Interview
The Gist
- Brand evolution. PatPat has successfully transitioned from a children's-only clothing brand to a more inclusive, family-oriented retailer.
- Strategic communication. Effective and consistent messaging across all platforms has been crucial in redefining the brand’s identity.
- Influencer impact. Leveraging influencer partnerships has enhanced PatPat's market presence and helped align with family-focused branding.
Ranu Coleman, head of marketing at PatPat, unpacks the strategic shift of a brand initially launched as a children’s clothing retailer into a more inclusive, family-oriented fashion powerhouse.
In this episode of CMSWire's The CMO Circle, Coleman discusses PatPat’s journey from specializing in kids' apparel to embracing a broader family apparel market. She delves into the importance of aligning product development with market trends, the pivotal role of influencer partnerships in shaping brand perception and how targeted communication strategies have been instrumental in successfully repositioning the PatPat brand.
Table of Contents
- Episode Transcript
- The Challenges of Repositioning a Brand
- How to Maintain Consistency Across Multiple Channels
- How to Choose the Right Brand Partnerships
- Inside PatPat’s Influencer Marketing Strategy
- The Challenges & Opportunities of Working With Influencers
- How Influencer Marketing Might Change in the Future
- The Impact of Influencers & Partnerships on Market Presence
Episode Transcript
Michelle Hawley: Hi everyone, and welcome back to another episode of CMSWire’s the CMO Circle. I'm your host, Michelle Hawley, Senior Editor at CMSWire, and today we have with us Ranu Coleman, Head of marketing at PatPat, an online clothing retailer that got its start in Mountain View, California. Thanks for being here, Ranu.
Ranu Coleman: Thanks for having me.
Michelle: So, PatPat began as a children's clothing retailer, and now you're working to reposition from kids apparel to a more family-oriented brand. Can you tell me a little bit more about the initial insights that led to that decision?
Ranu: Yes, so PatPat was one of the first brands to really introduce family matching outfits. We were definitely pioneers in this space and I think it really allowed us to set trends and establish a bit more of a stronger market presence when we first launched in 2014. And overall, I think our early adoption of family matching really helped us solidify our position as being more market leaders in this space.
And so, leaning more into this became an obvious solution for us to be the next major step in our growth and moving the brand forward. Another thing is I feel like, overall, this strategic shift has improved our brand perception and made PatPat more of a versatile, inclusive family-friendly brand. One of our main goals is really to acclimate and cater to more modern families. And overall, I think this approach has been the right direction to do that.
The Challenges of Repositioning a Brand
Michelle: What kind of challenges have you come up against during this transition?
Ranu: I think one thing that we've definitely learned overall, and that was the biggest challenge, is that it's incredibly important that we have effective communication and that our messaging is consistent through all of our channels.
And highlighting family-oriented products in our campaigns and using strong visuals, I think overall has really helped shift the customer perception that we're not just a kid’s brand, but we're also a brand for families as well.
The other thing that I think was a challenge is just staying ahead in terms of product development. Marketing strategies have also been pretty critical. In general, I feel like we need to really foster a culture here of innovation to keep product lines fresh, keep them engaging and really try to think of new different product ideas that will lead us more into this direction.
One of the things my team does a lot is really actively engaging in social listening. That's really important just to really stay ahead of the latest trends when it comes to what's going on in the influencer world, what's going on culturally and also just, overall, you know, influencers and who we should be partnering with. I think overall this really ensures that we continuously offer products that seem to resonate with our customers.
Michelle: When you're trying to stay innovative and find these new products, how long does it usually take from seeing an idea and thinking, this would be great for PatPat, and then having it actually on the site available to purchase?
Ranu: I mean, I think we can act pretty quickly, especially compared to some other brands. Like the way that we're set up and the way our supply chain is set up is if we can really start thinking of an idea, I would say within like a couple of months, maybe sometimes less, we can get it up on the site.
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How to Maintain Consistency Across Multiple Channels
Michelle: You had mentioned maintaining that consistency in your messaging across all these channels. You got the site, the social media channels, email. So what steps or strategies do you use then to maintain that consistency?
