Wunderkind Success Story: Kate Spade

Speaker 1: Amanda, thank you so much for taking the time to join us.

Amanda Bopp: Of course. Sure. My name is Amanda Bopp. I am Vice President of North America at Kate Spade. This means that I'm responsible for the full customer experience, both online and offline, in our stores and on our digital platforms. So Kate Spade was founded in 1993. We are a purveyor of handbags, shoes, ready- to- wear, and all sorts of lifestyle accessories. Our purpose is joy colors life, and we really believe that any spark of joy can be transferred across and make an impact for customers. We also have a lot of serious work that we do with our foundation and other charitable initiatives to really support mental health and wellbeing in young women and girls. I think for me, the icing on the cake is that work that we do, which is really, really impactful to people's lives and can make a big difference. So it's a really nice balance of creating products and experiences that are really wonderful and then also backing it up with that substance and really supporting people through what can be very difficult moments in their lives. So Wunderkind has been a longstanding partner with Kate Spade long before I got there. One of the things that the team identified early on is that in the digital world and in trying to compete in e- commerce, there's a lot of different behaviors that customers take on, and being able to respond to those behaviors and to be able to respond at an individual level was really important for us at the time and continues to be so. And I think as our business has grown, so too has the partnership with Wunderkind. And we get really excited about when the team comes to the tables with new opportunities because our customer's needs are always changing and our business is very fast and ever- changing as well. We have a fairly large customer base, and so understanding the needs is not a one- size- fits- all approach. We have a variety of different data resources that we use, but we also look at a variety of different research pieces. So we really want to blend the quantitative and the qualitative to understand fundamentally who our customer is, how she lives her life, and what's important to her. And I think understanding that at a macro level helps when there are challenges in business or when we think that a product or a campaign is really going to resonate and it doesn't hit in the way that we think it should. It's important for us to go back to those insights that we have about our core consumer to really say, hey, did we think about this thoroughly before we put this into market? The other thing that I will say is that we do a lot of social listening, because again, as you say, the landscape is ever- changing and we do have that wide base of customers. So what our youngest customers are thinking and concerned about might not be what a customer my age is concerned about and thinking about. So making sure that we're really covering the gamut in terms of all sorts of research and listening opportunities really helps us just to be smarter. So first, Wunderkind is our first line of defense, if you will, in terms of collecting customer information. So that's really, really important to us is to make sure that we have ways to connect with our community and with our customer and Wunderkind is the partner that helps us do that. I think beyond that, where Wunderkind has been really helpful for us is helping us to identify all of the different ways in which the customer is interacting on our website and points at which we can actually intervene within her journey in a positive way. So for example, if a customer has left something in her cart, which is, as you know, a very common customer behavior, we work with Wunderkind to understand if there are times where maybe it's more appropriate to nudge her about that, to say to her, hey, look, we are low in stock on this item, or this product has now gone on sale, so maybe if you were thinking about it but were hesitant because not everybody's ready to buy a$ 300 handbag, we've made this more accessible for you. So Wunderkind is really amazing in that it helps us to think through different scenarios that are going on within the customer's purchase journey. So I'm a big, big believer in owned and operated channels. I think that there is a lot that we can do with the customers that have raised their hand and voted for us with their wallets and there is even more we can do with our owned properties. In terms of shifting budgets from one property to another, we're always thinking about that, right? We're always looking at where we're going to get the biggest bang for our buck. I think it's just a balance between how are we going to impact the experience of the existing customer and how are we really going to strengthen our ecosystem versus some of those more acquisition- focused channels. But really for me, whatever helps us service our customer best, whatever helps us to really optimize that experience, that's where we're going to see the ROI so that's where I'm going to prioritize. I think the standout element is really the people. I feel constantly and my team feels that Wunderkind is an extension of our team. It is very common for us to go to the team and say, hey, look, we are challenged on our email programs, or we are challenged on X, Y, and Z. Can you help us to brainstorm around opportunities? And we have never been let down. And I think that that's a really important point of difference. I think that Wunderkind helps us not just with customer identity, but really with responding to the way in which the customer is going through her journey, and Wunderkind helps us to get smarter about those different iterations within her journey. We are big believers in first- party data and we have amassed a significant amount of first- party data, and we treat that data with the utmost respect. So personally for the work that I do day in and day out, the deprecation of the cookie is not a huge challenge for us to overcome. I think the constant thing that we are thinking about is how do we make the communications and messaging that we are sending to those customers that we have first- party data for, how do we make it as relevant as possible? So for me, that's really the important thing versus thinking about what to do about the cookies. It's how am I treating the customers that have raised their hand and said, " Please communicate with me?" How am I making sure that the messages and the product that I'm putting in front of them is really going to make a difference for them and is going to be relevant and personal? So it's an interesting question because I think to date, we've really seen Wunderkind as more of a business- driving partner and less so of a brand strategy, how do we rethink what we're doing, how do we connect with consumers in a stronger way type of partner. And I think there's opportunity for us, especially around the creative testing, to really push that. I think the marketplace is so fragmented. As you know, there's a variety of social media channels and other media channels, and we really try to take an audience first approach so that we know we're using different platforms to connect with different audiences. I think there's an opportunity for us to use that creative testing to make sure that we're as sharp as possible around what we're putting out to those different audiences by channel. There are a variety of different SaaS providers that we work with. What I will say is that they suck up a lot of dollars on the P and L. And I think it's an important exercise from time to time to go through and to evaluate what all of those partners are and what the unique value they provide is into that customer experience. Because what kind of happens over time is you have one company that comes in promising to solve a very specific problem, they have an amazing pitch and you decide to work with them, and then nine months later somebody else comes in and so on and so forth. So there's a role that SaaS products play. I think what we are going through is identifying what are the things that we can build on our own and what are the things that we're still going to need to outsource just to create that efficiency across... because Kate Spade's a part of Tapestry, so across those family of brands. I wouldn't say that they've helped to fill the gaps for sure. What I would say is that they have been a leading partner for us, and what I would say is that when we evaluate other SaaS products and SaaS providers, what we often come up against is that Wunderkind can already do this. And so they hold really a special place within our portfolio of different providers that we work with.