The Future of Brand Activations

Phillip: [00:00:00] Let's talk about how that trend discourse around quiet luxury is absorbed by a brand like yours.

Paola: [00:00:05] Well, in a way we were like, oh, finally someone is talking about that. Right? Because we've been there forever. There's nothing more quiet than a wide perfectly done, perfectly serviced bed linen. And I always joke about the fact that not a lot of people are supposed to see your bedroom, you know? {laughter}

Phillip: [00:00:27] {laughter} Zoom notwithstanding.

Paola: [00:00:29] So not appropriate, as a joke, but still, you see what I mean. And even if there's no big logo there. So sometimes we look at this very famous blanket by Hermes with a big H. And we're like, "That is so recognizable. We should do something like that." And then maybe that is not really in our core, in our DNA. So our own reflection is quiet luxury in itself is not a trend, a buzzword. We were there before. We are gonna be there after. What is gonna speak for us is forever, you know, the quality, the heritage, what we stand for. And that is always going to be the best value for us.

Phillip: [00:01:17] Hello, and welcome to Future Commerce, the podcast in Palm Springs at the intersection of culture and commerce. I'm Phillip. If you have been tuned into our video and social media feeds, you've probably seen a number of recaps of what we considered the pivotal moments. Some of the vendor activation, some of the content, some of the conversations, the behind the scenes of what made eTail West Palm Springs so great. But we did sit down for a long-form conversation with a brand new friend and member of the Future Commerce community, Paola Pugliese, who is the Head of Brand at Frette. And we had this great conversation about the changing nature of luxury and what quiet luxury is all about and how hospitality plays such a role and the nature of brand activations. It was a great conversation. But if you want to see what it was like being at eTail West, let's say that you couldn't come, we can bring you there. You can get it at our Instagram. It's FutureCommerce on Instagram, FutureCommerce on Twitter, and, of course, our YouTube shorts. We are in the middle of a campaign, 300 shorts in 300 days, where we are bringing incredible insights that we have in other areas like our newsletter, our podcast, our essays, our insights and research, and our physical events. And we're bringing all of that to you through YouTube, and that's totally free. That's Future Commerce Media on YouTube and Future Commerce everywhere else. And of course, if you want to get ad-free episodes of this podcast and bonus After Dark content, you can get it by joining the membership. That's the Future Commerce Plus membership where you get 15% off. That's discount on print and merch, exclusive invites to events like VISIONS, which is taking place 4 times this year. Little sneak peek. We have a new event in New York at the MOMA, our 2nd year coming back there on June 11th. So if you join Future Commerce Plus, you'll get the first invite. All of that plus access to a private GPT where you can search our brains, just $20 a month. Support Future Commerce and join the Future Commerce Plus membership at FutureCommerce.com/Plus. So without any further ado, thank you so much to our partners at eTail, and congrats on 25 years of eTail West Palm Springs. Thank you for making this happen. Let's go to our interview live at eTail West Palm Springs 2024 with Paola Pugliese from Frette. Today, we have a very special guest who's joining us here, the Global Director of Brand Marketing and Communications at Frette, which is a brand that I just heard of, but I feel like I should have heard of. Multiple, almost like 140 years in business. Welcome to the show, Paola Pugliese.

Paola: [00:05:20] Thank you for having me.

Phillip: [00:05:21] Thank you, Paola. Tell us a little bit about the brand, but you have an incredible amount of experience, and maybe tell us a little bit about what you're doing here at eTail this year.

Paola: [00:05:31] Of course. So, right now, I'm the Global Head of Marketing Communications at Frette. Frette is in the lifestyle and luxury space. The core business is bed linens, but we really are doing an amazing job to try to position the brand as a true lifestyle brand. So, expanding the offer, trying to reach our customers in a bunch of new ways. I have more or less, half of my experience into the home furnishing space working with very different companies. So Frette, as we said, is in the luxury space, but previously very different company, very different consumer. I've been in the headquarters of IKEA in Sweden. So working with many people, very different. And the other half of my career, I spent it in fashion. And again, in very different brands. So you can guess I love changing and taking new opportunities and really helping brands to take the best out of themselves.

Phillip: [00:06:30] And brands getting the best out of themselves. I think the one universal thing in this world is commerce.

Brian: [00:06:35] Yes.

Phillip: [00:06:35] We have a relationship with customers. But where the customers are, what they're doing is changing more now than ever before. But I feel like that shift for you, Paola, from a different style of a business, IKEA, obviously, big global known brand, to now a brand you have to continue to tell the story of over and over again. Tell me what that was like for you in this shift.

