Revamping The Digital Marketing Strategy – J. Crew

This project identifies the problems with the current Digital Marketing Strategy of J. Crew, mainly on Instagram, and proposes new solutions, objectives, and plans to implement them.

J. Crew has been known for classic with a twist, signature cashmere, coats, blazers, pants, and more for women, men, as well as kids. In the year 2016, the brand, along with its sister brand, Madewell, was soaring worldwide with over 500 stores in 100 countries. It was the talk of the town and one of the premium brands at the time. Rooted in the 80s catalogue trend in American retail, J. Crew emerged from Popular Merchandise, founded by Mitchell Cinader and Saul Charles, which was then re-branded as J. Crew in 1983 to position itself within prep-wear. J. Crew’s catalogues did not merely portray its clothing, they showed off an easygoing, youthful, and colourful American lifestyle with editorial-worthy images, detailed photos, and elegance. The brand served to offer affordable American prep fashion. Thus, it was clearly aware of its brand identity, which is why it stood out and in a few years, grew from being a million-dollar business to a hundred million dollar business.

As the world around us is dynamic, it is vital for each and every brand to pivot, evolve, and strategise to ensure longevity while ensuring that its unique selling point is not overlooked. In 2006, the company became public and in 2013, the brand became expensive and exclusive, and gradually, suffered an identity crisis. Profits declined a dramatic 42% and sales continued to drop between 2015 to 2017. J.Crew was never able to return the investment that the private-equity firms made, ultimately resulting in $1.7 billion in debt. The brand forgot its own identity: affordable prep fashion.

Even though the brand has been able to come out of bankruptcy, it still struggles with its digital marketing strategy. Today, J.Crew struggles with its brand identity and target market, as can be seen through the inconsistencies on its various channels. Considering that consumers have switched heavily to online purchases as a result of the pandemic, the brand needs to improve its digital marketing strategy. It needs to refocus marketing spending on social media, which tends to be less costly, especially when a retailer knows a lot about the customer. Since this is not the case for J. Crew, first, knowing its target audience is key. This paper aims to strategise and ideate possible routes that J. Crew may take to improve its digital marketing strategy on Instagram. Eventually, the brand can expand this strategy to its other channels: namely, YouTube, Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter & LinkedIn.

Currently, J. Crew’s Instagram includes a series of regular posts about their products. The feed looks like a mismatch of photos from various shoots. The content lacks inspiration and creativity.

As compared to 4,310 posts, they only have about 16 reels and they use their stories to expand on their products. The purpose of reels is to channel brand awareness and since Instagram is pushing this feature as much as possible, the brand needs to incorporate this feature in its Instagram strategy to reach a larger audience. J. Crew’s original target market has always been young, educated, and affluent, with a median age of 32 and some post-graduate education. Therefore, Instagram should serve as the primary platform for J. Crew with over two-thirds of total Instagram audiences being 34 years and younger. Below is an example of what J. Crew’s target audience could look like on Instagram.

For Instagram, I recommend the brand to go back to its roots and post not just products, but also the American lifestyle that inspired its target audience. This includes new campaigns and photoshoots that take inspiration from its previous catalog images: bright, cheerful, and preppy. The catalogues often used storytelling and always used the same models. Thus, there was a familiar cast of characters, and seeing them return each season when the new catalog-or, “Source Guide” as the company savvily came to call them- arrived, was almost like catching up with old friends. The brand could use the same strategy on Instagram, as this stands out from the others. I also recommend going back to the original logo to publicly announce that J. Crew is re-positioning itself to become what it used to be.

I believe that the fashion industry can often be showcased as uptight. If a brand seeks to challenge that and shows emotion and stories through its posts, it will definitely be unique on the platform. As can be seen in the example below, J. Crew should use a sepia or similar filter on all its photos to evoke a feeling of nostalgia. This will also ensure consistency in the appearance of the feed. Instagram should have 3 kinds of posts: those that focus on product details with shoppable links, those that focus on the American lifestyle and storytelling, and those from customers or collaborators who match the J. Crew vibe. On the other hand, since reels are already oversaturated with styling tips from influencers, the reels on the brand should focus on the J. Crew lifestyle: easygoing and playful videos with trending audios. They can include leisure activities such as rowing, cooking, swimming, cycling, and more, in J. Crew clothing.

Stories can be used to have personal Q&A and styling sessions with those who work at the brand, so that users can gain faith back into the brand and be familiar with the faces behind the brand, rather than thinking of them as a bunch of executives trying to revive the company. For faces of the brand, I recommend Leighton Meester, Chloë Grace Martinez, Tom Holland, and more that fit within the young, playful, and easygoing category. Within the campaigns, J. Crew should try to be inclusive and have models with different backgrounds, sizes, and ethnicities. I recommend keeping Influencer Collaborations to a minimum in the beginning as these days, campaigns must be transparent and say when they are sponsored. These can seem unauthentic and it can be hard to collaborate with influencers that align with the same values, as well as expensive. J. Crew should rather spend this money on re-creating its own personality first and spreading the word out through sponsored ads. Those who don’t already follow the brand can stumble upon reels or posts through the discover page or sponsored ads, visit the profile, and shoppable links leading them to the website. Even if its designs continue to be as they are now, changing the mood of their Instagram and campaigns, can significantly help. The tone of the brand should be like its personality, friendly and high-spirited.

For KPIs, even though the brand has 2.2M followers at the moment, the engagement rate is a mere 0.05%. The average likes and comments based on the last 20 posts are 3K and 60 respectively. Therefore, instead of focusing on acquiring new followers, the new Instagram strategy aims at boosting engagement rate through more creative and aesthetically pleasing content, which can further boost sales. As of now, J. Crew is doing little to boost sales using its social media as while studying the comment section, it can be seen that followers are unable to find links to the product and often, images of unavailable products are posted. After the strategy is implemented, reels can become viral overnight with the help of audios that are trending and this can boost the engagement rate at least to 2% of the entire account.

All these digital marketing strategies combined, are definitely going to give J. Crew the competitive edge that it needs, that is, rekindling its love for prep.

”Everyone has a J.Crew love story,” Wadle told Fortune in a June interview, “but more and more people, I think, have had a J.Crew breakup story. They want to find that love connection again.”