed, and noted that establishing a personalized connection via the in-store experience is a key part of retaining customers.

For example, one tactic Macy’s practices to connect with customers is to have store managers send e-mails to their customer list with hyper-relevant messages.

Additionally, both Federico and Fox-Glassman noted the importance of being human when it comes to retailer-customer discussions.

For example, if an error occurs, such as a shipping mistake, it is important for a brand to admit fault, provide a sincere apology and provide an offer to show the customer that the retailer cares and will do better the next time around. 

More often than not, Fox-Glassman noted, customers will be touched by the gesture and will come back as long as the brand continues to provide an overall satisfying shipping experience.

Creative sprints: Moving from idea to execution at the speed of light

Later on day three, Milani’s CMO Jeremy Lowenstein, Papa John’s CMO Jenna Bromberg and SharkNinja’s CMO Kaitlyn Hebert discussed the importance of out-of-the-box thinking when it comes to designing effective marketing campaigns.

As a case-point example, Hebert referenced a campaign SharkNinja previously released to announce the launch of a high-tech fridge drawer.

As Hebert told the audience, “How do you celebrate a drawer? It’s not that exciting. So we said, let’s come up with something disruptive.”

Hebert and the marketing team came up with the concept of BDE, Big Drawer Energy. While the campaign was considered a bit risque considering the alternate meaning of the term, it “turned out to be a really good lesson”, as Hebert put it, for the power of creative marketing concepts. 

Milani Cosmetics’ Lowenstein shared another example of a creative campaign that delivered results. 

The beauty CMO told the audience despite Milani being considered the seventh-largest mass beauty brand in the world, there are only five people on the marketing team who are dedicated to creating campaigns, including himself. This means that some of the brand’s most viral marketing moments are born out of a company group chat discussion.

“We are constantly ideating and having conversations between the team’s text threads and emails, seeing what’s out there, and often we are able to just take a risk and develop the content really quickly for our bigger moments,” said Lowenstein.

After seeing the virality that ’90s and early 2000s culture was having, particularly around the series “America’s Next Top Model”, the team launched the “America’s Top Primer” campaign, presenting Milani’s best-selling primer against other competitive products in the industry, in the first quarter of the year.

The campaign was so culturally resonant that the team was able to leverage the concept for several months.

However, for as many viral moments as the team has been able to generate quickly, Lowenstein admitted that there are times when ideas fall flat, which is normal, and a necessary part of the process. 

For example, even when a campaign doesn’t have an immediate return-on-investment in terms of sales, it can generate brand awareness, which will benefit the brand in the long-run, explained Lowenstein.

Ultimately, it is the CMO’s responsibility to create an environment where unconventional, yet successful ideas can blossom.

What the best leaders are doing differently

In one of the final panels of the day, Anthropologie COO Candan Erenguc discussed the key elements of being a capable leader.

Erenguc reminisced upon the beginning of her career, which began roughly 25 years ago in the automotive industry. From there, she shifted into consulting, before diving into the field of consumer products, then finally entering retail.

However, she explained that it was her time in an automotive assembly plant where she really saw the value of connection. 

“All of the upstream decisions that are made by the marketing or sales teams, engineers, and designers come to bear on the shop floor. So very early on, collaboration became a key discipline in terms of how I lead the team,” said Erenguc. 

She added that the definition of a good leader is not centered on the individual person, but on the ability for a leader to build a team that leverages each member’s unique capabilities and aligns them under a clear set of goals.

“For Anthropologie, a successful leader is not a leader that delivers results. A successful leader is one who sets their team up to deliver successful results. It’s a nuanced difference, but it makes a really huge impact if you slightly shift how you think about what success looks like.

“It’s not about individual success, it’s about setting up a team in the right way, developing that team and giving them the tools and support they need for long-term success,” Erenguc concluded. 

Further reading:

• Shoptalk Day One: REI and Jonathan Adler execs talk about the magic of retail at Shoptalk Fall
• Shoptalk Day Two: Target, Ace Hardware and Coach discuss curation on day two of Shoptalk Fall