Marketing Happy Hour - Brand Communications 101 | Kate Haldy of Anthropologie

Starting point is 00:00:00 you're listening to the marketing happy hour podcast where we discuss career and industry insights with our peers in marketing we're here to talk about it all like the ups and downs of working in social media how to build authentic relationships in the influencer and pr space managing a nine-to-five and a side hustle at the same time, how to be productive in your life and career without losing your sanity, and more. Ultimately, we're here to build a community with you because we're all trying to navigate the world of marketing together. Are you ready? Grab your favorite drink and join your hosts, Cassie and Erica, for this week's episode. I'm so excited for you to hear this

Starting point is 00:00:53 week's episode because we're talking to someone from one of my favorite brands ever. Kate is the head of brand communications, PR, and events at Anthropologie. She joins us on the show to discuss effective communication strategy and details around brand and reputation management and social cause communications, plus affiliate marketing's role in a strong PR strategy, and lastly, how bringing excellent, engaging, experiential events to life is a key element in connecting the brand with the consumer face-to-face. Of course, it wouldn't be Marketing Happy Hour without powerful career tips as well. So you know the drill, grab your favorite beverage and let's get into this week's episode. Hey, Kate, how are you doing? I'm good. How are you? I'm also doing really well. So excited to be speaking with you today. Anthropologie is one of my favorite brands. I literally have a plan to go today. Later today, I have a class up in Gainesville,

Starting point is 00:01:51 and that's the closest anthro to me. So I will be going there later today. But before we get started and talking about all the things that you do, I do have an important question for you that we ask all of our guests, and that is what is in your glass this morning? Oh my gosh. Well, this morning or happy hour. So morning coffee, uh, in the afternoon, I'm always a spicy Mar girl. I can't, that's always my go-to drink. You know, what's funny is whenever somebody says that I have to say, have you tried Anda? It's Shay Mitchell's brand of tequila seltzer. I have not, but I will. Okay. You need to try it. And if you try it, you should rim the glass with like, I don't know, tahini and then put some jalapenos in it. Stunning. Literally so good. I'm going to have to email you about that. I need

Starting point is 00:02:39 this. Absolutely. Well, I also, I have like three different drinks this morning because I'm just trying to get ready for the day. So I have my liquid death water as usual, which funny story, we had a hurricane down here and whenever we have a hurricane, people rush the stores to get water. And so when I finally got into the store, all that was left was liquid death, but I was like, that's one of my favorite brands anyway. So there we go. Um, I also have a kin euphorics if you've ever heard of that. I think Bella Hadid might be like the co-founder. Um, it's called actual sunshine and it's gently caffeinated. So we'll see how that goes. And then I just have my regular morning coffee, but all good things there. We, like I said, are so excited to chat with you. It's one of my favorite brands. Like I mentioned, I can't wait to give our listeners the inside scoop, but before we dive in,

Starting point is 00:03:36 could you just share a little bit about your background and communication specifically and how you grew into the position that you're holding today. Yeah, of course. First and foremost, I love that you love anthropology. I feel like when I tell people I work here, that's like the immediate door. So to work here, but so my career, I will try to shorten this up because it's been quite a while now, but I went to college at Marist College in upstate New York. I went there kind of with the intention to intern and do school at the same time. And the proximity to New York is amazing. They also really encourage their students to intern while they do classes. So for honestly, about three years, when I was

Starting point is 00:04:20 there, I would take classes two days a week and intern three days a week in New York, which was amazing. I had this idea early on and I have no idea where it came from, but I had this idea that I wanted to work in fashion, but I knew no one in the industry. So I knew that I was going to have to make it happen myself. So I was incredibly persistent and I was able to intern at really cool brands like Marie Claire Magazine, KCD. And my last internship was at Diane von Furstenberg.

Starting point is 00:04:52 And it was there that I really fell in love with this idea of working in-house and really becoming part of a brand. I think before that, I never really saw how all of the pieces of a company worked together. And it was really inspiring and amazing to me to see that in one building, there could be the team that operated stores and there could be the team that managed PR and events and marketing and finance. And we all kind of sat in one building together. And then of course, I am a person who works just an amazing brand in and of itself. So that was a really eyeopening experience. So after internships, I had a lot of retail jobs, retail, meaning I worked in fashion retail. So H Stern Jewelers, I worked at Cynthia Rowley,

Starting point is 00:05:40 I worked at Sydney Garbage Jewelry. So it was, it was all different products categories, but all kind of the same type of type of role. So I worked in PR communications events. I think that the reason I was able to stay that course was because the positions and the industry and the media landscape changed so much over, over that time. When I first started, you know, it was all about the print placements. It was all about what you're doing in real life in the stores. And that's still incredibly important. But of course, we now have all adopted this like very digital first mindset with social being huge.

