Farfetch'S New CMO Understanding Of Digitalization

Electronic business platform

Recently, it has been enough to catch up with eyeballs. First, it acquired the Style.com of Kangtai's Nash group's electronic business platform.

Cooperate to get Jingdong millions of pounds of investment.

In terms of personnel, Farfetch attracted the lead of Natalie Massenet, the founder of the biggest competitor Net-a-Porter in March this year. In early June, he appointed the senior vice president of digital marketing department, John Veichmanis, as the company CMO.

These measures seem to push Farfetch to the cusp of the storm and declare its determination to increase market expansion.

According to foreign media reports, Farfetch will continue to improve its profitability (last year's platform trading volume of US $800 million), and began preparing for the listing. It is estimated that the valuation of IPO will be between us $1 billion 500 million and US $5 billion.

A few days ago, foreign media DIGIDAY conducted an interview with John Veichmanis, chatting about Farfetch's strategy in digital marketing and Veichmanis's understanding of digitalization.

According to the world clothing and shoe net, Veichmanis is currently leading a marketing team of 130 people. They are made up of data scientists, editors and AI experts.

Veichmanis has always insisted on building brand awareness with data driven. This is why Farfetch can maintain healthy growth in the most rapidly changing electricity market, and it can also stand out under the siege of Amazon and Net-a-Porter.

The following is the content of the interview:

Question 1: you didn't have any experience in fashion industry before you joined Farfetch in 2015. How does this affect your role in Farfetch?

Veichmanis: no matter which industry, the rules of marketing are increasingly relying on technology and data to establish more dialogues with consumers.

This is very important and what I bring for Farfetch - we have the ability to build meaningful customer advocates, and then find ways to reach users through technology.

Question 2: the significance of the luxury industry is constantly evolving. How do you do marketing for this?

The challenge for Veichmanis:Farfetch is that we want to build a world-renowned brand.

But realize that if you want to build a brand in the luxury industry, you need to make sure that your story is told to the right crowd, otherwise everything you do is wasted.

Therefore, our main direction now is to find more consumers by using the existing data of the platform (data from large numbers of visitors and existing consumers), and are realized by technology.

In fact, we are reducing the number of consumers who touch, but find more accurate people who love luxury goods and fashion industry, and then communicate with them.

I think the new era of luxury goods industry CMO should assume such a role: not only through technology to accurately locate the target population, but also to dialogue with consumers, tell a story of continuous development, so as to inspire their ideas, and ultimately stimulate their buying behavior.

Question 3: how do you specifically operate the "data technology"?

Veichmanis: in the past two years, we have invested $4 million in marketing technology platform, and have invested a lot in marketing, AI and data technology.

1/4 of the entire marketing team is data scientists.

We analyze the data in our hands, locate the target customers, predict their preferences and purchase behaviors before we know how to tell them stories.

Question 4: do you think today's marketers need to be data scientists?

Veichmanis: first of all, I am not a data scientist myself.

But it is undeniable that what data scientists can do and deliver can be very important.

Data is the capital of marketing personnel.

Our job is to create meaning around data, and then serve consumers better.

However, this is not to say that data scientists have given words and research reports to us, but that we need to make the right decisions in practical operation based on these aggregated data.

I believe that from now on in the next 10 years, any standard marketing team needs such capability.

Question 5:Farfetch the latest round of financing will be used for the expansion of the company in the Chinese market. How will you promote the development of this new market?

Veichmanis: this question is back to the data, which is why we are excited about the opportunities that Jingdong brings to us.

We will cooperate with Jingdong's black long technology marketing technology platform, which enables us to use Jingdong's big data resources to establish an automated marketing system in China, and further establish brand awareness in the Chinese market.

Ultimately, when we seek to make a difference in this market, we can formulate strategies based on data and a large number of market tests.

We will strengthen our activity in China, try hard to try more new things, and learn the market as soon as possible under the premise of continuous learning.

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Question 6: as a marketing expert, do you think the threat from Amazon will have an impact on your decision?

Veichmanis: I admire Amazon very much. They have made remarkable achievements.

I think the most interesting part of this field is the intersection of creative industries and technology and data disciplines.

Back to five years ago, many marketing concepts were based on printing and simulation, and no real operational technical capability came from defining communication.

But now, marketing needs to tell more interesting and more attractive stories.

People and people are constantly connected and need continuous information seeking.

Therefore, the frequency of "use" has changed greatly.

As a brand marketer, you can communicate with target people in a more direct and more personal way.

For example, a brand like Airbnb is used to create emotional connections using profiles, but it uses new technologies to decide who to show the information to and where to show it.

Therefore, it is very interesting to associate rational data with human emotions.

Question 7: the industry needs to constantly create new content. Do you have much pressure on it?

Veichmanis: we have to admit that there are too many contents and too much noise in this era.

But that's what we are trying to do.

Data can tell us when to communicate, but to be honest, we are not doing enough.

I think a lot of marketers are looking for more effective ways.

Question 8:Farfetch what are the priorities of your job if you want to accelerate profitability?

Veichmanis: marketing is a key driver of profitability.

Brands and boutiques on the Farfetch platform have been adding new products, and our job is to constantly feed users' needs back to them.

Marketing is the core capability of platform mode, so we insist on doing it ourselves instead of doing it through third party organizations.

Now we have our own paid search experts, mail marketing teams, data scientists.

Brands and boutiques are willing to cooperate with us as well.

We have invested a large portion of our revenue in driving market demand.

Ultimately, how efficiently we can acquire new users determines whether we can continue to create value.

If users continue to come back, then they can bring us more room for profit.

So most of our work is focused on improving efficiency and increasing the rate of repeat purchase, instead of investing in those who are less likely to buy luxury goods.

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