Reimagining Retail: Building Your Brand While Nurturing a Loyal Following

On today’s podcast episode, we discuss how to increase basket size, how to break out of category while staying true to brand identity, and how to respond to TikTok trends without seeming like a brand responding to a TikTok trend. Listen to the conversation with our Senior Analyst Sara Lebow as she hosts VP of Content Suzy Davidkhanian and the CMO of True Religion Brand Jeans Kristen D’Arcy.

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Episode Transcript:

Sara Lebow (00:01):

Hello, listeners. Today is Wednesday, April 2nd. Welcome to Reimagining Retail, an eMarketer podcast. This is the show where we talk about how retail collides with every part of our lives. I'm your host, Sara Lebow. Today's episode topic is, Growing a Brand while Keeping a loyal Following.

(00:24):

Let's meet today's guests for this episode. Joining me for today's episode, we have podcast regular, VP on our retail desk, Suzy Davidkhanian. Hey, Suzy.

Suzy Davidkhanian (00:34):

Hello, thanks for having me.

Sara Lebow (00:36):

Thanks for being here. Also with us, we have a special guest today. It's Kristen D'Arcy, CMO at True Religion. Hi, Kristen, thank you for being here.

Kristen D’Arcy (00:44):

Of course, thanks so much for having me.

Sara Lebow (00:47):

Happy to have you. Okay, so let's jump in. True Religion, the denim company, has been around since 2002. I got that from your website, which I hate to say this, it was more than 20 years ago. So, it's not a young brand. How has True Religion managed to build and keep a loyal following during that time?

Kristen D’Arcy (01:07):

It's a great question, and the way that we teed this up was that we're a denim brand. We're actually an urban casual lifestyle apparel brand, and I think that is how we can build and keep a loyal following with regard to product, and then I'll talk about the marketing in a second.

(01:27):

So when you look at our product, and let's take jeans for example, there are certain fits for men and women that our customers have come to know and love. So the Becca or the Ricky, for example. So, people keep coming back from a return or a repeat purchase perspective, because they know this fit, they love this fit. And then what's different is that we can infuse trends into the product specs. So for example, camo is really in. Maybe we'll put embellishment on these fits that you know. So from a loyal perspective, again, there's a suite of product offerings that you know you love, you come back for.

(02:12):

But then from a product perspective, we have a really great Chase program. The Chase program means that we are looking at trends that are happening right now in the market. We're responding to those trends. So, baggy, for example, big trend in men's. We test that in our own D2C channels, see if customers are biting, both new and returning customers. And then if they are, we roll out that Chase program even more fully to all of our stores, over 50, across the U.S. and to truereligion.com. So from a product perspective, it's always that balancing between what you know, and then something new that you can come and discover from us.

(02:55):

I think from a marketing perspective, we launched our loyalty program in 2023. We revamped it in 2024, just October actually, of last year. And we revamped it for a number of different reasons. One, we wanted to make sure that as a brand, we know that we sit at the intersection between music, sports, and culture. So, why not give the most loyal customers exclusive access to all three of those things like only we can? So that might mean if you're signed up for the loyalty program, you get early access, let's say 24 hours early, to shop an exclusive drop. Let's say that as a loyalty member you can enter a sweeps to sit front row at Coachella, where the brand will be popping up with a series of strategic marketing activations actually next month. So there's a number of different ways that we pulse in experiences into the loyalty program, in addition to new branding. It's called True Rewards, and we're already seeing almost a million people have signed up for that program.

Sara Lebow (04:03):

Wow.

Kristen D’Arcy (04:03):

And again, it was really, it's only been around for about a year and a half now in total.

Sara Lebow (04:08):

Kristen, do you get to go to Coachella next month?

Kristen D’Arcy (04:10):

I do. I think I'm going to go for a day or two. And it's funny because someone on my team said, "We need to plan our looks for Coachella." And I'm thinking, oh my gosh, A, I've never been to Coachella, believe it or not. And B, I bet there's definitely a Coachella vibe and we'll see how I can translate the True Religion way.

Suzy Davidkhanian (04:32):

I was going to say, I didn't realize that you're a 20-year-old brand. I feel like True Religion has such a strong branding. I mean, originally in the jeans space, that I would've thought you were a much, much older brand. What I find really interesting from a merchant old life perspective, is that you actually have a name for chasing trends, for how do you get around it to make sure that you are ahead, if not on trend, but testing it before you release it wide. Does that work with your distribution partners as well?

