Leaders in Customer Loyalty, Powered by Loyalty360
Leaders in Customer Loyalty, Powered by Loyalty360
#397: Carter’s: Engaging the Next Generation of Customers with Creative Campaigns and Conversations
Founded by William Carter, children’s apparel retailer Carter’s is nearly a 165-year-old company that helps parents navigate parenthood. Today, the company operates more than 1,000 stores worldwide. Carter’s family of brands—including Carter’s, OshKosh B’gosh, Little Planet, and Skip Hop—are recognized across the globe and available online and in Carter’s owned stores, while exclusive lines can be found at the brand’s retail partners, such as Walmart, Target, and Amazon.
To learn about the recent updates to Carter’s loyalty program and how the brand is intentionally addressing the challenges and perceptions of parenthood, Loyalty360 spoke with Jeff Jenkins, CMO at Carter’s. Jenkins is an acclaimed marketing professional with extensive experience in multiple industries and has been with Carter’s for five years. In his role, he oversees marketing, brand strategy, customer insights, business intelligence, communications, creative, visual merchandising, PR and customer service experience, and more.
In this interview, Jenkins discusses the concept behind the “More Than Just Cute” campaign, appealing to the next generation of customers, and how platform integration needs to work in a martech stack to create a seamless customer experience.
When you're a 165 year old company with 750 retail locations across the United States, conduct business in 40 countries, some executives may rest on their laurels and maybe even hit cruise control, yet not Jeff Jenkins, chief Marketing Officer at Carter's, which is one of the most storied brands in the world today.
Mark Johnson:Jeff knew the importance of Big L loyalty, as he described it, which is a focus on brand value, brand recognition and driving loyalty to the brand, and also Little L loyalty the program itself. The Little L loyalty, the program itself, was one of the most important factors that drove him to the iconic brand five years ago to become the new and now current Chief Marketing Officer at Carter's. The award-winning and recognized Rewarding Moments Loyalty Program enables 91% of the transactions to go through into the program. They are the number one retailer in children's apparel from 0 to 10, and this rich treasure trove of data allows the Customer Loyalty Program to feed deep understandings of the customers. That leads to critical personalization and communication efficacy, which enables parents to get through childhood unscathed. Jeff, thank you very much for taking the time to join us today. Can you give us a short introduction to Carter's and tell us about your role within the company and your experience in customer loyalty?
Jeff Jenkins:I sure can. So my name is Jeff Jenkins. As you mentioned, I'm the CMO, so I oversee all things customer, all things, marketing, pr, social, brand, creative, all of those pieces. I've been here at Carter's for five years. In the world of Carter's that means I'm a newbie. We are a 165-year-old company that is the number one retailer in children's apparel globally. We are the number one brand. We have 750 stores in the US, we're in over 40 countries and we're the number one brand at Target, walmart, amazon, macy's, kohl's, you name it we're the number one brand and all those retailers play a key role in making sure that parents get through parenthood unscathed, as we say.
Mark Johnson:We'd love to know more about Carter's Rewards, the tiered program which promises the perks of parenthood. Can you briefly describe how the program works, how customers engage with the program and what the benefits of the program are, and why a customer may drive to be more of a VIP or a VIP plus credit card reward member?
Jeff Jenkins:Yeah, I mean I think in any retail space right now, loyalty and I say loyalty in two ways of saying loyalty. I call it big L loyalty, ie big brand loyalty and then little L loyalty, which is more of the traditional loyalty program mechanics. I think loyalty big L loyalty is very important, right? That is the key ingredient to success. We are a life stage based company. Carter's is you grow with us from zero to 10. It's really important for us to be there when you decide to have a child and be there all the way through and keep you as a customer for 10 years. So both big L loyalty is important and little L loyalty, which is our rewarding moments program, is very crucial in how we drive our business.
Jeff Jenkins:From our rewarding moments and my Carter's Rewards, as we've rebranded in the last year, what's really exciting about it is one of the things that attracted me to this job five years ago was our loyalty and rewards program.