Starting point is 00:06:20 So it's changed so much. So it still is super exciting to me. About six years ago, my husband and I decided that we wanted to relocate to Philadelphia. He grew up here and we were kind of just, I'd been in New York for nine years. He had been there for seven. So we were kind of ready to make a move. And when we came out here, there are some obviously big, amazing retailers. I always had my eye on the urban brands.

Starting point is 00:06:44 But my first job was at David's Bridal. And I think when I moved there, people were kind of surprised, right? Because I had worked in luxury goods. I had worked in fashion with designers. David's Bridal is obviously very different, but I think that I always say that that was probably the smartest decision I ever made because it taught me how to market and speak to such a different audience. They were also a mass retailer. They had over 300 stores. So you were reaching a lot of customers with your stories and with your messages. And it also like tested how good I was at my job, right? Like how do we get this product

Starting point is 00:07:21 in front of different audiences? How do we get it covered by the media? And I think that's why I was brought in there to really do that. I also think that when I was there, I was lucky enough to have an amazing boss, an amazing mentor who really gave me the autonomy to grow and really challenged me to like think outside the box. So it was just an amazing, amazing experience. My mentor, who I just mentioned, she moved to anthropology and I kind of just banged on her door until, until she opened it and hired me. Because that's a dream brand, right? It, as I mentioned, when, when we moved to Philadelphia, one of the urban brands was like the

Starting point is 00:08:01 end goal, right? Because it's an incredible, incredible company. What's cool about Urban is that, so for those of you that don't know, Urban has free people, Urban Outfitters, it has Anthropologie newly, and all are so incredible, but so different. And they all speak to different audiences. For the point in life that I was,

Starting point is 00:08:23 Anthropologie was definitely like my brand. And, uh, yeah, so I've been here for three years. I oversee brand communications, PR and events. So I feel like that's a very large title, but we basically, anytime you see anthropology, uh, out there, if you see our executives talking about the brand, if you see them at a conference on a podcast, if you see, you know, our, some of our partnerships in the news, that's really my team putting, putting that out there. And then of course, any customer in-store events, you know, any bigger influencer events or press events, my team has kind of overseen that. I love that. That's such a cool story too. And how you kind of followed your mentor to your new

Starting point is 00:09:05 position. I feel like a lot of people say, you know, you don't have to choose a company you want to work for, choose like a person you want to work with. And it sounds like you kind of did that in a way there, which is really cool to hear. Yeah. I think that, like you said, you, you definitely work for people, right? Like the brand is the cherry on top, but you want to work, work with people that you'll learn from and that will challenge you. And I got very lucky with Callie. She's amazing. Oh, shout out to Callie.

Starting point is 00:09:37 She's not with Anthro anymore, but she's amazing and doing big things. Amazing. Well, I would love to just hear a little bit of like the favorite projects that you've worked on today. I know there's been a lot probably that you could talk days about, but what are some that stand out to you? Yeah, there's so many. I think that when people ask me this question, I always, well, at least in the past year, I always say anthropology's 30th anniversary. We celebrated that last September, October, which is a huge brand moment, right? Because at anthropology, we really pride ourselves on having this multi-generational customer. And I think that really came to light

Starting point is 00:10:20 when we were speaking to our 30 years and how much we've evolved over 30 years, how we've grown our business to be there for our customers in every step of the journey. What also was really meaningful to me through the conversations of 30th anniversary is our community. I think at Anthropologie, we're known for our community. Obviously, we have an incredibly loyal customer and we kind of create these communities around each of our stores, right? We have 200 stores across us. I feel like everyone like has their store that they love their local store that they make a point to visit. They know the associates that work there. It really is a wonderful experience, but what also really sets us apart is our internal community. We have some wildly creative and tenured people that have worked with the brand for almost the full 30 years. We have, you know, new people to the brand, obviously, as well. But it was really putting those people on display. Like, look how far we've come. project started with this idea where I sat or I sat down with one of our creative directors,

Starting point is 00:11:26 Carolyn, who's absolutely brilliant. And she was showing me, she's like, Hey, FYI, like we're launching this coffee table book in a few months or not a few months. I think it was, we had a little more time than that, but it was still like a pretty tight term. We're launching this coffee table book, the art of anthropology was all about our in-store experience right so our store displays are one-of-a-kind windows things that anthra was really famous for and i was like we can't just launch this and like not tell a story around it or not make this a big moment so we went back to the drawing board and we were able to create this event series we were able to create this story around the people who brought our store displays to life.