Kristen D’Arcy (05:06):

From a wholesale perspective, they're buying, I mean, we're showing our wholesale partners Holiday 2025 right now, so it's a little bit more of mainline. We typically do the most Chase volume with our D2C business units. I think what's interesting is when you look at D2C, we're really, really proud that our digital business in total is going to make up almost 50% of the total this year.

Suzy Davidkhanian (05:35):

Wow.

Sara Lebow (05:35):

Wow.

Kristen D’Arcy (05:35):

We have almost 10 million people in our databases, and that is continuing to grow, as we both continue to drive loyalty of course, but then bring millions of new consumers into the brand. And it's funny, you talked about us being just like a 23-year-old brand, and I think what's fascinating from my perspective, is a lot of people say, "How does all of the marketing feel so authentic?" And it's because 23 years ago, the Black Eyed Peas rapped about the brand, believe it or not. You had Venus and Serena Williams wearing us. And we looked at this timeline between 2002 and today, and there was persistent hits throughout music, sports, culture more broadly, of people talking about us, wearing us. And I think what's so interesting is that momentum just has continued to build, particularly as we've improved product both in men's and women's over the last couple of years. We've grown the women's business, so huge improvement over the last few years. And then the last is, all of that organic love now shows up in somebody like Timothée Chalamet wearing us organically.

Suzy Davidkhanian (06:45):

Oh, I saw that.

Sara Lebow (06:47):

Yeah. This is interesting to talk about because 2002, the Williams Sisters and the Black Eyed Peas, that's the most successful you can be as a brand. And this is also tale as old as time, especially in urban categories. I know that Tommy Hilfiger's story was that they sent merchandise specifically to different rappers and Snoop Dogg ended up wearing the product on SNL, and that's sort of how it ended up blowing up. So, that especially makes sense in your category, in the urban lifestyle category.

(07:18):

That brings me to a recent campaign I saw on your Instagram the other day. I saw Sexyy Red, which is a rapper I know for her song that blew up on TikTok, SkeeYee, was in your campaign. Now my guess is most of our listeners have no idea what I just said, that all sounds like Gen Z gibberish. So my question based on that is, how do you expand to younger customers by having people like Sexyy Red wearing the brand, without alienating consumers who are like, who the heck is that?

Kristen D’Arcy (07:50):

Yeah, it's such a good question. Sexyy's amazing, and maybe I'll start with the why. So, our customer loves Sexyy Red. We know that because we're constantly reading all of the comments in social. And while people have been really excited about some of the other faces over the last couple of years that we've partnered with, we do get a persistent thread that says, "What about Sexyy? Where is Sexyy?" And so we were really excited. I spoke with her personally when we reached out and the first thing she said to me is, "Why did you wait so long to call me?" I was like, "Because we wanted to make sure that we had the right campaign, the perfect campaign for you." And rumor has it, she has spent thousands of dollars, so not just through gifting, she has spent thousands of dollars on the product.

(08:43):

And when we launched Own Your True, that's our new brand platform in February, we thought coming out of the gate with Anitta, the global Brazilian Pop Superstar, would be amazing. We thought then, and that actually expands us to attract new customers, particularly Hispanic customers are really interesting to us. We think there's a huge opportunity there. So, Anitta was right out of the gate. YG, a West Coast rapper, followed about a week, two weeks ago, and then Sexyy Red, actually this is her launch week, she just launched on Tuesday. So it's that push and pull between, how do we go after this wide breadth of new consumers through somebody like an Anitta? And then how do we deliver what we know our core customer really wants, which like I said through the social comments alone was a Sexyy Red.

(09:34):

I want to talk really quickly about some of the initial success out of the gate with Sexyy Red, and then I want to back up and answer your question a little bit more broadly about bringing in younger customers. So Sexyy Red, like I said, launched on Tuesday. We did not spend any more on that advertising creative and paid media. We basically rotated her in to some of the other messages we had in market. Said that, because people were so excited to see her in True Religion officially now, a long time coming, we saw an increase in website traffic the day of launch by 70%, which is phenomenal. We saw sell-through of some of the looks increase immediately right out of the gate, so the product that she's actually wearing. We saw a spike of course in sales online that day. We are up double digits this year, which is phenomenal, given it's a really... And that's by way of sales, given it's a really tough retail market out there. So, these partnerships with the right faces at the right time definitely correlate to not only interest, but traffic and sales for us.