Jeff Jenkins:We are unparalleled in our penetration. I always say there is no one like Carter's in the rewards game and the loyalty space out there. 91% of our transactions go through our loyalty program. So it is an unparalleled, robust data set of customers, transactions that we understand and can personalize journeys and experiences for you on, especially in a world where we know you're going to buy a six-month-old pink pajama, you're going to buy it at nine months, you're going to buy it at 12 months. Being able to leverage data to be able to reward you and keep you incented and engaged in a loyalty program is really impressive. I mean, I think if you look across the industries not just apparel of what the penetration of loyalty is, the high watermarks are in the 50s and 60s out there and we're sitting at 91, which is something that, when I was eyeing this job sort of was like a marketer's dream to be able to play in a sandbox that is that full of data.
Mark Johnson:Carter's is launching more than just cute a campaign leveraging video designed to specifically engage millennials and older Gen Z parents. Can you speak to the strategies your team has applied? As the campaign was designed, how did your brand leverage data and customer insights to guide development?
Jeff Jenkins:Yeah, well, as a marketer, I grew up in the CPG, young brands world, and so everything always starts with the customer. Classically trained marketer, you've got to start with the customer, and so at the beginning of this year we started out sort of really focused on consumer insights. And two things grew out of that right, which is the new Carter's Rewards program and this new campaign More Than Just Cute. One of the things we saw in our data was the customer's changing. I think when you think about how COVID has affected everyone, how there's channel shifts going on, there's behavioral shifts value is super important in an economy. That's where particularly young folks, those on the cusp of having children, are really cash strapped. And then the perception of parenthood is changing with social media. So we sort of use those insights to craft both the Carter's Rewards Refresh with the tears, as you mentioned, and then, secondarily, this More Than Just Cute campaign.
Jeff Jenkins:We brought on a new ad agency, mischief, who is probably one of the hottest creative if not the hottest creative agency, but More Than Just Hot. They're great people and they've got great ideas. And so we gelled with them right away and we sort of said how do we think about a brand that's been 165 years old. How do we reinvigorate that brand? How do we make it a new thing?
Jeff Jenkins:And so they came up with this idea that you know for so much of the perception of Carter's we're really just considered a cute baby brand and there's the emphasis on cute and the emphasis on baby are two things we wanted to unlock this year. One, baby one of the reasons we created Tears in our loyalty program was how do we incent people to stay with us beyond the first one or two years? How do we create these levels for them to achieve to stay with us beyond baby? And then the more than just cute campaign really was the unlock of how are we viewed as something beyond cute baby clothes? We view to something beyond cute baby clothes. We know that with 165 years of experience, we understand that not all of parenthood is cute, that for every one poster or picture you post on Instagram or TikTok, you've probably got 600 things in your camera feed of missed shots or mishaps. And we really wanted to expose that we're there for both the great moments as well as the other 99% of those moments which may be more than just cute.
Mark Johnson:And how will Carter measure the success of the campaign? What KPIs are prioritized by your team and how will they potentially inform future customer engagement efforts?
Jeff Jenkins:Yeah, I think it's a new path for us. We've not been a traditional retailer that does a lot of what I would consider upper funnel. So one of the things when we went into this, a lot of our marketing over the years preceding my arrival and for the first couple of years I was here was really focused on bottom of the funnel conversion metrics, roas, kpis that are driving sales. And this one was we need to change the brand's perception, sales. And this one was we need to change the brand's perception. So we have a brand health tracker that we do every quarter, measuring certain brand health metrics, brand perceptions, customer behaviors, and so we said with this new campaign we really want to shift perception of the brand. So how do we measure brand appeal to the next generation? Gen Z is having children now. It's hard to believe, but Gen Z are now parents. So how are we changing the perceptions with Gen Zs? How are we changing the perception with millennials? And one of the most important KPIs that we're looking at was new customers. So how are we bringing in new customers for a life stage brand such as Carter's or other places I've worked in my career bringing in that next generation of customers? You have to wake up every day obsessed with how do you bring in that next generation of customers, because eventually, customers age out of our brand, and so I think, when we think about those metrics, we actually had to redo our measurement. Uh, completely about how we're measuring. How do we tie our online and all our online and our offline to television, ctv display video in a way that we can really measure it? And so we spent um, probably a good three months.
