Recently I was pleasantly surprised by a brand
collaboration/affiliation, retail experience, online shopping integrated with
brick & mortar shopping, connect with your target audience experience I had
the other day.
The company responsible? Crate and Barrel. I received their latest catalog, which I have to say I was not super excited about. Lately, they have been a bit boring – same photos different order. They show up in the mail and often I don’t even look at them. Of course, I do understand the complexities of selling large ticket items and inventory, therefore not making it easy to constantly be launching new items. You can substitute any one of the online furniture magazines here – Pottery Barn, Restoration Hardware, West Elm, CB2 and Crate and Barrel.
As I absentmindedly flipped through the
pages, barely looking at the images, something caught my attention. Right there above a beautiful picture of a
dining table set for what looks like a dinner party full of beautiful
people- is a text bubble with an itunes
play list- curated and set up for you to download … for free. Crate and Barrel has curated the perfect
dinner music playlist! Now I can have
that perfect dinner party pictured, right down to the music. They not only sold me the dream of a perfect
dinner party – they gave me a gift to make it an absolutely perfect
evening. How brilliant is this? Now they had my attention and as I looked
through my seemingly same old, same old catalogue I found that I could prepare
a bridal registry and down load an etiquette book. I’ve been married for 17 years this month but
no matter I’m sure I could use a little etiquette lesson! On further inspection, you can download
email invitations to “save the date” or for that perfect dinner party you’re
sure to have with Crate and Barrel’s help.
There is a recipe book for the perfect dinner party meal, a flower
arranging book, a love songs playlist and a star gazing app to share with your dinner
party guests or maybe a romantic star gazing night for you and your new beau all for free – a gift from Crate and Barrel.
Brand connection, brand collaboration, brand affection, good
marketing for both brands the list goes on. Knowing how to reach your target audience, and even better how to
connect with them on a personal level is so powerful in building the brand
affiliation and loyalty that so many brands desire. As a retail brand strategist it was so
exciting to see something so completely unexpected out of my Crate and Barrel
catalogue! Their brand and marketing
team has reached their goal, with me al least.
You see, along with the dinner party music download, I found a perfect
new piece to add to my family room furnituresomething I didn’t even know I
was looking for!
Julie Dugas
Principal | Partner