For more than 40 years, Claire’s has been one of the most well-known places to get your ears pierced. When Kristin Patrick joined the retailer as EVP and chief marketing officer in March 2021, she was excited about the turnaround opportunity at this iconic brand that has played a transformative role in so many people’s lives.
“It was such a cool opportunity to do a turnaround of this 50 year-old beloved brand,” says Patrick. “It’s played this momentous role in people’s lives for so many generations because for many people it was the first time they experienced an ear piercing, which is such a rite of passage. But it can be so much more than just a fleet of retail stores.”
In her role, she has been focused on positioning the brand as a place to create your own self-expression to youth. The company’s ‘Be the Most’ brand platform positions the brand as a modern, trendsetting and playful company that facilitates this self-expression. Her goal has been to make a brand that has been in business for more than 50 years relevant to a new generation of consumers. With Gen Z and Gen Alpha as its core demographic, the company is working hard to show up in digital spaces that are dominated by this younger generation of consumers.
“This is a generation that never knew a world without Alexa and they get really frustrated when they can’t touch the screen because they think that everything works that way,” says Patrick. “I don’t have the luxury of not being bleeding edge in terms of technology. This next generation demands and expects it. This consumer is going to make us get there, whether we’re ready or not.”
For example, the company is taking its ear piercing legacy to TikTok. The brand recently launched the “Get Pierced” campaign, which included a series of dedicated EarPrint TikTok videos, highlighting how a person’s ear expression is unique as a fingerprint.
The company has also been undergoing a retail transformation. Known as a mall retailer, Claire’s has been partnering with other retailers including Macy’s and Walmart, as well as creating a metaverse experience in Roblox with games, virtual jobs, pets and more.
“Claire’s is so much bigger than just its doors,” says Patrick. “As soon as we started talking to consumers, they told us they love the brand. They want the brand in more places in their lives because they float between the metaverse and digital and physical and these spaces all morph together. We listen to them. We’ve really been taking our cues from them.”
Brand Innovators caught up with Patrick from her home in Los Angeles to talk new role, Roblox and transforming a legacy brand for a new generation. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
What attracted you to the role of CMO of Claire’s?
I was running marketing for Pepsi and I loved it but I really wanted to be with a company whose mission aligned with my personal values. There was something that attracted me to the Gen Z and Gen Alpha generation, which Claire’s caters to. They’re one of the most highly creative generations. They’re highly entrepreneurial. They care so much about the world and humans within it and diversity and gender fluidity. They are so cool. They are changing the world in a way that no other generation has for a long time. I really wanted to be part of that.
What is your company’s brand purpose and how does this show up in your creative executions?
The brand platform that we’re working off of is this idea to “be the most.” The brand and the business has always been about self-expression. You want polka dots one day or you want to be a jock the next day or a fairy princess the next day. Have at it, we’re here for it. The brand celebrates diversity, and anything that you want to be.
The brand platform is this idea of being the most. You can be the most creative, the most funny, the most serious, but whatever it is, just be the most you. That concept plays out in all of our marketing. We use that belief around self-expression and letting you be you as the filter for all opportunities that we pursue.
Can you talk about the brand’s loyalty program and why loyalty is key to your audience?
This is one of the coolest loyalty programs I’ve ever worked on. It started about two years ago and within that time, we have about 14 million members. It keeps growing and growing. There’s something that is so fun about Claire’s. You want to be part of this little club. We see it as an opportunity to connect with our consumers. We actually pick 250 of those members and we talk to them on a regular basis. We’re really trying to understand what’s important to them and what drives them. Fourteen million eyeballs is a pretty massive consumer base. With that in our toolbox of ways to interact and market to them and letting that base make us smarter about our business. It’s a very rich program. We’re actually rebooting the program next year and you’ll see some really exciting surprises.
Can you talk about your partnership with fashion director Nicola Formichetti to collaborate on special projects?
We love to surround ourselves with creators and people from all walks of life. And with that idea of self-expression at the heart of everything that we try to do, Nicola is this incredible human being that has always been about creativity and self-expression. He embodies that. He loves Claire’s. He gets the essence of it. He is all about diversity. He is such a good partner to help us. He designed a store for us in Paris. He put us in touch with some of the influencers that we work with. He’s really helping us make sure that we’re on the cutting edge and pushing ourselves to be as self-expressive as a brand and creative as we can be.
How would you define the essence of Claire’s?
Claire’s has always been a doyen of youth culture. We pluck trends. That’s something that’s in our DNA. We’re an inherently optimistic and happy brand. We’re a non-judgmental brand. We’ve always been associated with the color purple. When I think about taking that essence into partnerships and new business categories and even into the metaverse, there are a handful of brand traits, both from a personality perspective, as well as a design perspective that we use over and over again. That to me is the essence of Claire’s. It’s a very celebratory brand.
Can you talk about this retail transformation that you’ve been undergoing?
Our expansion in retail has really been shaped and formed by where the consumer is and what they’re doing. From a real estate strategy perspective, we’re thinking about where we’re placing our stores around the world in new ways. This consumer is not just shopping in our owned and operated stores, but you can experience it when you walk into a Walmart or a CVS or the very beautiful high end Galeries Lafayette Paris sitting near Christian Dior. We try to go to as many places as the consumer is in where they’re shopping. That was really what led to our foray into the metaverse. Our consumers are on Roblox in a big way. And so it was a natural next extension when we think about the future of retail and shopping experience. It’s really that crossover in the consumer journey and linking the physical to the digital world. You’ll be seeing more from us on taking characters out of the metaverse and linking our loyalty program to our Roblox presence.
What do you think about social commerce?
I’m really keen on this idea of digital commerce. We have our e-commerce platform but I love this idea of shopping in the moment on your organic social channels. We actually recently did a study taking a look at the competition and who our consumers think of as competitive brands for us. One of the things that came up was this idea of Instagram brands. It was interesting to me that they weren’t even noting what the brand name was. They’re shopping in the moment on Instagram. It’s very much about the product and the storytelling and the content and the experience. And they’re clicking to buy straight from there. So take a great brand like Claire’s and put it into a live shopping experience or shopping by content. That’s the next evolution for us as a company.
You’ve held senior roles at PepsiCo, Revlon, Gap, Liz Claiborne, etc. Can you talk about how this experience has helped shape your point of view in your current role?
The culmination of all of that experience is helping me to navigate how to work with this generation. I have a background in entertainment, content and storytelling. My beauty background has actually come in very handy. I also have done a lot of brand turnarounds and reestablishing what this brand means for the next generation. That is something that I did for Playboy and even during my tenure at Gap and at Pepsi where I came into the company when sugar was the next tobacco. I spent a lot of time rethinking the global media spend and moving it to digital away from television.
What predictions do you have for brands going into 2023?
As digital and technical as we’re getting, there’s also the need to still with this consumer stay focused on the humaneness of them and their generation, and even where we are in the world today. As everything continues to move, still making that human connection and talking to them about their values and what’s important to them is still going to be at the heart of everything that we do. Right now we’re in this precipitous moment in which morphing between digital and physical is going to continue to become more important. Brands have to figure out how to do that and connect with their consumers.