Jeff Jenkins:Once the campaign was set was how are we going to measure? How are we going to drive the impact and see what's going to happen? Of course, sales are always the end goal, but how is it affecting those metrics that really we have in our brand health tracker? There are five key measures that drive future purchase intents. So how are we going to use this campaign to change the perceptions on these five metrics that drive future purchase intent, knowing that you may see an ad at maybe 70 days before you make a purchase 50 days but we want to make sure that we're understanding how those things are interacting with each other to drive greater throughput. And then the lastly is retention right. We've got to keep you year to year. We want you to stay with us as long as possible. So we're actually looking at, you know, obviously measuring our media against an LTV as part of our ROAS, so understanding that new customer that we're bringing in, what type of customer we're bringing in. Last year we put in a new CDP, so our customer data platform, and so one of the things we do is, for every new customer, we're scoring them against our lifetime value in real time and optimizing our media buys against that LTV. So it's really an exciting time. I'm not saying we've got it all solved. I think that's one of the things about marketing right now is that there's always new tool sets and always new things coming down the pipe that are challenging and which ones are good and which ones are a little bit of vaporware at times.
Mark Johnson:We recently completed a research paper called the Next Generation of Customer Loyalty. It examined what brands think about the future of customer loyalty, including ways to engage and drive loyalty to younger shoppers. Can you tell us a little bit more about how Carter's is committed to engaging families during some of the most memorable times of their lives, and what does Next Generation Customer Loyalty mean to you and to Carter's?
Jeff Jenkins:Yeah, it is something I think we are constantly trying to unpack. What is that loyalty? I think one of the things, particularly with the next generation, is that that is this notion of the big L loyalty. Right, the brand loyalty, the experience, that loyalty is more than just the loyalty program that they're used to. It's what is the brand experience you're giving them. You know we pride ourselves on having the best experience in retail for new parents, with over 750 stores in the U? S. We really try and think how are all of these experiences laddering up to something that feels unique? So for us it's. It's the loyalty program itself, carter'swards, but it's also what is the brand experience? And she is looking for different things than she was, maybe five years ago even.
Jeff Jenkins:I think now one of the things we're seeing from a loyalty perspective is what are the perks you're giving me? I think everyone is trying to sort through all the perks that are given with these programs. Right, if you're a Prime member, if you're a Walmart Connect or Walmart Plus member, what are all the ancillary benefits? Or Walmart Plus member, what are all the ancillary benefits? One of the things that we put in our program over the last couple of years is the ability to recycle clothes and get rewarded for this sort of like. You know, the ESG portion of loyalty, of really like, how do we make sure that we know clothes are handed down, how do we make sure that we do our part in helping facilitate that aspect as part of our program? So that's an element that we put in our program that we didn't have before. So I think it's around the experiential stuff as much as it is around the traditional earn and burn mechanics of a loyalty program and creative value.
Mark Johnson:Emotional loyalty is also another topic that's very important to the members of Loyalty360. We meet weekly and discuss different topics pertaining to customer loyalty, both big L and a little l. Customer loyalty and emotional loyalty is something that brands are very focused on. Starting and caring for a family is packed with significant emotional experiences. Can you discuss how Carter's rewards and initiatives, such as the More Than Cute campaign, spark and cultivate emotional loyalty with customers, and can you provide maybe other examples as well?
Jeff Jenkins:Yeah, I think the thing that we're trying to do now with our new rewards program and loyalty program is really more around cultivating a conversation.
Jeff Jenkins:You know, I think loyalty for so long was a one way I buy this, you get that and I think now, with all of our personalization capabilities that we've been bringing on over the last few years, it's really been about how do we cultivate a conversation with you, how do we share aligned interest?
Jeff Jenkins:How do we make sure that our messaging is bringing you the right message at the right time that's relevant to you? How are we driving things like pieces of content that may have nothing to do with shopping, but your child, we know from a purchase cycle, is about ready to be two, and we know that means potty training, and how do we send you some content relative to potty training, because that's sort of around the two to three year mark. Those sort of moments, I think, are where we're really trying to cultivate a conversation, because I think that's sort of like shouting one way is an old way of marketing, and I think consumers' expectations have changed around what they expect from rewards programs and loyalty and how they engage with brands, and so I think those are the things that we're trying to build in experiences around the stages what we call ages and stages of a child's life, and how do we have conversations and provide you value and, in turn, hopefully builds loyalty and a relationship with our brands.