Starting point is 00:12:05 So we have this team of creative artists and they truly are artists who work with like these everyday materials, these like discarded goods. It's like the second use story where they will create, you know, a 30 foot whale out of popsicles sticks. They like, they're so brilliant and artistic. So we wanted to kind of bring the content that people were seeing in the book to life. So we did this pop-up art gallery where our team created like our best window displays and best in-store vignettes and displays from 30 years. And it was really impactful. And we had a panel with the, with the team that's been here so long with students from the New York Academy of Art. And they just ask questions on how

Starting point is 00:12:50 they are in how they got to where they are today, what they love most about their job anthropology. And then we just had customers come in and visit and like walk through the space for a full weekend. And it really just put on display our community and internal, external, how it works together, how we value both. And it was really just a special moment. I think that going back to exactly what we just said, it's about the people you work with. And I feel very lucky to work with incredibly smart and creative and talented people that

Starting point is 00:13:22 I learn from every day. I love that so much. And that sounds like such a fun activation, just like getting to highlight the people that maybe don't get highlighted all the time. I feel like that's even a angle where, you know, it stands out the fact that you did that. I love that so much. How have you kind of seen comms and PR change in the past 15 years of your career? 15 years is a long time and there's been a lot of changes like you alluded to earlier. What do you think is the most relevant change that you've seen? Yeah, I think there's a lot that goes into that. So I think that when I first started, as I mentioned, print was

Starting point is 00:14:06 everything you wanted to be on the cover of magazines. You wanted to be inside the magazines and don't get me wrong. I've been in PR for 15 years. So those placements are still incredibly important to me. And I still get very excited about them, but there's just been this explosion of digital, right? So especially for a brand like Anthropologie, who we have such a big in-store experience, but also we have an amazing website and we're DTC. So we want to drive people to our website. So digital is really key. And also the way we launch product, it makes it more simple to link up a launch when you

Starting point is 00:14:43 have this digital first mindset. I also think that there have been different, like Vertical would sit down as a team and be able to ideate a strategy, a PR strategy for the year, right? So like, who are our top outlets? Who do we want to go to? What are the messages we're standing behind?

Starting point is 00:14:58 And now I truly think of a new strategy for every story we're telling, for every campaign, for every product launch, for every collaboration. You think through and you edit based on the audiences you want to reach because they're different. Sometimes you want to speak to your existing customers. Sometimes you want to reach new. So I think that's the main change is that, you know, every story has to be thought through differently. I think that you can't show up on the same channels for every PR launch or strategy you're thinking through.

Starting point is 00:15:31 Some work, some don't. If I know I can land a big press story or a big digital feature, then I don't need to work with our influencer team to help get the impressions and story out there. But if I'm like, it might be a little harder than we kind of, I partner with our brand team to bring it to life that way. So I think that it's just, we're just more thoughtful about, um, showing up differently and telling, telling the story in different places because there are more places to tell the story now. Oh, totally. And I'm curious to hear too, with 15 years of experience for someone just starting out, what is some advice that you would give a young professional that's just starting

Starting point is 00:16:12 their career after you've had 15 years of experience? Yeah. I mean, I feel like there's so much I would tell someone and so much I wish I could tell my younger self, uh, hindsight is a gift, obviously. Um, I think that, you know, simply put, you should always aim to be the hardest worker in the room, um, that stands out. And I think going along with that is you should always want to be someone that people want to sit next to, right? You, again, going back to the people, but you spend so much of your time at the office and at work that you want to, you want to be friends with the people you work with and you're all working towards the same goal, right? You want to see your company succeed. So you're all working together. And just to kind of recognize that, um, I also think that you should always be curious.

