When Deena Bahri became CMO at StockX in 2019, she helped lead the company’s marketing through the pandemic and expanded its offerings to non-apparel categories. Now, Bahri said her focus is on making StockX an international platform.
“We’ve always had customers from all over the world, some of whom have jumped through a lot of hoops in places where it’s not easy to shop from because of shipping,” Bahri said. “We want to make that frictionless for them. In marketing, it’s about balancing the things that are universal — like the imbalance of supply and demand — with the specific dynamics of each market. Japan, Latin America and other regions all have their own culture around what products are in demand and what aren’t.”
Despite the relative newness of analytics in marketing, Bahri said it’s important to think beyond performance marketing.
“There’s been a bit of a swing back to branding and storytelling,” Bahri said. “I credit our beloved next-gen customer because they care and they don’t want to just be transacted with. They want their hearts and minds captured. Data-driven marketing is great, but it can be soulless without that element of storytelling. Balancing that left-brain and right-brain thinking is an important skill.”
StockX launched in June 2021 its first StockX Day, a four-day-long campaign including panel discussions and exclusive drops that ran across the company’s marketing channels. Bahri called it a “tentpole brand moment.” Bahri also cited emerging channels like Discord, Twitch and connected TV as new ways to connect with StockX’s tech-savvy customers. She said the kind of two-way communication that platforms like Discord provide — where customers can speak among themselves and directly to the brand — is presenting new opportunities for marketers.
Still, speed and adaptability are the most important skills for a marketer, Bahri said. While the last two years have seen the pandemic dominate and dictate much of the sudden changes marketers need to be aware of, she said other factors shouldn’t be pushed to the wayside.
“The pandemic isn’t over, but there’s less disruption from it,” she said. “We know what to do now when cases [spike]. Now, macroeconomic factors and consumer trends are changing. We need to react to the world as it is.”
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