Paola: [00:06:57] Well, you know, in a way I just love looking at customers and the way they shop and what they want. And in a way I don't care, or better said, I care a lot about what they need in their life and their experiences. But I don't care if they are the many people or if they are the elite of the world, the ultra high net worth individuals, which are actually the customers of Frette. So to me, it's super interesting. I'm a very curious person. So to me, it's just very interesting to get to know the customers very well, frame, in a way, their space and their needs and their habits, and try to serve them with the best experiences and, of course, the best products for their needs.

Brian: [00:07:40] It's interesting you said that there's actually, you're learning about different groups of people, but in many ways, you're still having to meet expectations of people.

Paola: [00:07:51] Oh, yes. Of course. Yes.

Phillip: [00:07:53] Heightened expectations.

Paola: [00:07:54] Yes. People are very demanding consumers nowadays. I mean, you cannot fool them, and that would be very wrong, from a brand. Just assume that you can feed them with whatever information or storytelling and then they're just gonna run with it. Nope. [00:08:12] You have to be true to your value and really work with your customers firsthand and understand what is the best way, as I said, to serve them, to also delight them, surprise them, and keep being, in a way, present in their daily lives. [00:08:29]

Brian: [00:08:29] Interesting. You said, "Learn from your consumers." I think this is huge and something that we talk about at Future Commerce all the time is this idea of the multiplayer brands. And the idea that customers actually have a much larger voice than ever before at least in the consumer culture that we live in to actually influence what the brand actually means. And so my view of Frette and Phillip's view of Frette are actually two totally different views. And as we share them with each other, we're actually coming closer and closer. And actually, when we do that, we have more of a voice in what the brand is than ever before. So, talk to me a little bit about how you're seeing this play out.

Paola: [00:09:11] I mean, it's the power of customers nowadays. It's wonderful and dangerous and scary and all of it but we are customers obsessed. That's I believe the core of our job as marketers. So I believe that, as you said, customers are very vocal nowadays. They want to get in touch with the brands. If something they like or especially if they don't like it, they want to feel like they are seen, they're heard. And that is very true for many people. People that, of course, wanna buy something, that fits their needs and possibly is affordable like the IKEA customers, but it is even more true when you have to deal with the most refined, so to say, customers out there. So the luxury consumers. Something that I love doing with my teams is really trying to listen to the customers in different ways. So I can bring these examples. When I was in IKEA, I was amazed by this initiative that the brand had always been going on during the years and was sending basically some team members, literally to live with some people around the world. From China to Germany to the US, wherever. Trying to understand the differences about how people live in their home, what they need, how they interact with spaces, and how living at home has been changing through the years. And all of that was delivered in this format called The Life at Home Report, which is actually available online for everybody. And that is also to me showing some muscles when it comes to the strength of the brand doing so much research and then share it to everybody, potentially competitors as well. But that was also informing all the product development. That is a wonderful example of just putting the customers in the lead. Every day right now, we are also having this initiative, we are putting together some questions, I would say, to interview our best customers here in the US but also the lapsing customers because those are even more interesting to listen to. And that's again, because we want to be sure that we are relevant, we are in touch with what is happening out there, the way they live, the way they experience the product and [00:11:23] for a luxury brand, especially, services are fundamental. And there's no better way to design your next relevant service or product than actually asking the people that are going to use it. [00:11:36]

Phillip: [00:11:36] And where they use it too. So they're experiencing this in the context if it's not in their own home, they're experiencing in the context of luxury travel and hospitality.

Paola: [00:11:46] Oh, yes.

Phillip: [00:11:46] And so that seems to be that you're as omnichannel as any brand here, but there's a challenge, especially when you're developing this relationship with your customers that they have this, I'm assuming, that it becomes a natural sales channel. They go to a high end resort. They go to a yacht. They get on a getaway. They experience your brand for the first time, and now their relationship or their perspective is shaped by that experience. So you're capturing customers through this indirect channel. How do you directly influence them after that? How do you take that experience and now bring that into other parts of their life and then grow the relationship with them?

Paola: [00:12:27] Oh, that's a very good question. So we love referring to the hospitality experience as a sort of a fitting room. You know? It's the same of a fitting room for a fashion brand. So you go in, you try it, you like it, maybe you're gonna want it. So it's interesting what you're saying because, of course, part of the business, a big part of the business is B2B. So working with the hospitality, luxury properties around the world, actually, there are more than 1500 around the world, so quite many. And then, of course, designers, realtors, and all those... I refer to them like the middlemen which is maybe not the best way but it gives you the idea exactly what you were saying. We don't touch the consumer directly, immediately, but it is very, important to create this relationship. So the way we capitalize on that is, of course, selecting the right partners, first and foremost. So to be sure that your product is going to land in the right, how can I say, environment, if you don't own the entire process, you have to trust your partners. And that's why we've been very selective about the partners that work with us, when it comes to hospitality partners or even in the yachting, industry, or designers. We only work with the best of the best because we trust them and we know that they are going to continue in a way the journey that we initiated with them and bring it to the customers till the end.