Suzy Davidkhanian (10:44):

And I think that's the key, right? It's the key is as a brand, staying authentic to your roots, which for you guys was music and entertainment and sports and culture, and making sure that in that authenticity you're using your core product so that you don't alienate your core people and your usual consumers, but you bring in new ones to sort of raise awareness. They do a little bit of research, we know everybody's doing research on TikTok, and then all of a sudden you've increased the number of people that are in your fold.

Sara Lebow (11:13):

Especially with a consumer that's already in the product. I mean, that's the most authentic thing you can do, is find someone who's already a fan of the product.

Kristen D’Arcy (11:21):

That's exactly right. And I think that's why it does feel, it continues to feel so organic. We had another recent organic hit, actually, Playboi Carti released a new album, it's already trending, and this happened only I think a week ago. He also released a music video as part of that album, and he's wearing head-to-toe True Religion, literally head [inaudible 00:11:47].

Sara Lebow (11:47):

As part of a campaign or just organically?

Suzy Davidkhanian (11:49):

On his own.

Kristen D’Arcy (11:50):

Totally organically.

Sara Lebow (11:51):

Cool.

Suzy Davidkhanian (11:52):

You know what I also is really helpful? It's that you have the same silhouettes in jeans with a twist, right? So we go from skinny to bootleg, but at the end of the day, it's still all the same sort of core product with glitter, without glitter, cameo. And so your core perhaps 20 years older than when you first started, is still buying that because jeans, although there are so many more brands in private label, is something that people feel a really strong emotional connection to. And once you've found that it style, then that's all you're buying, basically. So it's really hard to get attention by a different brand. So that you guys are in the moment, capturing new customers that are younger is amazing.

Sara Lebow (12:35):

But I'm curious about how that doesn't alienate older consumers, how that doesn't alienate someone who was a fan of the brand 20 years ago and has no clue who Sexyy Red is.

Suzy Davidkhanian (12:45):

Well as that potential customer, let me tell you, I didn't even know there was that campaign, right? True Religion, the brand is not hitting me with that campaign where I am. Right? So they're only hitting people in that age area that know that rapper or pop star or whoever, in a place where they're already there. So you're meeting your potential new customer where they are and you're leaving people like me who are buying your brand potentially, for the Bloomingdale's of the world to tell me more about your new stuff. You know what I... I think that's probably how you're not alienating your core customer.

Kristen D’Arcy (13:16):

That from a distribution standpoint, for sure. Although, we're seeing both kind of returning and new customers shopping our digital channel, being Truereligion.com or they're shopping through the app. And I think it's because the other part of the marketing strategy that we haven't talked about yet, it's called Team True. So Team True is an always on influencer program of now almost 100 people, and those people are really diverse. They're men and women, they range from college athletes, so we partner with a lot of NIL partners, frankly, to people that are in their 20s and 30s who are musicians, fashion stylists. We have the first ever NFL fashion stylist who's on Team True. We-

Sara Lebow (14:04):

Kristen, what's your sweet spot there, in terms of follower count? Are you looking at bigger creators or smaller ones, a mix?

Kristen D’Arcy (14:11):

It's a great question. For Team True, it's everybody from, I think on the low end, 20,000 followers, all the way up to believe it or not, five million.

Sara Lebow (14:20):

Okay.

Kristen D’Arcy (14:21):

There are pro athletes, WNBA, NBA, NFL. But again, you're able to attract both younger and older consumers through this Team True program that's always on, because of the diversity of people that we have in that program.

Sara Lebow (14:37):

Yeah, that makes sense. I was going to ask how you as a brand are able to participate in trends online without seeming out of touch, but it seems like that's the way, is instead of the brand participating in TikTok trends, you have your creators participating in them on your behalf.

