J.Crew's Media Approach {thoughts?}

"Thanks!" to GigisGoneShopping who shared a post over at Track Maven (click here to read in its entirety). It chronicles J.Crew's use of social media.

J.Crew’s Data-Driven Approach To Fashion (And Marketing)

...Every trend and every seasonal success can be tracked, measured, and even proactively predicted by those who treat every customer interaction as part of a larger data opportunity. ...

As of late, J.Crew has served as a standout example at the intersection of being fashion forward as well as analytically proactive. J.Crew’s CEO, Millard “Mickey” Drexler, has been at the forefront of this transition. As chronicled in The Business of Fashion, Drexler’s data-driven approach to fashion borders on infamous.

This data-driven approach to fashion has remained a mainstay of Drexler’s approach, a point the At Work With Mickey Drexler authors describe beautifully:

“A big part of what makes J.Crew the most compelling American retail — and dare we say it,  fashion — success story of the past 10 years is Drexler’s uncanny ability to pick up on market trends and patterns incredibly quickly, consult data to back up his observations, then bring those trends to the masses. It’s perhaps the core reason he was able to transform a once-promising, long-struggling catalogue business into a powerful arbiter of taste.”

Under the stewardship of Mickey Drexler, digital marketing has grown to become an integral part of J.Crew’s overall strategy. According to J. Crew’s annual S.E.C. filing, which was made available online earlier this year, J.Crew’s marketing and advertising strategy is summarized as follows:

“We communicate our brand message to customers through all channels, including our websites, our catalogs, email marketing, online advertising, and our social media presence. Our core marketing objectives are structured to drive awareness and differentiation of our brands, increase new customer acquisition, maintain and build customer retention and loyalty, and build brand awareness internationally."

Digital marketing and social media have played an important part of our strategy in our recent history and are among our most effective marketing tools. We have found that J.Crew customers who engage with us via our social media outlets (facebook, twitter, Pinterest or Instagram) generally spend approximately 2x more than the average J.Crew customer. Facebook is the current leading player in terms of size and time spent on site, but there are significant growth opportunities in our new visual platforms, such as Pinterest and Instagram.”

Yes, you read that right: “J.Crew customers who engage with us via our social media outlets (Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, or Instagram) generally spend approximately 2x more than the average J.Crew customer” (emphasis added). By driving meaningful engagement across a variety of social media channels, J.Crew’s data-driven marketing has succeeded in cultivating an online audience that spends twice as much as the average customer.

What’s more impressive about this statistic is that it stands in stark comparison to the description of J.Crew’s marketing and advertising efforts in their 2013 filling, which focused largely on their print catalog, with barely a whisper of digital marketing:

“The J.Crew catalog is the primary branding and advertising vehicle for the J.Crew brand. We believe our catalog reinforces the J.Crew mission and brand image, while driving sales in all of our channels. We believe we have distinguished ourselves from other catalog retailers by utilizing high quality photography and art direction. We have also expanded our marketing strategy to include online, print and outdoor advertising.”

So how does J.Crew plan to continue to develop and leverage this connection between digital marketing and customer spend? In their report, J.Crew explained its strategy for competitive positioning as follows:

“We believe our success depends in substantial part on our ability to originate and define product and fashion trends as well as to timely anticipate, gauge and react to changing consumer demands. Some of our competitors are larger and may have greater financial, marketing, and other resources than us. Accordingly, there can be no assurance that we will be able to compete successfully with them in the future.”

When it comes to competitive positioning, J.Crew is right to identify Pinterest and Instagram as “significant growth opportunities.” According to a study from Vision Critical featured in the Harvard Business Review, 21% of the Pinterest users reported buying an item in-store after “pinning, repinning, or liking it.” The percentage was even higher among Pinterest users under the age of 35, with 36% reporting doing so.

But as J.Crew noted in their filing, Pinterest is just one of many social channels they are employing to build an engaged fan based. To take a look at the content strategies driving J.Crew’s newfound success on social media, we analyzed J.Crew using our marketing analytics platform.

...Facebook is by far the most dominant social channel for J.Crew. With 1.2 million Facebook fans and counting, J.Crew has found success on the network with content that serves as a digital counterpart to their print catalog (which is referred to not as catalog, but as a style guide). Over the past year, the vast majority of J.Crew’s Facebook posts with the most social interactions featured a styled photo with short, relatable copy, and most importantly, a link to where you can buy the featured items on their website.

...With 480,000 followers and counting, J.Crew’s Instagram account is their second most popular social channel. Unlike the catalog-esque content on Facebook, J.Crew approaches content creation on this more image-focused network as an opportunity to cultivate a J.Crew culture. Notice that among their most engaging posts from the past year, few are peppered with links to the online store. Rather, the images are supported with branded hashtags — and a few links to the J.Crew blog.

...J.Crew has amassed nearly 143,000 Pinterest followers to date. Comparable to their strategy on Instagram, J.Crew’s most popular Pinterest pins speak to a larger J.Crew-related lifestyle. Five of the top ten most re-pinned, liked, and commented on pins featured travel images from exotic locales. ...

I thought this was a really interesting article about how J.Crew utilizes social media. Although the article fails to mention that J.Crew was late to board the social media bus. Remember when J.Crew's Twitter account was silent for the longest time? Remember how long it took for them to get a blog?

I also want to comment on the following quote: "J.Crew customers who engage with us via our social media outlets (Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, or Instagram) generally spend approximately 2x more than the average J.Crew customer”. Is this based on J.Crew's social media expertise -or- the more likely scenario that customers who engage in their social media outlets are the biggest fans of J.Crew? (I love J.Crew so I seek them out, but I don't do that with other brands that I just "like". Even if they have a great social media presence.)

Lastly, I hope J.Crew does not give up on its catalogs. I remember getting all excited about the catalogs (especially destination ones!) and tagging each page. I don't do that much now. J.Crew needs to make those catalogs feel special again. (I still get excited when I get the Pottery Barn catalog. The formula is pretty much the same and it works on me!)

What are your thoughts on this article? Do you feel like J.Crew has harnessed the power of social media? Do you think there are areas it does really well or really poorly with?