Mark Johnson:During a recent Loyalty360 advisory board discussion and in recent brand surveys as well. Looking at technology can be quite complex and challenging for many brands. Not only do they have to keep up with the day jobs, making sure that they have all the marketing efforts in place, but understanding new technology that can drive deeper engagement or brand loyalty is something that many are challenged with and they find it very challenging to be able to make sure that they understand and be able to implement the right technologies. When you look at picking platforms or leveraging platforms, is this something that you have had a challenge with and, if so, how do you address and make sure that Carter's picks the most important technology and most impactful technology for your brand's customer loyalty efforts?
Jeff Jenkins:Yeah, I mean the marketing technology space is probably the fastest evolving space that I've seen in the last 15 or 20 years. It's just moving at such a rapid pace and I think the sort of advent or acceleration of AI is only going to add fuel to the fire of what can and can't be done. With every technology demo over the last 25 years of my career, there are definitely cases of pure vaporware and there are cases of, hey, really great technology that can deliver. I think it's part of our jobs is to really suss out what does our organization need? Not necessarily what's the shiny object out there, but what does our organization need in order to achieve its objectives. And then, how do we find the technology and really go deep? We have been very lucky at Carter's that we've got phenomenal partners. We've done the due diligence and really found technologies and platforms that are enabling us to achieve the results that we want.
Jeff Jenkins:I think the challenge is always in the integration right. That's where the big challenges are. It's not that a platform can't do what it says Generally. Where you find it is more of the struggle of well, how do you make sure that this platform talks to that platform that talks to this platform that talks to this platform and returns a call to the original platform in under 400 milliseconds, because that's the call time it has to have to return an experience that the customer will deem seamless on the website. So I think that is really where the challenges are, and how do you get everyone on the same page. And talking about those integrations is where I think we run into.
Jeff Jenkins:The sort of bumps along the road is how do you make sure those integrations are talking? How do you make sure that everyone's formatting the data in the same way? Right, when I arrived at Carter's five years ago, roughly 90% of our transactions were going through our loyalty program, but the data elements were sitting in three different data lakes. There was no real-time ability to pull real-time attributes off of our customer master and our database. So while we had this unbelievable pool, they weren't talking to each other because we had not set up the integrations properly. As we rebuilt our MarTech stack over the last three years, we really focused in and said okay, how do we make sure that the integrations are the sort of secret sauce? The platforms are all great, but how do we have the integrations that make sure that we can get that data to provide a better experience for our customers.
Mark Johnson:When you look at other customer loyalty programs are there programs that you admire, that you find impactful from a customer loyalty perspective. What do you like about their offerings and are there any elements of that program that you would like to implement into Carter's Rewards?
Jeff Jenkins:Yeah, we are always studying for like what is the best in the class. One that I hold up in really high regard because I have a 13 year old daughter who is obsessed with makeup and skincare is Sephora, which often always comes up, the Sephora VIP Insider. And she is, you know, as a 13 year oldyear-old going through that sort of journey on sort of middle school and she's obsessed with it. And I'll give a good example. My wife and my daughter went up to New York City for a girls trip her first time in New York City. They stopped at five different Sephoras in New York City. I told my wife I was like I'm pretty sure the same stuff in the Sephora in Atlanta is the same stuff in each of those five Sephoras in New York City. I told my wife I was like I'm pretty sure the same stuff in the Sephora in Atlanta is the same stuff in each of those five Sephoras in New York. But I think they do a phenomenal job from an online, offline integration piece that Sephora does a phenomenal job with. I think their branding and their experiential piece, getting to the rouge level the unique secret lipstick color that you get when you become the top level all these little bits that make you feel like the brand knows and sees you and you feel valued, are something that I think of as a really important piece.
Jeff Jenkins:I think there's something really inspiring and I don't know that I would necessarily call it the traditional loyalty program, but by REI's co-op program, which is, you know, this sort of collective piece and you get a reward and sort of a dollar at the end of the year based on your shopping behavior and you feel like you're an insider per se.
