New Look has always been close to its customers, offering them clothes and a shopping experience that they really enjoy. Recently however, they were keen to get even closer to the customer and so they wanted a re-invigorated view of their customers for everyone in the business to get behind and use.
“Boxclever fully appreciated the energy and effort required to deliver a lasting and commercially valuable segmentation”.
We undertook a programme of segmentation research designed to deliver a clear and inspirational view of the girls New Look caters to.
Our research process engaged stakeholders from beginning to end and comprised 6 key stages: End user consultation, market sizing omnibus, quantitative U&A survey, segmentation analysis and finally ethnographic segment films to illustrate segment interests, priorities and shopping inspirations.
This segment driven marketing strategy has increased value share amongst key segments and every corner of the business has felt the influence of the segments in some way
For this project to be a success we also had to effectively embed the segmentation. New Look embraced a creative and inclusive approach when cascading results.
We delivered a series of segmentation workshops involving segment films, retail store roadshows supported with professionally designed segment materials prompting ownership at every level of the business.
Every aspect of New Look’s planning cycle (BMD, Retail & Ops, Marketing and Multichannel teams) has the inspiration and tools to make more customer centric decisions
The strategy of winning over the exec team created a buzz and strong anticipation to follow up these sessions with activities and tools to incite action across the business. New Look followed up by putting ‘Our Girls/Boys’ at the centre of the discussion and this momentum has continued since them with ‘refresh initiatives’ such as a customer murals and photo boards. This widespread dissemination means that the segmentation is being using across the organisation from buying and visual merchandising through to marketing and comms teams.
The impact on a customer led strategy is evidenced in their employee engagement survey where 95% of staff (including retail associates) claims to understand our customers. Critically, it’s impacting on the bottom line. New Look experienced growth in value share of key segments following targeted campaign.
That lifting the boundaries on analysis and facilitating co-creation inspires much greater ownership and use of results. We’ve been inspired by the momentum that can be created and sustained when employees are engaged early in the process and their views are incorporated throughout the research process. New Look colleagues were closely involved in details such as naming the segments and inviting real customers to head office fostering genuine commitment to letting the segmentation guide business decisions.