Brian: [00:14:46] It's interesting. That level of trust that you have with your partners is kind of the same level of trust that your customers would have with you. It's like an equivalent.

Paola: [00:14:54] Yeah. That's true. And it's also interesting because [00:14:56] when you really have the same vision about the importance of the experience of the customers and the way that you want them to enjoy the product, then you can also create interesting partnerships, as I said, that go beyond just selling the product. [00:15:12] So, for example, with a lot of hospitality partners or yachting companies, we go beyond. We create exclusive experiences for the customers together. Then of course there's an entire world of gifting and other kind of treats that we can design together. And sometimes, very often actually, we work on exclusive products that you cannot find in our stores. So it is something really to touch the customers in a way, that is even more special because we wanna build this relationship also through the partners.

Brian: [00:15:44] Oh, I keep hearing words like limit, picking only the best, exclusive experiences. It's clear your strategy is to make sure that your brand is being well represented wherever that product is. Do you find, so you called some of those partners middlemen, although, you said that's maybe not a good word. Do you find that they help provide or even enhance the connection to the customer? And do they provide feedback to you about the...

Paola: [00:16:14] Yes. Oh, they're always very vocal. Right? As I said, I mean, there's no space for improvisation mistakes. Not at all. They're precious, of course. I can give an example. So, Frette has been serving the best hotels in the world since the 1890s something. So more than a 100 years. And some years ago we decided basically to launch here in the US a sister brand of Frette which is called H by Frette and H stands for hotel. And that line of products is exactly inspired by the hospitality experience. So we were basically saying why do we reserve, let's say, this special product only to the best hotels? We wanna be able to share that with everybody. So we just put it on the market and it's mainly available online. So the model was a DTC distribution so to say. But of course with the strength behind of the brand equity of Frette.

Phillip: [00:17:19] I'm looking too, and this is the interesting part of building this kind of would you... Is it a pejorative to call it a diffusion line? Is that the wrong terminology? It's an accessible form of the product.

Paola: [00:17:36] Yeah. So let's say it's more accessible than, yeah, to an IKEA customer, it doesn't look like accessible. But it seems more accessible for sure.

Phillip: [00:17:44] Yeah.

Paola: [00:17:45] I would say we just wanted to really expand the brand and narrative connected to hospitality. So the retail product has a a lot of perks and very special things from the sourcing to the design to having this newness coming in every season. Although it's very neat and I love saying it's iconic and evergreen. The H by Frette is a wide product. It's super durable. It has been tested by the industrial washing hospitality partners. So I wouldn't say it's more like connected to living in a more, maybe, relaxed way if you want. And as a proof of that is that sometimes a customer that buys the, let's say, more affordable H by Frette and the top line is the same. It's just a different occasion.

Phillip: [00:18:31] I see.

Paola: [00:18:32] Yeah. So maybe for the master bedroom you want Frette top and maybe for your, I don't know, villa, the seaside where you go just go, I don't know, twice a year, then you're gonna buy H by Frette.

Phillip: [00:18:44] So there's an opportunity for you have this durable product, you have this incredibly high end luxury product... It's not necessarily something that you would conspicuously consume. A lot of people are irrational consumers about certain types of things, but bed linens may not be one of them. Well where are other ways that we can find to grow into the other parts of their life? I'm sure they have other bedrooms to outfit. And that's such an interesting way of merchandising a brand. So let's talk about how you decide to create H by Frette. What is the mentality around creating these other types of ways of experiencing similar products, but maybe finding this new voice? Because I see you're running a pretty recognizable eCommerce playbook with the H site. I'm not sure if you do that in your typical brand site.

Paola: [00:19:39] Yeah. I see what you mean. Well, I think everything starts as we were saying earlier with being customers obsessed. So, of course, we saw an opportunity where we saw that some of our customers, although they were, again, ultra high net worth individuals around the world, sometimes they just wanted to buy something a little bit, let's say, cheaper or maybe just a simpler line because they had a different occasion, they wanted to do a little gift, and maybe they need to send their kids to college. And these kids have been sleeping in Frette their entire life. So they kinda just go and then and sleep, God forbid, and something else. So there was an appetite for something more easy going, I would say. And then also being such a heritage brand and I think there was also an interest to try and communicate something different. So this story about living this more relaxed life, traveling, the connection with the hospitality, if you look at the brand image, the communication of course there are points of contact but while Frette is more, as I said, iconic, evergreen, sometimes even a little cold if you wish because this is the positioning, it's very aspirational. H by Frette is definitely more friendly. You have these guys jumping on the bed. So there was also an opportunity to try and attract maybe a younger consumer or I don't like thinking about young as a demographic thing so I say usually a young at heart consumer. So that was basically, the reason behind it. And, of course, we knew there was space in the market for that.