Jeff Jenkins:But it's a unique, different program. I think someone who shops a lot at REI and spends a lot of time outdoors, it's one of those where it's just a unique program that I'm not sure anyone else could pull off, given their structure. But there's something to be learned for us always between whether it's Sephora, the inline, offline, online and offline integration that support us so well, whether it's the sort of way they're setting up and communicating the customer at REI. Those are two that jump out of the page to me, that I'm always just trying to learn about. What are they doing? That makes, and everyone is, passionate about those programs and passionate about those brands, and so the sort of the programs and the loyalty add up to a larger big brand loyalty piece for those companies.
Mark Johnson:And last question what can Loyalty360 do to help you and your team with your customer loyalty efforts?
Jeff Jenkins:Yeah, I think the things we're always seeking are sort of in two buckets right, which is one is and we've talked a little bit about those, about one which is the first one being is like just helping decipher the roadmap or the landscape of all the different evolving technologies. That is probably the biggest challenge that you run into. There's no shortage of great products out there, but which one is right for what our needs are? I think that's something that as a marketer, as a leader, you're always trying to decipher, because there are ones that are more real than others. There's ones that are good for you, that may work, but they're not right for you. So I think trying to suss out that I think sometimes in the process of an RFP or a sales process, I think sometimes companies will pitch that they can do everything for everyone, but really trying to understand what each platform or partner can do really well will help me and help our team. I think the other one is just what are those ever-evolving insights, the expectations of customers?
Mark Johnson:.
Jeff Jenkins:How are they evolving? What are those pieces in which they're seeing and judging loyalty programs and wants and needs around? Who's doing it best? I only get to see so many loyalty programs that I participate in. There are probably programs out there that I don't know, no matter how much I look. So trying to understand what's best in class what are consumers gravitating?
Jeff Jenkins:What are those trends. I think those are the big ones. For me, those two buckets are things that I would look to, Loyalty360 to continue to help us understand.
Mark Johnson:And now it's time for the quickfire round questions. We'd like to keep the responses to one word or a quick phrase. The first question is what is your favorite word?
Jeff Jenkins:Curiosity. Mark: What's your least favorite word, but Not the bad version of, but the but in the middle of a sentence.
Mark Johnson:And what excites you?
Jeff Jenkins:I would have to say new ideas, like going along with the curiosity, new ideas and what do you find tiresome? Last year-itis what is a must-have from the Carter's lineup that all families need to know about. We started a new line called Little Planet Organics three years ago. It's now the largest organic baby line in the US and it's at incredible prices, so I think that is a sort of hidden gem that we have. I know that's more than one word.
Mark Johnson:Is there a book that you've read that you'd like to recommend to colleagues?
Jeff Jenkins:My favorite book that I give almost everyone on my team is Essentialism by McCown.
Mark Johnson:What profession other than the one that you're currently in now would you like to try?
Jeff Jenkins:I would have loved in another life, to have been an architect.
Mark Johnson:What do you enjoy doing that you don't often get the time to do More time in the water.
Jeff Jenkins:Lake beach ocean More time in the water.
Mark Johnson:Who inspired you to become the person you are today.
Jeff Jenkins:My parents, my dad, more than anything, shaped who I am today and who I continue to try and be and set the bar high.
Mark Johnson:And last one how do you want to be remembered by your friends and family?
Jeff Jenkins:I would have to say, as the memory maker, as the person who created fun memories for everybody, excellent.
Mark Johnson:Well, jeff, thank you very much for taking the time to speak with us today. It was great getting to know you, but also getting to know more about Carter's Rewards, how effective it is and how you've developed it and the focus you have going forward on the program too. It's really reassuring to hear some things that you have coming out forward on the program too. It's really reassuring to hear some things that you have coming out and also the passion you have for the brand and the program doesn't always resonate in some of these interviews, but to hear it in your interview and the passion you have was great to hear. We appreciate it and thank you, looking forward to hearing more from your brand in the coming year. So thanks again. Thank you, everyone else for taking the time to listen today. Make sure you check back for additional episodes of our leaders and customer multi-series soon and until then, have a wonderful day.