Starting point is 00:17:07 I curiosity is one of our values here at anthropology. Um, but I've always kind of been that way when I'm thinking of my career or how I can learn more or get ahead. It's kind of searching for the not so obvious, right? Ask the questions, find the white space, figure out what's not being done and find a way that you can do that to kind of make yourself stand out. Oh, absolutely. That's such good advice. I am curious to hear from you. We have a lot of listeners that are maybe like five, seven, 10 years into their career, and they might be hitting

Starting point is 00:17:47 like a wall or a creative rut. I know a lot of my friends are talking about that right now. Cause we're at that kind of point in our careers. What would you give as advice to someone like that? Yeah, I think that honestly, my advice wouldn't differ that much. I think search for what is not being asked of you, right? I think where I have seen growth the most is doing things for the first time, right? We all say that, you know, if, or I don't know if we all say it, but I say it is that if I'm not in a position of discomfort, I'm not growing. I'm at the point in my career, 15 years now where I I'm almost like searching for those opportunities where I'm like nervous and don't know what I'm doing because it's an instances like that,

Starting point is 00:18:36 that you learn so much. It's when you get to work with people that you don't typically work with. And I feel like, you know, earlier on in my career, I may have tried to avoid those, right? You're just like, I know what I'm doing. I'll keep to the script. But it is truly in those areas of discomfort that you grow the most. I also think when you are, you know, seven to 10 years in your career, you have a good idea of the direction you want it to go in. But I always say, look to your manager or their manager, or, you know, three levels above you and see what their job is like. What do you like about it? See how they operate, ask the questions, because it's good to know and see the direction in which you want to go. And you only know that by, by seeing, you know,

Starting point is 00:19:25 what your manager is doing ahead of you. And you learn so much by, by just watching how they work and, and kind of what's in their remit. Absolutely. Thank you so much for sharing that. I really appreciate that. And I feel like we could bounce around all day, career advice, PR, all of these things. But I want to jump into some of the questions that we sent over to you, which is all about PR and communications and things like that. Because I know a lot of our listeners are always curious around those topics. And we are all about storytelling at Marketing Happy Hour. And I know that that's a great communication strategy pillar. So how has

Starting point is 00:20:08 your team communicated brand messages that align with the brand story as a whole? And why is that kind of important for you? Yeah, I think what's cool about working at a brand like Anthropologie is that we're obviously never short of a story, right? It's kind of like a PR dream. I feel like I've worked, and I feel like the reason I've gotten here is because I've worked for brands where I've really had to like fight to find that story. When I was working back in luxury jewelry,

Starting point is 00:20:35 we would launch seven pieces a year. So it's like, how else am I keeping that steady drumbeat of news out there? And that's when I kind of leaned into the more like philanthropic, the social impact stories, the executive communications. And so at Anthropologie, we're never short of a story. Between the product drops, the campaign launches, the collaborations,

Starting point is 00:20:57 there's always something to speak to. But what I find most interesting is kind of looking for that not so obvious story. I think I'm lucky in my position now where I am able to sit into meetings and just kind of hear what people are working on. Right. So, you know, I could be sitting with our digital team and they could be speaking about new site enhancements and things they are working through. And I'm like, wait, hold on.

Starting point is 00:21:23 Can I ask you more questions about that? I often call myself like the internal journalist because I'm searching for those stories so that they, that, you know, our media partners don't need to, uh, because at the end of the day, you know, we are a retail company. Our customers are at the heart of every single decision we make. And so me being able to tell that like, okay, cool. We made these XYZ site advancements because we learned that you wanted to see outfitting recommendations, or we learned that you wanted reviews with comments on sizing and how it fit. So I think it's, it's the not so obvious stories that are my, are the most fun for me to tell. And I think that I have a very amazing team who empowers me to ask those questions and to do that. But it is cool. It's, it's interesting to see going back to what you said. It's interesting to see how the same story

Starting point is 00:22:21 that we're telling, whether it's a brand campaign, like we just launched our fall campaign, how that shows up differently on the different channels, right? So from my PR storytelling standpoint, I'm talking about, you know, why we partnered with Phoebe Tonkin to launch our campaign. I'm talking about what's interesting with the collection. I'm talking about how our marketing team brought it to life. And our marketing team is bringing it to life, showing up in like out of home advertising, having billboards in Times Square, having a gigantic influencer campaign and working with our ambassadors. So it's interesting to see how we're all telling the same story.