Kristen D’Arcy (14:53):

We do that. I think we also, we look at trends that fit our DNA, so music, fashion and culture. And here's an example of something that we created or co-created I should say, in partnership with Dudette with a sign. For the Megan Thee Stallion campaign, we had Dudette with a sign walk around of course with a brand message. And here's an example of us sort of riffing on a trend, the sign that said, "Brat summer, demure fall," and it had crossed out both of those and we know both of those were trending, and then it said, "Hot girl holiday." And for those that know, hot girls are what Megan Thee Stallion sort of calls herself and her followers. So that's one way of us kind of riffing on the trend that we're seeing.

(15:43):

The other way that we're trying to be authentic, particularly on TikTok, and we do have someone whose sole full-time job it is to grow the followers in that channel and also create TikTok-specific content. So there, you'll see our content is music-driven, it's fashion in motion. We're trying to create cultural connections, so tapping into nostalgia and cultural moments that resonate with our audience. Tapping into community and creators, as is the case with Team True. And there's really no hard sell in that channel unless it's a very specific paid media ad. We're focusing on engagement and storytelling, rather than being overtly promotional there. And the big takeaway is focusing on that heritage and brand collaborations and campaigns. We've seen almost triple-digit follower growth over the last year, let alone the last six months. The engagement rate across all of our social content in organic is above industry average. And what that says to me is the team is doing an incredible job of being really authentic, frankly, and the way that we're engaging there.

Suzy Davidkhanian (16:51):

I'm all in on that, on the, you have to be authentic to who you are as a brand, otherwise you're not going to win, and you're not going to get new customers or keep your customers if you're selling them something that you're actually not. What I am interested in as well, so that's on the marketing side, but that authenticity also maybe even starts with the product and making sure that your product is on brand. And sometimes when I think about trends, because I was on the merchant side, I always think about the fashion trends and not the TikTok trends. But how do you make sure that you can continue to grow outside of the denim category and that your core and new customers are ready to grow with you in that space?

Kristen D’Arcy (17:35):

So, Michael Buckley, who is our CEO, brought in a new head of women's design, now about two and a half years ago. She has grown the women's business double digits in a very short amount of time, so now she oversees both women and men's product design. And I think she does a great job, whether it's denim or activewear or varsity jackets or baby tees or short shorts, no matter what the kind of product category, what is core to us are design elements that we know our customers want. So, we know they love the thick stitching, they love... I don't know if you guys can see it, but they love the logos across the board. So that is always front and center. The product design is really, really bold. We know that on the women's side, she likes faux fur, she likes glitter and rhinestone embellishments. We know for the guy, he likes patches, for example. He loves our graphic tees.

(18:41):

So I think number one, we start with this incredible product assortment that is both what you know, like those fits from a denim perspective we talked about earlier. And then you come to us and you discover this wide world of so many other product categories that we have. We put Sexyy Red and this incredible pink leopard active set, so that is out in the world in paid media, for example. So the awareness that we play in all of these other categories is there.

(19:10):

And then from a marketing perspective, obviously there's a ton of science happening under the covers every day where if we know that you bought a pair of jeans, we're going to retarget you, let's say an email and SMS, and suggest a tee that works with those jeans, or just a hoodie for example, that might work well with what you've already purchased. So, cross-selling and upselling is happening on a personalized level at scale too.

Sara Lebow (19:37):

Yeah, I think that's really important and that's also why it's so important that your loyalty program has been a success, is so that you have that information to retarget those consumers.

(19:46):

Something that you said to me, Kristen, when we were prepping for this that I wrote down is, you can performance market a brand to death. And I think that really speaks to what you were just talking about, which is that you're retargeting existing consumers, of course to expand their basket size or to get them to come back. But from a top-down brand perspective, it seems like you're not super focused on performance marketing.

Kristen D’Arcy (20:14):

We are. I think that is one of the levers that we're able to use to drive the incredible sales performance, but it's not sacrificing brand. We are investing in faces and partners like Anitta, YG, Sexyy. We're investing in upper funnel marketing for each of those elements of this campaign. So, we're running streaming video, we're running streaming audio, we're running a lot of upper funnel campaigns, in addition to the performance marketing. And what we've seen is a direct positive result on the business. You actually see the efficiencies in paid search, which is obviously a very solid performing sales channel for many retailers. But you see the efficiency in that, you see the efficiency in direct URL type in. You see the efficiency in organic search. All of those pop as traffic sources and sales sources when we have the investment in upper funnel. So here, I'm not worried about us performance marketing the brand to death because we are properly activating the campaigns at every layer of the consumer's journey, the upper funnel, the mid, consideration, and then the lower funnel, and they all work together well.