Phillip: [00:21:25] There's a moment that's happening right now, especially how media has helped to bring luxury, especially ultra luxury brands, to the forefront. I think about the discourse around Loro Piana last year. Quiet luxury. Right? Gwyneth Paltrow's courtroom fits. These are things that I don't think were on some people's radar where they maybe it's new money. I'm from Palm Beach. So maybe there's a type of a consumer that just doesn't know that you even exist, but is your customer.

Paola: [00:23:57] Yeah.

Phillip: [00:23:59] Let's talk about how that trend discourse around quiet luxury is absorbed by a brand like yours.

Paola: [00:24:04] Well, in a way we were like, oh, finally someone is talking about that. Right? Because we've been there forever. There's nothing more quiet than a wide perfectly done, perfectly sourced bed linen. This is actually one of the challenges as a marketer and communicator I love facing every day. Because you are dealing with these customers, they have the buying power. They have maybe the taste and everything, but they still don't buy Frette. Why is that? And there is an element of showing off. So even if you are a Loro Piana, Bruno Lucicinelli, all these, you know, so called nowadays, quiet luxury brands, that is still fashion. So there is an element of, you know, I don't have the logo mania on my side but if you know, you know. Right?

Brian: [00:24:56] Right.

Phillip: [00:24:56] Yeah.

Paola: [00:24:56] So people still know that's a Loro Piano or whatever else. Here we are talking about bed linens and I always joke about the fact that not a lot of people are supposed to see your bedroom. {laughter}

Phillip: [00:25:11] {laughter} Zoom notwithstanding.

Paola: [00:25:11] So not appropriate, as a joke, but still, you see what I mean. And even if there's no big logo there. So sometimes we look at this very famous blanket by Hermes with a big H. And we're like, "That is so recognizable. We should do something like that." And then maybe that is not really in our cores, in our DNA. So our own reflection is [00:25:38] quiet luxury in itself is not a trend, buzzword. We were there before. We are gonna be there after. What is gonna speak for us is forever the quality, the heritage, what we stand for. And that is always going to be the best value for us. [00:25:55]

Brian: [00:25:55] Definitely. And I think I hear a little bit of this friction around the heritage of the brands, which there are incredible brands that have been around for a long time, and they've had to reinvolve themselves to some degree, but stay authentic to what's made them so valuable for years and years and years. As you've looked to expand the the brand narrative, we talked about H, we've talked about some of the other ways that you're trying to sort of recontextualize the brand. Are you looking at anything complimentary? So in luxury, it feels like there's a set of brands out there that are all in the if you know, you know category. Have you worked with anyone else to try and help recontextualize yet again?

Paola: [00:26:44] Yes. I think that is something that also here during these days at eTail I've been hearing. The importance of expanding the reach of your brand through the right partnerships. And I've heard everything from working with content creators and influencers and working with fashion brands rather than whatever else. Of course, we've been doing the same in different ways. On one side, what I just called the middle man, in a way, those are our partners. And especially working with designers, as we were saying, that's great inspiration. On the other side, we are also working with, we have a very cool project coming up, you know, exactly a month from now, I would say. We're working with a very important fashion brand, an American designer. We're gonna launch in Milan during the design week at Salone. Can't say more, but what is interesting about that and connecting to what you were saying is that it's a little bit of an unexpected collaboration maybe. Both the brands really care about quality and both the brands have a neat design. And I think that was the connection. We have the same consumer, very careful and very into the details and the craftsmanship. But other than that, the identity is very different. So it's going to be interesting, and it is fun working now on the launch of this project to see how consumers are gonna react. Both consumers, our consumers and the consumers of this famous brand. So that is a new challenge coming up and a great opportunity. I'm very excited about that.

Brian: [00:28:29] That's exciting. Yeah.

Phillip: [00:28:31] I was gonna ask about what do brand activations look like for you in your space? You know, we as a media brand, we activate Art Basel every year. And this last year, we did a 3 day activation on Lincoln Road called Muses, and we sort of brought in brands and artists to come together to celebrate this idea that maybe brands are a new form of a muse. Brands inspire us to live a life of creativity, artistry, inspiration, things that make us want to be the person that we want to become. What are the brand activations or partnerships that you do in your space that are authentic to Frette, but give you an opportunity to flex your creative muscle?