Starting point is 00:22:57 There's that thread of the storyline, but how it's showing up differently on all the channels. It's really interesting. Yeah, absolutely. And I had another question around that. Like anthropology has a lot of different offerings, right? So you've got homeware and you've got clothing and you've got all sorts of, you got beauty and all sorts of different things. Do the strategies for each of those differ at all? Or is it kind of like more of on a story as a whole of like a collection or things that

Starting point is 00:23:25 you're doing as a brand that you're kind of focusing on telling stories around? Yeah, I think that I think that every story is different, right? It's really amazing that we do. I often tell people that sometimes I feel like I work at an agency because we have so many product categories, which is incredible. We have, you know, our fashion and we have our beauty, which is amazing. We have accessories, we have shoes, we have living, we have, you know, gifts and decor, we have weddings. So we really do have everything. So it's cool to see how we balance those messages throughout the week, month, quarter, year, because there's so

Starting point is 00:24:07 much to talk about. And they're different, you know, they're different customers for each. So I think because of that, we speak to them differently. I think that at least on the PR front, we always go back to, you know, with any launch with any story, we think about who the audience is. We think about who the customer is. And we basically then back into that to be like, okay, then how are we going to show up? How are we going to tell this story? If we're trying to reach new, you know, we figure out how we reach new customers. If we're catering to our loyal community, our community customers that already know us, we think about it one way. So I think it's different for every story and per category, which makes it really exciting. Yeah. And probably per season too, you know, spring

Starting point is 00:24:57 you're looking at bright colors and brightness. And then in the fall, you're like winding down into that like holiday time. So that's interesting to hear too. Something that we've touched a little bit on in our conversations with PR professionals on the show is brand and reputation management. Could you just share a little bit about the work that you do in this area, how it kind of fits into the overall communication strategy for anthropology? Yeah, of course. So I think that a lot goes into reputation management, right? Um, it, and a lot goes back to that storytelling. Uh, when you think of the customer nowadays, or even the retail industry as a whole, um,

Starting point is 00:25:39 a lot goes into how someone perceives a brand, Not only with the product, but how we're talking about the product, who's talking about product, where we're talking about the product. And we have a really conscious customer. They want to feel like they know the brand. They want to feel like they understand what we believe in. They understand what we're standing behind. So I find it a huge responsibility of myself to kind of bring those stories to life. So what are we doing from a social impact level? You know, who are we partnering with? Even like the ambassadors that we're working with, like, how did we select this group? What are they doing? What's their project look like? And then our larger scale partnerships, it's like, who are we partnering with to, to get in front of a new audience? And then of course, you know, our executives, we have a

Starting point is 00:26:31 wonderful leadership team. I think we were just talking before we jumped on about how I love putting, it's my favorite part of my job is putting our executives in front of audiences to talk about our brand or giving people an inside look at the executives behind the brand really humanizes it, right? It gives a face to the brand. You see the people working for it. It also really elevates our reputation just by showing who's working for us. We have, you know, our executives are incredibly seasoned retail executives that have worked for some of the best brands in the country. So being able to say that they're working for anthropology and moving us forward is incredible. So I think that is a huge part of reputation management as well, is showing the

Starting point is 00:27:19 people inside the brand. Yeah, absolutely. And I'm curious, you mentioned a little bit about purpose driven or social cause messages. I'm curious how you communicate those in an engaging and authentic way in your communication strategy. Yeah, for sure. So we at Anthropology have, you know, a few moments throughout the year, We have great partnerships. We have a social impact team that has really been moving us forward. I love telling those stories because it shows what we believe in. We have a partnership with Young Arts, who is an amazing organization. And we are partnering with them to really show how we are investing in and nurturing the next generation of artists.

Starting point is 00:28:06 You know, as I spoke to before with our 30th anniversary, obviously artists are at the heart of our brand and incredibly important to us. So it really is an organic fit in a partnership. So, you know, we're partnering with them to bring campaigns to life. We're doing in-store events with them. We are, you know, we're working with them to, to really drive forward this message that, that we believe in artistic talents and we see the value in it. And then like partnerships, like with the, like with Nest or the Nature Conservancy, we, we really are kind of rounding out our portfolio of social cause partners. And it just, I think for a customer to see that we have these values is incredibly important. Oh, absolutely. And it's interesting to see what the brand is actually doing with these