Ranu: One thing that we've done is we have hired a new creative team and we have updated our creatives. And in general, from what you saw maybe a year ago to now is, the approach is definitely more modern. It's cleaner.
I think the other thing that we're really trying to do is add more of a human connection behind the photos versus just showing a product. And also really, you know, applying important design principles that I would say weren't much of a focus before.
Also, the other thing is that we're really just trying to unify our marketing campaigns. So we want to ensure that all marketing campaigns are really coordinated and executed across the different channels. Really just ensuring that the messaging and the visuals are very consistent. I think that helps in general when it just comes to overall brand consistency and trust.
We've also kind of done a shift in terms of our brand voice. So it's pretty important just to maintain a consistent kind of tone of voice across all of your communication. So all the way down from your customer support in terms of what we're posting on social, all of our marketing copy. We just want to make sure it all has more of this family-oriented kind of consistent tone. And I think in general that just helps people trust you more as a brand.
How to Choose the Right Brand Partnerships
Michelle: There are other brands that you partner with, right? So how do you go about choosing who are the right people to fit your brand voice?
Ranu: Yeah, we have a lot of licensors that we work with. So we partner, I would say, with brands that have very strong recognition in the market. Definitely brands that offer a very positive sentiment. We work with heritage brands that have been around for decades, like Disney, and then newer, upcoming ones that are just starting to gain in popularity.
I think it's important to work with both. So you have something to offer that's more on that heritage side, but then something that might be a little bit more up and coming.
In general, I feel like we have really great relationships with them and it helps us as well just in terms of boosting our own brand's credibility and visibility to be working with them.
Outside of the licensing, we also like to partner with brands on social media. We like to do joint sweepstakes or collaborative giveaways. And usually, we'll work with a brand that can kind of complement us. We have a synergy with them so we can really, you know, offer our customers like the ultimate package for parents as a kind of like a thank you gift to them just for being a loyal brand advocate and that's been something that's been really great just to sort of test out lately on social.
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Michelle: Is that something that's been shifting now too as you move into this family-oriented image and not just for kids? Are you seeking out new brand partnerships?
Ranu: Yeah, definitely. I mean, I think overall kids and families, a lot of times it blends, but I would say before we were primarily focused on partnering with brands that were more in the baby space. And I think now we're trying to partner with brands that offer products from the whole spectrum.
Inside PatPat’s Influencer Marketing Strategy
Michelle: You partner with influencers too — can you tell me a little bit more about your influencer marketing strategy and how it fits into your overall marketing efforts?
Ranu: Yeah, so I would say, you know, Pat Pat's influencer strategy is definitely like a very key component right now of our overall marketing efforts. We like to collaborate with influencers who really resonate with our brand values, who have a strong following when it comes to parents and families.
The influencers definitely range from like a smaller influencer that might have a more niche audience to more of a macro influencer who has a much broader reach. So we definitely try to have some variability when it comes to that.
We like to run our campaigns seasonally, especially with our business it makes the most sense. So when we're working with influencers it's usually on a campaign that might be for a back to school, which we're doing right now, Halloween, which is coming up and, in general, that just sort of helps us keep the content a little bit more fresh and relevant depending on, you know, what the season is and kind of what we want to promote.
But in general, I think we prioritize influencers who can really create authentic content. I'm sure a lot of people say that, but it's definitely true. Relatable content that kind of shows our products in more of a fun family setting. So, you know, if they're at a theme park or a lot of times people wear our stuff for family photo shoots, we just want to show our product in more of like everyday life activity, if that makes sense.
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The Challenges & Opportunities of Working With Influencers
Michelle: What kind of challenges or even unique opportunities come with working with influencers over different traditional marketing techniques?
Ranu: I think, in general, influencer content just a lot of times feels a little bit more relatable and especially when it is with a family. I think it gives consumers ideas when they'll see somebody, you know, for example, wearing something like all of our family matching outfits going to the beach or, you know, going to Disneyland.
I think it just puts things more into a real-life perspective versus when you just kind of send somebody an ad, I don't think it has the same type of like emotional effect on them and I think it just in general gives the consumer a little bit more of an idea of like, I could buy this for this occasion, and it just puts things into a more, I would say real-life use case, if that makes sense.
