Lands' End Finally Hired a Creative AOR, Picking VaynerMedia

Lands' End has been myriad things in its history, hawking anything from yachting supplies to home goods to its current main focus—clothing. It's also been a Sears subsidiary and an early pioneer for digital adoption, like introducing the first live chat option for customer service. What it hasn't been recently is a company that's earmarked marketing resources for brand building in order to reach its entire potential customer base. CEO Jerome Griffith is making that change, bringing in VaynerMedia to serve as the brand's creative agency of record, following a pitch that featured a handful of agencies that Griffith described as ones known for "brand building." Previously, Lands' End had done the bulk of its marketing in-house. "We feel our total addressable market has about doubled," Griffith said. "We want to have the people that don't know who we are understand this is exactly what Lands' End does." Thanks to shifting consumer habits during the pandemic, Baby Boomers and Gen X'ers have increasingly shopped online, where Lands' End has historically heavily invested its non-print marketing dollars. With more shoppers from that generation flocking to ecommerce, it provides an opportunity for a retailer like Lands' End to widen its pool of potential customers. To do this, it's evolving its marketing strategy and tapping VaynerMedia for a brand building campaign. "The brand has a huge opportunity and a ton of nostalgia. It has nothing but ingredients to cook in a more contemporary way," Gary Vaynerchuk, CEO of VaynerMedia, told Adweek. For Breakthrough Media Agency of the Year VaynerMedia, Convergence Fuels Success Why now Despite Lands' End's history of innovation—it's the first company to offer ordering through a 1-800 number and free two-day shipping—Griffith felt like the company was no longer moving forward. "There's this thing that they call internally 'The Lands' End Way,' which when you hear that, that's a bad thing," Griffith said. With the brand coming off its strongest years since becoming a publicly traded company again, Griffith said now is the right time to invest in a different form of marketing to grow the company. While Griffith said the current marketing drives a strong, trackable ROI, the bulk of Lands' End marketing speaks to existing customers, but doesn't attract new ones. Griffith told Adweek that the brand typically spends about $200 million to $250 million per year on marketing, with about half of that budget going toward print and the other half toward digital marketing. The print marketing is successful as Lands' End can log purchases from customers who receive the catalog and easily see the return on its marketing investments. Lands' End has also increased its distribution channels, entering Amazon and other third-party marketplaces, as well as Kohl's stores. The brand also made its first appearance on QVC recently. "We're expanding the brand and the brand distribution channels, which is a good thing, but you want to talk about the brand with customers," Griffith told Adweek. To do that, Griffith said that Lands' End needed to look for an external partner. "They had such great positioning during Covid around comfort," Lisa Buckley, manager director, VaynerMedia said, adding Lands' End wants to capitalize on that, asking "how do we actually continue to ride this momentum and this wave? How do we continue to drive attention in culture?" Why VaynerMedia VaynerMedia will help Lands' End take small steps before taking a giant leap in the second half of the year. The agency has already introduced the Vayner Volume Model, which tests a significant amount of content against various audience cohorts to find insights that will drive a much larger campaign down the road. VaynerMedia pitched and will execute social-led creative with a prominent male celebrity as Lands' End's big brand-building campaign. Through this work, Buckley said Lands' End strives to reach more than just Gen X, but specific groups within younger generations that the brand may resonate with. "We're a very good digital marketer and very good at direct to consumer but what we're looking for with Vayner is really trying to be more top of funnel and to come back to the brand having a better brand message," Griffith said. Based on context, Vaynerchuk said the agency's approach to brand building means that Lands' End can mean slightly different things to each customer, but the messaging will "ladder up to a macro concept of comfortable and easy." Ultimately, Vaynerchuk said micro executions that give Lands' End relevance will drive the business' growth. Buckley said VaynerMedia will measure the success of its work through three key areas: There will be KPIs on customer acquisition, tracking specific sales to promotions and keeping an eye on regional targets.Brand lift studies to evaluate whether the work is drawing awareness to the brand.Whether the work drives earned media. "VaynerMedia really loves the accountability of retail. [The client] can see that our work is working or not, so we're excited about that," Vaynerchuk said. Why Marketers Might Never Move Past ’90s Nostalgia

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Why Lands' End Finally Decided It Needed a Creative AOR—and Picked VaynerMedia

The legacy brand wants to double its addressable audience

Jameson Fleming

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Jameson Fleming