Executive Action Items: How True Religion, Shinola and more brands are balancing digital and IRL marketing

Focus group members:

Taylor Capuano, the co-founder of the women’s nipple cover brand Cakes Body. Capuano founded the brand along with her sister in 2022 after working as senior marketing manager at Life is Good.

Kristen D’Arcy, CMO of the 23-year-old denim brand True Religion. D’Arcy has an extensive background in marketing and fashion, holding senior marketing positions at brands like Pacsun, Oscar de la Renta, Ralph Lauren, Coty and American Eagle Outfitters.

Samantha Fodrowski, vp of brand marketing at the Western boots brand Tecovas. Fodrowski previously worked as senior director of marketing at Kendra Scott and held marketing positions at Clean Cause and Tiff’s Treats.

Dana Mosa-Basha, director of marketing for the Detroit-based watch and handbag brand Shinola. Mosa-Basha has marketing experience at PVH Corp and TikTok and was most recently head of digital marketing for Soho House.

What’s working in digital marketing

Capuano: “The first year [of business], we only did organic TikTok posts, no paid, and we scaled to around $10 million. In our second year, we started doing paid TikTok ads and scaled up to $90 million. We took the top 1% of best-performing organic content and turned that into a paid ad. We wouldn’t put anything in paid without first testing it as organic. And what we’re seeing is that on TikTok and even on Meta, anything that looks even remotely polished is a loser for us. The top-performing content for us is loose, meme-style videos that take 10 seconds to film and are funny and self-deprecating. Maybe it’s different for other brands with a different audience, but that’s what we see.”

Mosa-Basha: “The market is so saturated right now. We’re trying to educate the company on cohesion between the entire experience of the brand and having a similar experience on the website as on social and in the stores. But each of those channels also has its own identity, and what works in e-commerce doesn’t always work on social or in email. So we’re trying to look at each channel and say, ‘How do we tailor this channel to what works best for the audience there?’”

Fodrowski: “We have a team of around 15 people who work with content creators across the board, and we’re connecting with new people in the Western space. So we recently launched a great new series of field photography, working with excellent photographers from across the country, sending them our product and just asking them to show us their take on it. Our social followers are a bit younger than our typical customer, but we know we’re having a moment right now and we’re introducing ourselves to a lot of new customers for the first time. So it’s important we’re welcoming to them while staying true to who we are.”

D’Arcy: “One other thing that’s working for us is audio ads. We are running audio ads, for example, on Spotify before you get a half hour of free music. We had a ROAS of over 20-to-1. We fell out of our chairs. We continued with a different audio campaign in January, and it was a little less but still well above average. We’re scaling that up a lot now, and we’re excited to see where it lands.”

What’s working in IRL marketing

Fodrowski: “The retail experience is our North Star. We think of our stores as being the most welcoming of any Western goods brand. We have bars in the store, tons of options for customization, live music. People like to hang out. And what works in our stores is really helpful in determining what other activations we would do. For example, we have partnered with music festivals like Stagecoach last year. This year, we’re working with Two Step Inn, a new music festival just outside of Austin. We’re opening in a lot of areas that are not traditionally Western apparel markets, like Boston or Philadelphia. And as we expand, we’re trying to set ourselves apart as a brand that welcomes people into the fold.”

Mosa-Basha: “For us, IRL marketing has been a lifeline. It’s so valuable. In larger cities like Los Angeles or Chicago, where people are inundated with brand messaging and marketing all the time, we’ve found that when we interact with people IRL, it really helps solidify the brand in their mind — even if they don’t leave with a product or with a sale. The hard part is how to track IRL events to show it was worth it or brought in this many guests. But when we can track things, we see lifetime value over a year is massively higher for people who come to our IRL events than for people who we’ve only interacted with online. It’s like watering a flower.”

D’Arcy: “The measurement point is really important. For the Super Bowl this year, we sponsored a Sports Illustrated party, and we knew there would be 3,000 people coming through this event, many of which are A-list celebrities or athletes. So we had an activation there, but it was gated; you could only participate if you signed up for our loyalty program. There are a lot of softer ways to measure the success of an IRL event, like through earned media impressions or mentions on social, but having a specific goal like loyalty sign-ups in mind ahead of time helps a lot. It’s also much easier to sell it to your CFO. Rather than saying, ‘I want to sponsor this party because it’s cool,’ you can say, ‘There will be 3,000 influential people, and I want to get them to sign up for our loyalty program.’”

Capuano: “IRL is super important for credibility for a social-first brand. We started on social, but we don’t want to be just a TikTok brand. And IRL marketing goes hand-in-hand with retail. So we’re testing a retail concept this summer that will host livestreaming and live selling all day long, from right there in the retail location. So it’s combining experiential with our social expertise and making it an IRL destination.”