{"id":18055,"date":"2023-10-19T15:18:52","date_gmt":"2023-10-19T15:18:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mysourcefunding.com\/marketing\/a-conversation-with-the-cmo-of-saks\/"},"modified":"2023-10-19T15:18:53","modified_gmt":"2023-10-19T15:18:53","slug":"a-conversation-with-the-cmo-of-saks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mysourcefunding.com\/?p=18055","title":{"rendered":"A conversation with the CMO of Saks"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"dist__StyledText-sc-630f0a6f-12 eHEXyM\">In a world of short tenures for CMOs and otherwise, Emily Essner is exceptionally brand loyal.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__StyledText-sc-630f0a6f-12 eHEXyM\">Essner, CMO of Saks Fifth Avenue\u2019s e-commerce arm, Saks, has been in the company\u2019s family since 2011. She held corporate strategy roles at both Saks Fifth Avenue and its parent company, Hudson\u2019s Bay, before switching to marketing and business operations. When Saks\u2019s e-commerce arm was split off from Saks Fifth Avenue in March 2021, Essner split off, too\u2014and she\u2019s served as CMO of the digital platform ever since.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__StyledText-sc-630f0a6f-12 eHEXyM\">Throughout her career, Essner told us her goal has always been to be \u201cas close to consumers as possible,\u201d thinking about, \u201cWhy are we here? What are we doing, and how is whatever we\u2019re doing better serving our customer?\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__StyledText-sc-630f0a6f-12 eHEXyM\">Initially, Essner said Saks Fifth Avenue\u2019s marketing was more focused on art and visuals and less on the science behind marketing. Now, she said, her team is \u201chighly data-driven,\u201d incorporating things like machine learning and virtual experiences to heighten the luxury experience while also staying true to Saks\u2019s legacy as a high-touch fashion brand.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"dist__StyledText-sc-630f0a6f-12 isOquW\">The intersection of art and tech<\/h2>\n<p class=\"dist__StyledText-sc-630f0a6f-12 eHEXyM\">While much of her background is in marketing, Essner began her career in banking and consulting. Being willing to try new things is something that Essner said got her to where she is and something she encourages young people to consider.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__StyledText-sc-630f0a6f-12 eHEXyM\">\u201cGreat careers are not going to be shaped because of how you plan, they\u2019re going to be shaped by opportunities that come to you,\u201d she said. \u201cBeing open to opportunities, even if they aren\u2019t exactly what you were expecting or they don\u2019t happen at exactly the time you were planning, that often is how you end up having a really interesting and meaningful path.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__StyledText-sc-630f0a6f-12 eHEXyM\">Going from banking and consulting to marketing, she said, helped her succeed as a marketer by teaching her about resource allocation, which she called \u201cthe most important thing that senior leaders can spend their time on.\u201d At Saks, that resource allocation includes a big bet on digital resources.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__StyledText-sc-630f0a6f-12 eHEXyM\">\u201cWe still do a little bit of print, we feel like we\u2019ve got that very much at the right investment level,\u201d Essner said. \u201cBut at this point, certainly the biggest transition in terms of where we\u2019ve invested is a shift from more traditional to newer channels.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__StyledText-sc-630f0a6f-12 eHEXyM\">Through its data science machine learning practice, Essner said her team keeps an eye on metrics like performance, ROI, and what\u2019s driving consumer behavior and customer value. Video, she said, has been a \u201csurprisingly strong returner\u201d for Saks in recent years. Some of the video formats the brand has experimented with have included celebrity wardrobe tours and interviews with brand directors. Essner said the brand has also been \u201cbullish\u201d on podcast advertising.<\/p>\n<div class=\"style__InlineSubscribeWrapper-sc-6c5f8bb2-1 ejIYkL\">\n<div id=\"inline-subscribe\" class=\"style__Container-sc-6fdcc87e-0 style__RoundedContainer-sc-6c630ac0-0 iTWzCH wGFGp\">\n<h5 class=\"dist__StyledText-sc-630f0a6f-12 klywaN inline-subscribe\">Get marketing news you&#8217;ll actually want to read<\/h5>\n<p class=\"dist__StyledText-sc-630f0a6f-12 djCKmk inline-subscribe\">Marketing Brew informs marketing pros of the latest on brand strategy, social media, and ad tech via our weekday newsletter, virtual events, marketing conferences, and digital guides.