Sara Lebow (21:32):

That makes sense, and I shouldn't have said you weren't focused on performance marketing, but that you are invested just as much in the brand.

Suzy Davidkhanian (21:39):

I was just going to add that if you don't have all the different tiers, they all work together, right? And we know that consumers are not shopping linearly anymore and they're getting input about a new brand that they didn't know or about a product that the brand they love all over the place. And so if you don't evenly split your time in whatever that looks like for your brand, because every brand is a little bit different, or every product category I should say is a little bit different, then you're going to lose. And so it's not just about that last piece, but it's also catching them as they're learning about something they didn't even know they wanted, which is usually the brand campaigns.

Sara Lebow (22:13):

Yeah. We're almost out of time. I'm going to put you both on the spot with a question before we close out, which is, Kristen and Suzy, both of you have mentioned tons of different KPIs on this call. We talked about URL type ins, we talked about engagement on TikTok. Do you guys think that there is an underrated KPI that retail marketers should be looking at?

Suzy Davidkhanian (22:37):

It's so important to realize that every retailer and brand is measured on comp sales and margin, but I think what is under measured is the halo effect of a campaign. And so, you might be showing jeans because we are True Religion, but I mean, I actually didn't realize that you, and I would say I'm an active buyer, I didn't realize that you have active wear. And so I think the idea around activations and pop-ups and other sort of experimental sort of experiences that are happening don't get enough credit, because that helps you learn about the brand in a bigger way and other products, that I might not be in the market today for active wear, but now I saw the person wearing it on Instagram or wherever she was. I don't even know her name, Red?

Sara Lebow (23:24):

Sexyy Red.

Suzy Davidkhanian (23:25):

Sexyy Red. And now next time I need a pair of yoga pants, I might go to True... Without even, and you can't measure that, but I think it's a really important component.

Kristen D’Arcy (23:37):

I think one of the most underrated metrics is actually engagement and of course, sentiment, but engagement in social. And I say that because we have not quite a million followers, which is wild to me, we're working on that, but not quite a million followers on Instagram. And I think you could be fooled by thinking that if you had 10 million as a brand, that metric is incredible. And that's a great number by way of organic reach, but the metric underneath the follower count is engagement.

(24:21):

So the first question you asked out of the gate, how do you build and keep a loyal following? It's by engaging with them in channels where they're spending their time and they want to build a relationship with the brand there as well. So whether that's TikTok or Instagram or some of the others, I'm really, really proud that when you look at Instagram, our engagement rate is six to 8%. Industry averages one to three. What it says is that people are coming to the page and they're not passive followers. It means that they're signing up to be a follower, and then they're coming back, and then they're commenting. They're saying, "Where is Sexyy Red?" They're saying when we launched her, "Oh my gosh, finally. This is your moment, Sexyy. We're so excited." So, I think that element really leads to brand love. So, mine would be engagement in social.

Sara Lebow (25:14):

I love that answer, and I think that's also really important for picking creators you're working with, is not just looking at who has the following, but who has the following with engaged followers, especially because they can be less expensive people to work with. If someone has 20,000 followers but they're mostly engaged followers, they're probably a cheaper buy than someone with 15 million followers, and you might get the same sort of engagement. And also, I keep hearing brands talking about what kind of engagement they're getting on social. I love seeing brands looking more at shares, because I think that getting in the group chat is vital, especially if you're a brand with such a strong identity as True Religion.

Kristen D’Arcy (25:54):

You're exactly right, totally with you.

Sara Lebow (25:56):

Okay, we'll end on Kristen telling me I'm exactly right, because I think that's the perfect end point. Thank you so much for joining us, Kristen, this was excellent.

Kristen D’Arcy (26:05):

Thanks for having me.

Sara Lebow (26:06):

Thank you, Suzy.

Suzy Davidkhanian (26:08):

Thanks so much for having me.

Sara Lebow (26:10):

Thank you to our listeners and to our team that edits the podcast, good production is in their jeans. We'll be back next Wednesday with another episode of Reimagining Retail, an eMarketer podcast. And on Friday, join Marcus for another episode of the Behind the Numbers show.