Michelle: How do you go about measuring the success of these influencer campaigns? Are there specific metrics that you're looking at?
Ranu: Yeah, so I would say overall we look at the content's overall engagement in terms of how it performs. So a little bit more of the standard likes and comments and how actively people are getting engaged with it.
We definitely look at sales and conversions that are coming from their particular post. So we normally provide the influencers with some type of code or link that will help us track the sales that are being attributed to that specific promotion. But I think those are kind of the main things.
I would say engagement for sure is the most important because if we're not seeing the excitement from the consumer about it, I think it'll tell us a lot about whether we're really targeting the right influencer.
How Influencer Marketing Might Change in the Future
Michelle: You mentioned your team keeps a close eye on social media. You're trying to stay innovative and see what's happening next. What do you anticipate is going to change in terms of influencer marketing in the next couple of years?
Ranu: One for sure I definitely feel like is AI. I'm seeing it just a lot in terms of influencer marketing, but especially when it comes to influencer marketing technology.
We work with different platforms right now just to kind of track all of our metrics and some of the platforms have integrated ChatGPT into them. You can, for example, add like different messaging features now, which I would say is definitely changing the way influencers are getting kind of approached by brands. I've also noticed in general, especially working with different influencer agencies, that there is a much greater emphasis now on diversity and having a lot more representation.
It seems, I mean, it's, I would say, very important to kind of make sure that whoever you're working with, that everybody is being represented, especially with the agencies I'm finding this is becoming just more and more kind of critical.
And the other thing for sure, and especially in our space as we start moving into family, that influencers, I think, are becoming a lot more specialized and they're starting to kind of carve out a niche for themselves when it comes to what they want to work with and brands they want to partner with. And in a lot of ways it becomes, I think, easier for brands to start figuring out who they want to work with because some influencers are like so amazing at photography or videography and that kind of is their specialty or more lean towards beauty and it just becomes a little bit easier to start defining who you want to kind of represent your brand.
Michelle: Speaking of AI too, can you share any things that you and your team are doing with AI right now?
Ranu: We definitely take advantage of these technologies because we are working up with a couple of different platforms right now. So when there are, you know, features like that, ee definitely take advantage of it. Especially when it helps with just overall messaging, even like with social media.
There's so many great AI tools right now that kind of help you with, I would say like editing and kind of refining your captions or making sure you're using the right hashtags There's a lot of great tools right now in terms of that.
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The Impact of Influencers & Partnerships on Market Presence
Michelle: So then with your marketing, your influencer marketing strategy and working with brand partnerships, what kind of impact has those two things specifically had on your growth and your market presence?
Ranu: I mean, I would say overall it's really kind of expanded our market presence. We, because we're like a global brand too in general, working with these influencers in different countries and different regions has really kind of, I would say, for one, expanded our overall global reach, but also I think we've learned a lot when it comes to like a product perspective now that some things that might resonate really well in one region or one country is not resonating in the other.
And it's really important that, for one, that we're kind of offering a wider assortment to make sure that we're kind of able to cater to these different regions. Because we've noticed in some places, you know, an influencer, for example, leans very heavy and their audience does things that are more neutral, styles that don't have any prints.
And then in a different country, it's all about extremely vibrant styles with very heavy prints. And it's not like a one-size-fits-all. So we've definitely sort of had to cater, I would say, our overall product and marketing strategy to kind of align with that.
Michelle: And how many different countries do you ship out products to?
Ranu: I don't have the exact number. A lot. In the double digits, but a lot.
Michelle: So I imagine that's a big task, then, keeping track of all the different nuances for each country and what works somewhere that doesn't work elsewhere.
Ranu: Yeah, and we've also created separate social media accounts for all these countries too, just to make sure that we're doing the translations correctly and communicating in the right way. So that's also been kind of a lot to manage and keep up with.
Michelle: Well, that's all the time we have for today. Thank you so much, Ranu, for being here.
Ranu: Thank you.
Michelle: And thank you to our listeners for tuning in. Don't forget to check back next month for an all-new episode of the CMO Circle. And in the meantime, check out our other CMSWire TV shows, The Digital Experience and Beyond the Call.
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