Navigating Retail’s Big Show: Day 1

FSW highlights interesting insights on retail, fashion, and luxury strategy from the first day of the National Retail Federation Big Show conference in New York City.

“Everything is converging in a way that puts the customer in the driver’s seat…. Now consumers don’t require a barrier between the brand, the product, and themselves. We all have to be brand creators and customer-centric. We have to help customers discover how they want to express themselves.”
- Joshua Schulman, CEO, Burberry

The current state of the retail industry is noisy, bright, and full of ideas.

Retail’s Big Show is aptly named. This was the FSW team’s first time at this National Retail Federation event, and the sessions, exhibits, and spectacle on day 1 did not disappoint.

Since we cannot capture everything we see and hear on the ground at NRF, we thought it would be most beneficial to recount two significant highlights from each day we are here.

Burberry’s Joshua Schulman discusses brand repositioning and strategy with Pete Nordstrom

Our first day began with a session featuring new Burberry CEO Joshua Schulman in conversation with Pete Nordstrom of Nordstrom. Schulman, who was appointed to his position in July 2024, initially talked about his professional journey before he assumed his current role.

When Nordstrom asked questions about Burberry’s current strategy, Schulman did not swerve from the messaging from the British heritage brand’s well-publicized turnaround strategy called “Burberry Forward.” But he also provided interesting insights into how he and his teams approached the problem of a new direction, where they started in building a new, customer-centric approach through data and insights, and what their priorities were when formulating a new brand strategy with updated messaging and marketing.

Burberry, according to Schulman, is “its own unique entity … [as] a British luxury brand of scale” with “equal parts heritage and equal parts innovation.” He acknowledged that “despite a strong brand awareness and affinity, we had gone off course and lost sight of our core customer segments … [and had adopted] a brand expression that had become unfamiliar to many of our customers.”

Schulman commented that he and his teams have spent a lot of time listening and studying customer insights to learn what people want, need, and expect from them. When Nordstrom asked how they determined where to take the brand strategically, Schulman noted:

You need to recreate the way the brand feels.… Customers know that. You know from social media when your brand isn’t resonating…. How do you communicate to a new generation who weren’t there … at an earlier time?… The best brand evolutions make you smile and think that’s what I always loved about the brand…. We have the most opportunity where we have the most authenticity…. The coolest people in the world want the most authentic parts of our brand.

Turnaround, Schulman underscored, is a team effort. “The key is to listen to customers,” he commented. “You can’t rest in the past …. But you have to create an echo of why people loved the brand in the first place and repeat that.” He also noted that luxury is not just about heritage and what people know about your brand but also about “surprise … [and] bringing unexpected moments.”

Despite pundits’ debate whether Burberry was facing a premium retail future, Schulman held firm on the “Burberry Forward” strategy as a “repositioning [of the brand] … within a luxury context.” He reiterated that Burberry is “a luxury brand with broad universal appeal.” While acknowledging that the brand, like all luxury brands, “has an entry point” that needs attention (he said, for them, this was apparel items), Schulman underscored their existing product and pricing strategy, nothing that they want “[l]uxurious fashion shows at the top of the pyramid with top products at a range of good, better, best pricing options”

Schulman’s messaging on the goals of the new Burberry strategic direction was nothing new. Still, it did reinforce the lengths to which the brand is trying to dig itself out of a hole by focusing on the basics—branding and core product offerings (i.e., specifically outwear and scarves). The initial idea was to approach the problem from the point of view of “what people love most about the brand.” So far, Schulman noted, it seems to be working as the brand is “starting to see a shift in brand sentiment” after the release of its “Burberry Weather” and “Wrapped in Burberry” campaigns in November and over the holidays.

One of the most fascinating insights of Schulman’s session was his discussion of their customer personas. To build a customer-centric strategy, the Burberry teams “introduced a framework at [their] first townhall in August [2024.]” The focus was on five core customer archetypes—the opinionated, the hedonist, the conservative, the investors, and the aspiring. In this discussion, they “identified where [they] had made progress … but [also who they] had left … behind.”

The question remains whether it is too late for Burberry, whose stock price has fallen 40% since 2019. Schulman himself admitted, “We have a lot of work to do … fairly tough consumer environment. But there is a real sense of excitement and purpose among the team in London.”

Coach and Anthropologie discuss how to bring magic to IRL and digital content and experiences

Our second favorite session of the day was a panel featuring Elizabeth Preis, Chief Marketing Officer of Anthropologie, and Giovanni Zaccariello, Head of Visual Merchandising for Coach, moderated by Melissa Gonzalez of MG2.

