Lilly Pulitzer CEO Michelle Kelly: Our ‘balanced marketing mix’ includes catalogs and commercials

“I was able to develop a strong sense of how we operate,” she said. “For everything we’ve built over the past 20 years, I have some knowledge of how it was done and how we got there. And, of course, the functional knowledge of how different departments work has been really helpful. For one, it’s provided confidence in knowing that we can change — because we have changed, and have been successful at it.”

Also on the podcast, Kelly discussed how the recent widespread move to coastal towns has affected 65-year-old Lilly Pulitzer, which specializes in resortwear. And she shared how the brand is adjusting its marketing and distribution mixes in keeping with its customer’s changing behavior. Edited highlights from the conversation, below, have been lightly edited for clarity. 

The evolution of resort season

“Studying the shopping and the travel habits of our customer is a huge part of what we do. And there have been a lot of changes in travel habits. First of all, we saw customers really flock to warm weather locations — maybe not for travel, but to live and spend full time there, especially in late 2020 and throughout 2021. So that changed some of the dynamics out of the gate. Then, after that, we saw a variety of travel habits — the seasonal rhythms [we were used to] were all just, kind of, shaken up from 2020 to right now. And we’ll see how the rest of the year evolves. … Our team has had to be agile and open to learning what the customer is doing. And she’s kept us on our toes. … We have 60 stores and more than half of them are in warm-weather locations: Florida, Texas, Hawaii, California. And certainly those markets have been really strong for us throughout the arc of the past four years. So we’ll hopefully see that continue. We’re lucky to have had a focus on warm-weather [products] even before the pandemic. But there’s also a lot of [new] competition, and the lines between dressing for vacation and [every day] have been blurred.”

An old-meets-new marketing mix

“There are so many different ways now to market a brand and to get in touch with a customer and then to stay in touch with her and keep her excited. So, if you had asked me five years ago, I probably would have said that we were so focused on digital advertising, which we were and have been, and, no question, that’s been wonderful. If you’d asked me 10 years before, I would have said we were all about our catalog. And I think right now, what I will say for sure is that we have a really balanced [marketing] mix that I’m really proud of. And it took us a while to figure out this balance. And of course, the way that customers consume media has evolved, so maybe we’ve just evolved with it. We have our traditional digital advertising, and we just relaunched our catalog after taking a break from it for a few years. And that has been fantastic. I think the customer missed having our catalog. We also just created our first commercial — it’s a video that was designed for a full-funnel marketing approach, and it’s really fun.” 

Selling to the customer where she is

“I also feel really good about the balance in our overall selling mix right now. It’s more balanced than it’s been. It’s not one-dimensional. We’re 85% direct-to-consumer — a combination of stores and our e-commerce business — and then 15% wholesale. We have wonderful accounts, [including] over 50 independent boutiques that carry a really healthy amount of Lilly that we call our signature stores. They’re very important to our whole mix. And then we’re in several department stores — we have several long-standing partnerships that run the gamut. We’re also in golf clubs and hotels — we really try to be anywhere where the customer will think of us. And, of course, for many of those locations, it makes more sense to do wholesale. Within our DTC mix, we’re about two-thirds digital and one-third stores. … We find that the customer is shopping both before her trip and while she’s on vacation, and sometimes she’s popping in to exchange something that didn’t work out.”

Thoughtful category expansion

“[Within the last couple of years] we have launched swimwear and we’ve built up our athletic business, which has a real focus within golf and tennis. And our dress business [has remained] where the heart and soul of the brand lives. We have really expanded our offering. The whole brand is built on the classic shift [dress], which was the brand’s original key product. But we now do dresses in all kinds of knits and linen. We have throw-on dresses and dresses at every price point. We just did a beautiful collaboration with Badgley Mischka, and we also did a beautiful anniversary capsule. Both of those were in celebration of our anniversary this year. Both were at elevated price points with incredible details and textures. … We absolutely have a dress for anyone’s needs.”