Starting point is 00:29:01 different partners and kind of like crafting messages around what is actually the partnership, because a lot of people will say, oh, well, we partner with this organization, but there's no information about it. You don't know how involved they are. You don't know what they're doing. And so I think it's very important to put that first and kind of give people an inside look at what you're actually doing. And then, you know, I feel like it's very transparent and great for the brand as well. So I love that so much. Let's just touch quickly on affiliate marketing. It's not something that we've talked a lot about here on Marketing Happy Hour. I'm just curious to hear how have you seen affiliate programs evolve and how do they kind of impact a communications or PR strategy? Yeah. So I think affiliate marketing goes into that storyline of how the media landscape has changed

Starting point is 00:29:51 so much over the past 15 years. I think there are different pieces of affiliate marketing. The one that I touch on the most is like the publisher side of it. And we have a specific affiliate marketing team that we partner very closely with. You know, they work with, they do influencer campaigns, but I mostly work with them on the publisher front. So, you know, being a digitally dominant landscape nowadays, all of these media outlets want to drive commerce. You know, they're writing about our products.

Starting point is 00:30:20 They are recommending our product. So for them, when they link out to our site, you know, they'll get a percentage of that commission. So it's kind of, it's a nice relationship where, you know, obviously when we're thinking through stories or outlets, we want to partner with to tell our stories. We kind of think through where it fits most. Like I will look at the audience of a refinery 29 versus Vogue to see who I think the best outlet to tell a story would be based on their demographics. Um, so I think that, I think it's, it's a piece in PR that has changed a lot. You know, this didn't exist 15 years ago, or maybe it did, but I don't think it did. So, and it's grown so much.

Starting point is 00:31:05 So it's really interesting. It's not going anywhere. And I think there's a lot of opportunity here with PR professionals to be aware of the relationship of affiliate marketing and how it can impact PR strategies and how it can be mutually beneficial. Totally. Is there like data as well, when somebody links out to a specific affiliate link in their article that the team or whoever can look back on and say, okay, that was like a great placement that drove XYZ sales. Like, okay. Yeah, for sure. So our, we have an amazing affiliate team who like can show us that data. So again, when I'm going back to be like, who do I want to help tell the story? Like, oh, this outlet drives a lot of traffic. So again, when I'm going back to be like, who do I want to help tell the story? Like, oh, this outlet drives a lot of traffic. So maybe they'd be the right person

Starting point is 00:31:49 to tell this story. So yes, for sure. Well, Kate, I couldn't let this interview pass us by without going over experiential events. That's one of my favorite areas of marketing. It's something that I have a little bit of experience in and love doing. So I always love to hear from other people who are doing it as well. What do you think are the key elements to a successful event? I think I love experiential events as well. I think what I love most about them is it puts our brand on display. And again, it's going back to us doing something for our community, which I love. I think that what's cool about anthropology is that I see success with different events differently, right? So like we have an in-store event strategy where we want to bring our customers to the store, we want to celebrate them. And then we have an

Starting point is 00:32:40 event strategy where we want to partner with influencers and put on an amazing dinner and have them all wearing anthropology. We have press events with new launches. So I think that I look at them all differently. But if I'm being completely honest, I think that the most important part of a successful event is having the team that knows how to do it and how to support it. I have an amazing, amazing events team who is operationally minded and they kind of balance that right side, left side brain because they have the creativity to ideate this amazing event. But also like events are logistics. Events is a schedule. It is a run of show. And there are a lot of details that go into events. So I think, you know, when thinking through experiences for our customers and for our

Starting point is 00:33:29 community, it's not something I take lightly because it's how we're showing up and that's super important. It's an introduction to the brand for a lot of people. So they're very exciting. We have a crazy event schedule, obviously, but they're amazing. And they are an incredibly important piece to the PR puzzle. Like we were talking about before, I think that when I'm ideating a PR strategy, if it's for a collaboration or if it's for a product launch campaign, whatever, a lot of times an event will be a bullet point in that, right? But then we're thinking, are we bringing this to life with customers?