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"dist__StyledText-sc-630f0a6f-12 eHEXyM\">But the strategy that\u2019s gotten perhaps the most attention since Saks split off has been live commerce, which has consisted of recurring and seasonal events, like holiday shopping shows. Essner said she believes live commerce will serve as a differentiator for luxury consumers in the future.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__StyledText-sc-630f0a6f-12 eHEXyM\">\u201cYou think about the traditional, in-store experience of luxury where you get to see the product up close, you get that expert advice and information about that product from a very well-trained sales associate. We think that live commerce is how we take that, at scale, to a digital consumer,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__StyledText-sc-630f0a6f-12 eHEXyM\">In addition to driving customer loyalty and, in turn, more dollars spent, Essner said Saks\u2019s brand partners have also benefited from the live-commerce format. \u201cIt enables them to be able to showcase their brand, get deep into their product, into the history of the design or the inspiration,\u201d she said. \u201cIt really is a medium that lends itself very well to the specifics of luxury fashion.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"dist__StyledText-sc-630f0a6f-12 isOquW\">Personal(ized) experiences<\/h2>\n<p class=\"dist__StyledText-sc-630f0a6f-12 eHEXyM\">As with live commerce, sometimes tech can only go so far. Especially in retail, some customers may want to put a face to a brand name. \u201cSo much of [brand] loyalty is actually driven by the relationship that any customer has with their sales associate,\u201d Essner said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__StyledText-sc-630f0a6f-12 eHEXyM\">To strengthen those relationships, Saks created a VIP client program called Saks Limitless where customers can work one-on-one with sales associates and gain access to things like products and exclusive events. Beyond that,, Essner said, brand communications to all customers are tailored based on more than 250 data points like browsing and shopping data and other predictive attributes to deliver a more personalized experience.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__StyledText-sc-630f0a6f-12 eHEXyM\">\u201cWe\u2019re really looking over the horizon to really marry a lot of that personalization that is more data-driven with a real, live person,\u201d she said. \u201cIn the end, that is going to be a lot of the secret sauce.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__StyledText-sc-630f0a6f-12 eHEXyM\">Projecting the face of the brand also extends to Saks\u2019s influencer strategy, which is focused on representation. \u201cDiversity is a pretty big focus for us, and so we want to make sure that when we think about the broad swath of luxury consumers, they\u2019re really able to see themselves within our content [and] within the influencers that we\u2019re working with,\u201d Essner said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__StyledText-sc-630f0a6f-12 eHEXyM\">While the brand\u2019s average customer age has been going down since 2019, Essner said that \u201cage isn\u2019t something that we\u2019ve ever been particularly focused on,\u201d and the brand isn\u2019t targeting any specific age groups with its influencer marketing. Rather, she said, Saks is focused on working with creators who love fashion and can organically reflect the brand. By projecting a \u201crelatable, but aspirational image,\u201d she said Saks is appealing to younger consumers\u2014just not exclusively.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Read the full article <a href=\"https:\/\/www.marketingbrew.com\/stories\/2023\/10\/19\/a-conversation-with-the-cmo-of-saks?utm_source=&#038;utm_medium=syndication&#038;utm_campaign=feed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In a world of short tenures for CMOs and otherwise, Emily Essner is exceptionally brand loyal. Essner, CMO of Saks Fifth Avenue\u2019s e-commerce arm, Saks, has been in the company\u2019s family since 2011. She held corporate strategy roles at both Saks Fifth Avenue and its parent company, Hudson\u2019s Bay, before switching to marketing and business [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18056,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[78],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-18055","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-marketing"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v20.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>A conversation with the CMO of Saks | Brandiary<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In a world of short tenures for CMOs and otherwise, Emily Essner is exceptionally brand loyal.Essner, CMO of Saks Fifth Avenue\u2019s e-commerce arm, Saks, has\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, 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