Wunderkind Success Story: Clarks

Marcus Oughton: I was scared with that like - wake me up. Yeah. Yeah. Hi everyone. Marcus Oughton, Head of eCommerce UK and EMEA at Clarks. So, at Clarks, a fairly diverse role because the team I have spans pretty much the end- to- end operation of eCommerce. So, primary accountability is for the defining and delivering of the eCommerce strategy, but it's more about driving that commercial agenda and obviously, part of an amazing team, which I lead of 30 strong eComm experts. Absolutely. Sorry, do I me to say Absolutely or do I just run in with a, do you want to do the clapper thing again or do you want me to just...

Crew: No, we're just rolling.

Marcus Oughton: We're rolling. We're rolling. Okay. So, Clark's mission is to empower everyone with the freedom to move comfortably. And I think the important thing about our mission is that it just flows through everything we do, everything we stand for, our values, how we operate, the innovation that's going into our products, how we represent the brand, and how we really engage with our consumer base. So, Clarks has segmented its base into four primary audiences, lots and lots of research, and this is really about ensuring that everything we do drives an agenda and the brand forward in those particular areas. So, the four main segments, we've got the sensible style seekers, we've got the timeless style seekers, and then we've got the contemporary style seeker, and then we've got the style maker. And so, there's a desire to appeal to all of those segments. But in terms of attracting new customers to Clarks, it's about the contemporary style seeker. Wunderkind for me is really a superb and complimentary tool that we have within our marketing framework. Why Wunderkind? Why do we evaluate it? I think it's a challenge all marketeers have faced in the sense of, are we spending our investment wisely? Are there any other avenues that we could explore? How can we partner with a MarTech platform to enable us to expand on what we're doing? And for me, Wunderkind was well positioned to help us with two main objectives. The first one was around growing our database. So, we had a real desire to accelerate and turbocharge the collection of data. And then secondly, it was about the acceleration of our engagement with visitors to our site. So, we needed a partner who could help us with really driving down the abandonment rate throughout our purchase funnel. Yeah, good question. I would probably like to phrase it more about opportunities rather than challenges. So again, for us, it's going to be the continued growth of our database. We also need to broaden out our thinking of what Wunderkind can help us with. So, we're actively talking about the SMS program because for me, there's an element of how do we increase the relevancy of the communication with our customers. I think that that's really an opportunity for us is how we can engage and drive a higher sense of engagement, and that ultimately will flow through to improving customer lifetime value. So again, I don't really see it as a challenge. I see it as an opportunity over the next 12 months. Yeah. So, Wunderkind, since we've been partnering, and this is sort of two years in now, the big thing for us is us being able to increase the size of our database by over a hundred percent. But it's a database now of very active consumers, consumers that are very actively engaged with the brand. The other thing as well is the significant improvement to our conversion funnel. So again, from checkout abandonment to cart abandonment, what may seem like fairly obvious stuff to a lot of people is been fundamental for us to really drive our conversion in a positive direction. Yeah. So, Clarks' performance marketing strategy is fairly standard at the moment. We've spent a lot of time over the last couple of years getting the basics. I think in terms of owned channel marketing, for me, the next 12 months is about, how do we really leverage our customer database? How do we drive increased relevancy through the content that we generate? How do we engage more with our consumers to increase that lifetime value? So, the big thing for me about owned marketing is it's not a situation where we want to be in the case of acquire new customer purchase once and don't repurchase. It's more about the constant engagement and that lifetime value. I don't think it's necessarily an immediate shift of spend that we considered. It's more about investing wisely. So, whether it's removing spend from particular channels or whether it's seeking more investment to drive further channels or existing channels forward. For me, it's about the fluidity of a marketing investment, which is something that we're constantly reviewing. It's all about efficiency of our spend and how much that that pound is driving in terms of revenue. So, less about pure diversion of spend and more about what is the right mix at any particular point in the year to meet on those customer and business objectives. One of the big things for me is the transparency that we get from Wunderkind, the proactive suggestions around what should the development roadmap look like. I don't think there's anything that's not discussed when we have review sessions. And it's great because it feels like a really solid partnership. I think it's the drive and the passion that Wunderkind can have for the brand. It makes it feel very, very special. I've mentioned about the development roadmap, but there's a real understanding from the team at Wunderkind of what our objectives are. And so, suggestions, proposals of how we can accelerate are really in line with where we are heading. Everything feels super relevant. And yeah, again, it just comes back to the transparency and the true nature of the partnership that's been developed. Million- dollar question, isn't it? Million- dollar question. So, the future. Yeah, the future is exciting, which is probably something a lot of people say, but for us as a brand, 2024, 2025 are going to be super exciting. We are going to be really, really lasering it. Lasering in. Doesn't sound right, does it? We've just really got to a place, where we're fostering this test and learn culture and innovation really in driving things forward. So yeah, next two, three years, very, very, very exciting for the brand.