Starting point is 00:34:06 Do we want to showcase it to them? Or do we think that this is beneficial to have media and press and influencers there? So everything's different. The KPIs are different. If it's to reach new audiences or if it's to drum up organic social coverage, or if it's for content, we think through everything differently. Let's touch on those KPIs just for a moment. You mentioned that they're different per event, but in general, are there specific KPIs that your

Starting point is 00:34:31 team is looking for in order to gauge the success of a particular event? And mainly I'm asking that because we probably have people listening that don't know what KPIs to be looking for. So any advice around that would be super helpful. I think I want to preface this with the fact that I think anthropology is an incredibly unique brand when it comes to events. So for, cause for me, I would, if we bring, say we do in-store events and say only 15 customers show up, most people might view that as, as not a successful event. But for me, if those 15 people come in and meet with the amazing associates in store and develop a relationship with them and, you know, learn about the brand from them, and then they come back and establish a relationship. Like that is a successful event to me. So I think we look at everything differently. Of course, with like the

Starting point is 00:35:30 influencer events, it's easier for putting on a dinner. If we have 16 influencers there, if we get X number of impressions, we know what their followers are. We know they're all wearing different looks driving to our site. So I think that those are more easily measurable than the customer events, but I think that they are all incredibly important pieces to the puzzle of nurturing and catering our anthropology community. Absolutely. And connecting face-to-face, whether that is with influencers, press, or with customers is super valuable.

Starting point is 00:36:00 And we'll just continue on in this snowball of word of mouth, right? Like people will spread the word about the brand because they had this amazing experience. And I just love that about experiential events. It's like my favorite category. Good talk. It's so fun. Yeah, for sure. Absolutely.

Starting point is 00:36:17 It's an incredibly fun and important piece to the puzzle. I feel like when people think through or talk about my job, they're like, oh my gosh, it seems so fun. And I'm like, oh yes, of course, like I do get to do these fun things. But with everything, like with an event, there's a budget, with an event, there's logistics, with an event, there's spreadsheets. So it's like, there's everything, you know, the end result may be really fun, but a lot goes into bringing those to life. And again, I kudos to my amazing team for doing that. Absolutely. Well, on the topic of events, fun things, what is coming up for anthropology? What should we kind of be on the lookout for

Starting point is 00:36:57 communications around or just with the brand in general? Yeah, so a holiday is coming up and I feel like holidays and anthropology, they kind of go hand in hand. I would hope that everyone listening has walked past an anthropology store or into an anthropology store during the holidays. And you're probably completely blown away by the window displays and what's inside. So holidays coming up. We're all so excited. We of course have some big brand activations happening, big moments to showcase everything that anthropology has to offer from both a gifting standpoint, but also a self-purchase standpoint. We are kind of rounding out our first year in our partnership with YoungArts,

Starting point is 00:37:48 which again is also super exciting. So there will be some news around our partnership with them, how we kind of brought it to life and brought it full circle. We kind of highlight the magic of our partnership and how we worked with them to bring to, to bring things with anthropology to life over the past year. And there was an amazing mentorship program that we'll talk about. So there's a lot of exciting things happening. There's going to be a slew of in-store events

Starting point is 00:38:15 for customers. So I would sign up for our emails so you can get, or follow us on social so that you can see everything that's coming down the pike because there really are some amazing brand moments happening in the next few months. Yeah. And those in-store events for customers are really, truly special. I remember as you were speaking, I was like, what's that first event that I went to? I remember growing up and I loved anthropology, loved going in, loved window shopping. That was like my main thing to do in there was just to like, look at everything. But I remember going to an event. It was just like, I didn't even know what was happening. I went to the mall and my friends and I were like, what is this? And we went in and there was, there were like treats. This was many years ago,

Starting point is 00:38:59 but there were like treats and there was a photo booth and all these fun things. And I just remember falling in love with the brand. And it's fun to like have that memory pop up for me because not even realizing that made me kind of connect with the brand and just love it throughout my entire life now. So that's so interesting that like, it kind of like started from there. That's weird. I love that, but that's true. You know, I think that's what we aim for, right? It's like, we create these experiences and I love how you said falling for Anthro because that was just our fall campaign that we launched a few weeks ago, because new customers, old customers, we want everyone to fall in love with all things Anthro, right? So if you're already our customer, like fall in love with what we have to offer you.