Frankly, it is hard to beat the energy of people in retail who know their brand in and out, put in the work to understand their customers, make the strategy, and then oversee the implementation of the strategy.

This session had us at the description: “Today, your brand is your content. In a world where consumers seek to be entertained, how can retailers and brands innovate, spark excitement, and drive purchasing?….”

Giovanni Zaccariello talked about how Coach Play, designed to engage Gen Z, emerged after the pandemic. The brand shifted its strategy “to bring Gen Z into the heart of the experience” to change perceptions about it “as your mother’s brand.” Understanding the importance of discovery and unique experiences to Gen Z, Zaccariello explained that Coach Play was designed with a hyper-local approach. “Coach Play [experiences] are not in malls but in other areas … going where audiences are … what makes them think and create a sense of discovery for where they spend time,” Zaccariello commented, noting that dwell times in these locations are 45 times higher than traditional mall locations.

A holistic approach to blending physical and digital touchpoints is central to the Coach Play strategy. Zaccariello underscored that the initiative is foundationally about taking a test-and-learn approach, which is how they learn what and how “to scale to other stores.” One example he cited was the brand’s first coffee shop in Singapore, which combines product discovery with an immersive experience.

Zaccariello also emphasized innovation's value, explaining that the brand’s strategy for experiential retail balances “price per square foot with experience per square foot.” Following the 70-20-10 rule, he noted that 70% of their budget is core operations and commerce, 20% is incremental improvements, and 10% is innovation and experimental initiatives. This approach to innovation gives “freedom to your local team to go the extra mile.” Zaccariello added that the process required resilience: “Even the industry thought we couldn’t do it.”

For Anthropologie, Elizabeth Preis talked a lot about how the brand use in-person store experiences and digital content to create moments of surprise and joy. “Anthropologie is about sharing something with you that you never thought you wanted,” she noted. From window displays and local activations to influencer content on social media, Anthropologie enjoys a loyal customer base. However, Preis did acknowledge a need to build loyalty with younger, newer audiences: While “broader assortments and broader categories contributed to [recent] growth,” she emphasized that these days to go from “mindshare to heart share and wallet share … you have to get to screen share.”

At FSW, we often talk about the role of IRL experiences and events–such as retail stores, campaign activations, and other special events–as a form of content. This concept of holistic, cross-channel storytelling plays a key role in Anthropologie’s strategy to bring its vision to its target consumers. Indeed, Preis discussed the critical value of content that resonates emotionally with your customers: “You need content you’re proud of. Not just promotion … but more intrinsic [content] that actually connects with your consumer.” She cited Anthropologie’s holiday activation at a townhouse in New York City’s Upper West Side as an unexpected “holiday extravanganza” that “our customers, partners, … and press loved.”

Both Preis and Zaccariello agreed on the importance of balancing creativity with data-driven insights. Zaccariello commented, “It’s about going with your gut … not just the data.” Preis echoed this sentiment, noting, “There’s the data: the what. Then there’s the: so what. And then: the what’s next.… [All of this] shows how you’re using data to guide decisions.”

The partnership between corporate and local strategy was another major theme of the session. Zaccariello commented at Coach: “We do all our creative in-house … [with v]isual merchandising in each country.… [But it’s] a partnership between corporate and local teams.… To harness the power of localization, you need to understand what local means.” Preis also underscored the importance of trust within Anthropologie teams: “It’s about what the brand is about … [and then providing] themes that local stores can actually execute.”

Another recurring theme was the key value of creativity and authenticity in building customer trust through digital and IRL content. Preis talked about Anthropologie’s signature creative window displays, images of which, interestingly, comprise their best-performing posts on Instagram: “Window displays are the gateway to how people experience our brand.” Similarly, Zaccariello discussed Coach Play’s experiments with digital platforms like Roblox: “Millions of kids [are] wearing digital Tabby bags in Roblox…. The experience online is an extension of our physical experience.”

Zaccariello and Preis emphasized the importance of creating sensory-rich experiences in physical spaces. Zaccariello noted that his team focuses on the five senses when building IRL experiences to ensure that they are building a genuinely immersive activation. Preis commented that so much of the emphasis on their store windows and the magic of in-person retail came from a desire to meet customer needs: “When you visit a physical store, you’re looking for an experience you can’t find online.”

Coach and Anthropologie are both case studies in experiential retail and show how different brands balance and evolve with the needs of modern audiences through content across platforms. By building emotional connections and taking a test-and-learn approach to innovation, these brands illustrate how to build trust with consumers while staying true to their brand values. As Preis commented, “We’re not delivering the needs but the wants … sourced with emotion.”