In a recent Twitter poll of my followers, Aritzia emerged as one of the best-loved and best-managed brands in the Vancouver area. Sally Parrott is the senior director of marketing there, and has agreed to take us behind the scenes and talk to us about the branding and marketing efforts of this home-grown success story.
OBC: Introduce yourself, Sally, and tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do.
Sally Parrott: Ok. A little about me. I am a born and bred Vancouverite – grew up in ‘the ditch’ as I affectionately call my home suburb. I Graduated from UBC with a BComm Marketing, in ‘97 and moved out to Toronto to work for Procter & Gamble. I was in Brand Management there for four years before I had my first early-life crisis and took 18 months off to travel Asia and complete a mountaineering course.
When I returned to Vancouver I worked briefly for Westbeach Snowboarding Apparel and then was hired by Aritzia in the spring of 2004. When I first began here the marketing team was mostly just me. Now I am accountable for two departments: Marketing and Creative Services. The marketing side covers everything from interactive to influencer relations to our retail environment. Creative services is a centralized graphic design and visual art department that develops all of the creative for our marketing, but are also accountable for graphics and branding on our clothing, murals and in-store art as well as window displays/installations. It’s an amazingly talented and creative group. We are about 25 people now.
OBC: What does the Aritzia brand stand for? What are the brand values and brand truths that you are trying to build with your audience?
SP: That feels like a huge question, doesn’t it? Ultimately we are a boutique clothing store that is aspirational and accessible to young women. In terms of values and truths, we believe in style and good design. Quality and attention to detail. We also believe in the power of culture, femininity and authenticity. You can’t fool people with poor quality or marketing BS – they may not recognize the designer of a piece of furniture or know the band that’s playing on the stereo – but they can feel that there’s quality and authenticity to the environment.
When we last talked, you told me about a change in direction in terms of your approach to social media. You tried one thing and then found a better way. Can you fill us in on that? SP: I think the common belief, particularly when you are an aspirational brand, is that you need to tightly control your content as well as every medium where you want to find that content. The challenge with social media is that the mediums for content are growing exponentially. Self-publication had taken the reins of control out of our hands. Rather than fight that, we decided to develop compelling content, fundamentally centralize it on our web properties, then make it as flexible and ‘transferable’ as possible. Then encourage the social media world to come and take whatever they want and let them do the work of pushing it out. We aren’t completely there yet but we’re heading in the right direction.
OBC: What lessons have you learned about branding and marketing that you think apply to any business? What lessons are unique to Aritzia?
SP: Coming from P&G I was very bought-in to the whole brand and marketing juggernaut. Our marketing there was very focused on traditional advertising and print media. The brand lived in the messaging or tag line, in the benefit statement. That model works – P&G is a powerhouse. But what I have learned here is that the brand can and should run deeper than that and extend far beyond ‘marketing.' Our brand is not just a layer of creative that lives on top of what we do.
People spend a lot of time focused on the magic of marketing when they should be looking at the fundamentals and core proposition of their business model. What have I learned that’s unique to Aritzia? The fashion industry is a crazy business. I love it but the pace of change is extraordinary – you can be the next best thing one moment and forgotten the next. I guess what I’ve learned that may be unique to us is to roll with the punches. Our brand is not a hard-and-fast set of rules – it’s a moving entity. Our logo, our creative, the colours we use – all are up for grabs if the mood strikes. We treat our brand less like a set of graphic requirements and more like a beautiful sieve that everything must pass through.
OBC: To what do you attribute the success of the Aritzia brand?
SP: I think I’ve touched on this a bit already. We have product young women want to buy, in an environment that is energetic and compelling, with staff that know how to service the clientele, all represented by marketing that is interesting and challenges the norm. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. I think people feel that. It’s our 25th birthday this year and no one has really been able to duplicate what we have built. I think it’s a huge testament to Brian Hill, our CEO, and the entire team here.
OBC: Thanks Sally. Keep us posted on new things you are working on. We'd love to hear more!