Starting point is 00:39:42 If you're new to it, like there's just so much to offer and we really do value those connections with the community. And I feel like I always say that I truly feel like anthropology, like invented this experience for retail concept where it's like, you walk into our store and it's like a five senses experience. You're like, what's that hanging from the wall? What's this over here? There's this, you feel like you're discovering new product and the way it's merchandised. And it's, it really is just such an experience. And it's a lot of teamwork that goes to bring that to life. And it's a lot of experts that, that can create that magic. And that's why I love my job to be able to talk about how we do that and, and bring our community in to have those experiences that you remember

Starting point is 00:40:25 five years later. So cool. We asked this on the show to all of our guests, and that is, what is one thing you know now that you wish you knew earlier on in your career? And then I kind of want to frame that differently because when we were chatting over email, you mentioned that a question that you get asked a lot is, was there a pivotal moment of growth in your career that you can kind of look back on? So either one of those, however, you want to answer that. Yeah. I think that I can tie it back to communication specifically,

Starting point is 00:40:57 because whether you're in a communication role or whether you're not, if you're in another, you know, part of the organization, I truly feel like what I have learned most and what has been most impactful over the course of my career is that it's not what you say, it's how you say it, right? It's how you position things and how you speak to other people, how you work with other people. I think the most valuable lesson I have learned is that no two people work the same, right? No two people communicate the same. And so when you work in a huge organization where there's a lot of cross-functional partnership, you need to be able to cater your communication or cater how you work or cater how you approach something to who you are working with. We, you know, I think a

Starting point is 00:41:45 perfect example of that is that we work with the stores team a lot. Our, the stores team are all stars. They bring our, they bring our brand to life every single day. I was talking to our executive director of retail the other day, who who's the head of all of our stores. And I was saying how they're, you know, our stores are at the front line. They're the ones that if people come in, they're the ones presenting the brand to them. They're the ones showcasing the product. And we put events on in the stores all the time and they communicate differently from us. They're on their feet all day long. We're at our desk. So we need to think of how we communicate to them and how we share information with them because everyone works differently. So I think that, I think the most beneficial thing

Starting point is 00:42:26 I've learned is it's not what you're saying. It's how you say it. Again, I think that's kind of cliche coming from someone who communicates for a living, but I think that, I think that makes sense for all functions of a company. So true. I couldn't agree more. Well, we're approaching the end. I feel like I could talk to you all day. I was like trying to figure out how to transition to the next question here because I wanted to get through everything, but I was like, let's just stay on this for more, more time. But where can everybody find you follow along with what you're up to? What answer is up to, where can we find you online? Okay. So first and foremost, follow Anthropologie, Anthro Living, Anthro Weddings.

Starting point is 00:43:07 We have the industry leading creative team who puts forward the best, the best, the best content. So first and foremost, if you're not following Anthropologie, which I hope you all are, you should follow now, because as I mentioned, we have a lot of exciting things coming up. We have amazing creative and it's just really inspiring. Myself, I'm not as exciting or fun, but I love LinkedIn creative and it's just really inspiring. Um, myself, I'm not as exciting or fun, but I love LinkedIn. It's my favorite social channel. So please follow along. I'm super active on there. Um, people reach out to me all the time on LinkedIn and I love, love, love having conversations with younger women who are in the industry,

Starting point is 00:43:41 who are interested in what I do, or even if they're not interested in what I do. Um, so you can find me on LinkedIn at Kate Williams, Haldy. Um, you can also find me on Instagram, but that's typically just photos of me and my family and my two daughters who I adore. Uh, and then it's like, it's like 50, 50 anthro content versus family content. So not as exciting there, but, uh, you can find me at KM Haldy. Amazing. Thank you so much. And we'll link everything in the show content. So not as exciting there, but you can find me at KM Haldi. Amazing. Thank you so much. And we'll link everything in the show notes so people know where to look. But thanks again for joining us today. This has been awesome. Thank you so much. It was so fun talking to you. Thanks for listening to this week's episode. We hoped you loved it as much as we did.

Starting point is 00:44:25 If you enjoyed the conversation, we'd love to get your feedback on the episode. Head to the review section of your favorite podcast app and let us know what you thought. Thanks for listening and we'll see you next week. We are so excited to share that our first ever free marketing happy hour digital resource is now available. Download the dream career game plan today at marketinghappyhr.com forward slash freebie. That's marketinghappyhr.com forward slash freebie. This five-step workbook will guide you through defining your goals, building your network, diversifying your skills, influencing where you're at, and investing in your growth. Cassie and I created this resource with marketing careers in mind, but the framework can be applied to any industry. Our hope is that this workbook will help you truly

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Marketing Happy Hour - Brand Communications 101 | Kate Haldy of Anthropologie

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