When Ron Johnson, former head of Apple Retail, took over JCP, it was a declining mass market department store. Ron Johnson’s vision was to transform the retailer into a shop-in-shop style specialty story with some of the most popular brands. His first shop build-out was the Levi’s Denim Bar. JCP and Levi’s co-invested to build over 500+ shops across the country. The average shop build out was of $150K.
RESPONSIBILITY // While JCP ran point on the build outs, my team worked directly with their teams on the final designs, customization and adaptation of the Levi’s Denim Bar.
RESULT // While Ron Johnson’s vision never fully came to fruition and was ultimately deemed a failure, Levi’s business experienced a significant rebound from the pre-shop performance. Four years later, JCP is one of Levi’s top performing accounts.
JCP’s investment in the Levi’s brand, forced Macy’s to follow suit and offer a better, more elevated customer experience than JCP. With that goal in mind, we worked extensively with Macy's to design a prototype and pilot program of a new shop concept. Incorporating refinements from the pilot program, we rolled out the shop concept to 150 door of Macy’s top markets and doors.
RESPONSIBILITY // Working tightly with Macy's merchant and in-store teams, my team led the design briefing and managed the build out and performance tracking for the shops.
RESULT // The new shops were installed into stores that had already undergone significant renovation and shop upgrades from other brands. The Levi's shop experience catapulted the product shopping experience beyond it's peer class.
Technology has become a major ingredient to the in-store shopping experience. Shopping floors inherently have limited space for inventory and product stories. By leveraging technology, the brand and retailer are able to provide access to the full assortment, sizes and product programs at the point of purchase. All of the major retailers made significant investments in delivering on-floor technologies. Macy’s is probably the most advance in this area. For the new Macy’s Levi’s Shops, we created a 6 ft tall interactive touch screen where customers could review product stories, fit guide and guide. Additionally, we installed several large format video monitors, that ran brand photos and videos of the exclusive product programs available at Macy’s.
RESPONSIBILITY // With the help of a third-party technology firm, we owned the design, development, testing and roll out of the passive and interactive video experiences.
RESULT // The overall investment in technology gave the Macy’s in-store Levi’s experience the competitive advantage Macy’s wanted in the marketplace and reflected the hierarchy of Levi’s distribution to Macy’s as the premier Better Department Store.
JCP also made major investments with in-store technologies. They outfitted each denim bar with 2 iPads where consumers could review the entire Levi's assortment, find their style with the Fit Finder as well as explore seasonal collections with the LookBook.
The 501, Levi's most recognized product name, was updated and relaunched in 2012. The relaunch was the opportunity to shine a light on the many faces of the 501. Using social media, the brand asked consumers to join the conversation and share how they wear the 501 and make it their own.
RESPONSIBILITY // My team executed the in-store experience of the 501 relaunch - designing and installing product banners that included the #501 CTA.
RESULT // Additional exposure for the brand's social media campaign in over 2,000 retail doors.
One of the most significant commercial product innovations Levi's made recently is the Commuter program. The Commuter collection was designed around the rider and incorporated innovative technical features into the product. After its initial launch in the best urban bike shops, the collection was opened to better department stores. Product banners and videos were created for the department store consumer experience.
RESPONSIBILITY // My team worked with retailers and Levi's creative resources to develop and install product banners and videos targeting the department store consumer.
RESULT // Strong performance at department stores helped triple the sales of the Commuter line in year two of the program.
As the original denim jean, Levi's were adopted as the uniform of the original legends of skateboarding. As Levi's challenges itself to bring technical and style innovation to specific audiences, skateboarders were the next logical group. In collaboration with Nike, Levi's launched its first ever skateboarding collection which included jeans with special abrasion resistant denim.
RESPONSIBILITY // My team worked with retailers and Levi's creative resources to launch and market the program at specialty retail.
RESULT // The initial launch was hugely successful and helped Levi's expand distribution and assortments with Action Sports retailers.
Wholesale E-commece grew exponentially during 2011, '12 and '13. A key ingredient to the success of our wholesale partners was our digital support of their businesses. For all our major retail partners, our team created and delivered product and marketing campaign photography as well as designed digital shop-in-shop experiences. The above image - The Levi's Store at Amazon.com - is an example of one of these shops..
One of the key roles of the Wholesale Marketing was to lead the sell-in of seasonal brand and in-store marketing with Key Accounts