Paola: [00:29:18] Yes. [00:29:19] I love what you're saying about brands being the new muses, which is, again, a little bit scary in a way, but that is also building on the fact that brands need to have an opinion and share the values, and executives need to put their face after what the brand stand for. So it all makes a lot of sense. So what do we do? Once again, we start with what might be interesting and relevant for the customers. [00:29:45] We know that our customers are, as we were saying, interested in travel, luxury, hospitality, art possibly, design for sure. So we did a lot of things during the past years, of course, with the exception of the COVID pandemic era. That was a different kind of moment. We've been working, for example, with, small art galleries, doing little events in store, connecting the beauty of some marble stages, kind of, yes, it was beautiful, with this very classic flare and connecting the kind of cold, but at the same time very interesting artistry behind this marble to our linens. Then we did something else, last year again at the design week in Milan. We worked with an artist. He is in the forefront when it comes to, how you say, artificial intelligence clearly. I mean, we are here. Right? And hearing about AI for 48 hours in a row. So we were launching and then, of course, the word was slipping. We were launching our first organic collection. And of course, that is we were very proud about being the one to bring that to the market for Frette for the first time. It was super special because, of course, it's organic cotton, but what is really interesting is that the dyeing process is completely organic. We do not use any chemical element and the color is given by the dried poppy petals. And the color is not red. Clearly. It's some sort of brownish... I love calling it like cappuccino color because that's the sort of like the color. So we wanted to really launch this in a special way and activate the brand in a special way. So we got in touch with this artist. His name is Alberto Maria Colombo. And he has this proprietary algorithm working with a professor, where he feeds the machine with a lot of inspiration, we told him the story, and then he created this immersive experience, immersive videos. So in our showroom we created this sort of oval space with more than a 100 videos, screens, and the bed in the middle. And there was this kind of video going in loop with images created by this artificial intelligence inspired by our brand and our product. That was a great success, and I was talking about travel. Something else that we do, we participate in a kind of a special to the Monaco Yacht Show. That's a big thing in September and, of course, since we work with a lot of yachting companies, we have a partnership with the Hotel de Paris. So we put together some of our assets, the yachting industry, the Hotel de Paris, we had a space in their patio in this sort of winter garden that they have at the center, the Hotel de Paris. We created an installation. Of course, the theme was the yachting world, and then we invited some partners and we were just sharing all our capabilities in terms of bespoke services. Once again, talking about the customers and what they want, they want the best. They want to feel special, they want to know that we can go the extra mile to serve them. So bespoke not only in terms of product but also services is one of our great talking points with them. And then, you know, yeah, we are hosting and inviting. We had one night dedicated to designers, one night with some press. So, yeah...

Phillip: [00:33:26] It's very experiential. Obviously, which makes so much sense, but ship to shore. But you're doing it in the context of a week that's dedicated to people trying to come for the experience. And that is so different to what we see from a lot of the direct to consumer Instagram meta ad variety of this era of brands that have tried to go to their customer to try to get them to buy something they hadn't considered. This seems to be really indexed, at least on the brand activation side, of being in front of a customer who wants to be wowed. And that's such an interesting and different way of thinking about activating.

Brian: [00:34:05] Well, what I love about it is that you're not just involving your end consumer. You're involving everyone up and down the whole chain.

Paola: [00:34:12] Yes.

Brian: [00:34:13] It's actually just as important as getting to your consumer. Yeah. And those partners are really, in many ways, they're not middle men. They're representatives. Right?

Phillip: [00:34:21] Yeah.

Brian: [00:34:22] They're extension of who you are. Yeah. And that's incredible.

Phillip: [00:34:25] Oh, Paola, this has been so beautiful.

Brian: [00:34:27] Oh. Yes.

Phillip: [00:34:27] I wish you could spend more time.

Brian: [00:34:28] I know. I really want to.

Phillip: [00:34:29] Where can people go to find more about you and connect with you online?

Paola: [00:34:34] Well, I guess LinkedIn is always a great source. And, yeah. I guess that's it.

Phillip: [00:34:41] Well and link to the brand, obviously.

Brian: [00:34:43] Yes.

Paola: [00:34:43] Of course. Yes.

Phillip: [00:34:44] And I'm sure we'll connect again in the future. Thank you so much for coming on this episode.

Paola: [00:34:48] Thank you for having me.

Brian: [00:34:49] Yes, this was so great.