This Much I Learned is a podcast focused on looking back at the ups and downs of a career in marketing, but equally focused on looking forward and applying those lessons to modern challenges.
This theme welcomes our latest guest, Dan Elton, Executive Vice President of Customer at Asos, who is working on a ground-breaking project to turn around the fortunes of online fashion retailers.
Of course, Asos has been around for decades, but it has expanded at an incredible rate during the COVID-19 pandemic, when stores were closed and customers were forced to buy online. I have grown. However, profits soon fell, and in 2022, recently appointed CEO José Antonio Ramos Caramonte blamed an overreliance on promotional activities.
Elton was hired in March 2023 to help lead the brand in a new direction and return it to profitability. “The reliance on promotions is a result of expectations that growth will continue post-pandemic and a bit of overstocking,” he told Marketing Week Editor-in-Chief Russell Parsons. “We need to clear that inventory and have been pushing to do so. But that's not the direction we want the business to go in the future.”
The new direction is a healthier split between brand and performance. Elton said Asos' marketing team is a big believer in having a 60:40 ratio of long-term to short-term activity between Binet and Field, and although they “don't measure it every day,” they try to achieve that. He said he is trying. Close to.
Elton recalls that when he joined Asos, about 85% of all media investments were spent at the bottom of the funnel within Google search and meta-DPA advertising, with “very little” spent outside of that. Masu.
“This was relevant in the days when you only needed to show up at the end of the buying process to get a conversion,” he argues. “There was more demand because it was a little less competitive. But that's not true anymore.”
There were also challenges getting the brand in front of consumers in a more meaningful way. Elton recalls an early study he commissioned that revealed that while consumers love Asos as a brand, they “aren't listening to us anymore” compared to its competitors. . It's not reflected in the cultural conversation, he says, and there wasn't even an influencer program until he joined.
“One of the first things we had to do was really rebuild that power and bring Asos back to the forefront of customers' minds,” he says. “We're not talking about rocket science. We're talking about finding ways to restructure the availability of metals.”
Pick yourself up and give yourself a chance. It may not work out at first, but the universe generally rewards you for taking that step.
Dan Elton, Asos
While the brand is currently on the path to finding a “better balance” between activity at both ends of the funnel, Asos has category-specific challenges. He points to an environment in which the company has to transfer “significant ownership” of its brand communications to third parties, primarily influencers.
Of course, these are important for increasing brand favorability, but it's unclear which end of the funnel Asos is aiming for. “Do they have long-term effects or short-term effects? It's not always clear. Sometimes it's both,” he admits.
There's also the thorny topic of returns, especially when combined with promotional activities. Asos is not the only retailer struggling to tackle this issue, with Elton admitting it is the “toughest” issue he faces. “If you have a model that your customers love, but it doesn't make your business profitable in all cases, how do you survive that?” he muses.
The answer, he says, comes by focusing as much as possible on selling at “full price,” reducing lead times for product purchases, and buying in smaller quantities so companies don't have to “commit.” That's what it means. We have about the same amount of inventory as we had in the past. “This allows us to reduce the number of promotions and develop more relevant products because they are developed closer to the point of purchase,” he explains. “We're seeing very strong results from some of them.”
Changes in retail industry
Elton has had a wide and varied career apart from Asos. He gained extensive experience in retail, including his six years at Tesco and his three years at Sainsbury's. He also had a fascinating job at Google helping fashion and sports brands make the most of his Google media capabilities.
An unfortunate short stint at Made.com, an online furniture retailer that experienced booms and busts due to the coronavirus, may have shattered his confidence, but he's rebuilt the experience and gained from it. Positive points.
The industry has changed in the nearly 20 years he has been involved. He points out that the “democratization” of the sector is one of the most interesting developments. Recalling his time at Tesco, where senior marketing leaders needed experience in brand management and communications, Elton now has media experts, analysts and customer experience experts, all of whom are top marketing leaders. He said he could get a class job. “For me, this is really one of the best changes he's made,” he says.
In the retail industry, marketing has moved from simply shaping the brand's outward communication with customers to becoming central to the customer experience and, as a result, gaining a “more real-world understanding” of what influences brand perceptions. I have witnessed the development of Brands and brand favorability.
However, there were also drawbacks. Elton takes the somewhat controversial position that the way marketers measure the effectiveness of their activities is deteriorating. “Some people will say I'm crazy for that. There are definitely great benefits to the rise of digital media and measurability, but there is an element of laziness in marketing today,” he argues. do. “We see something in a Google ad, we see something in an attribution model, and we come to trust that as gospel. And it doesn’t reflect the real world. It doesn't reflect reality.”
He sometimes wonders if he's in an “existential crisis” if measurement tools are any better than what marketers have had in the past. “We used to talk about half of all marketing being wasted. And I think there's obviously a better element to measurement. But some of our muscles atrophy because of it. I lost it,” he added.
His advice to those listening is that he encourages marketers to take advantage of exciting opportunities, even if they're scary. “Be resilient and give yourself a chance. It may not work out at first, but generally the universe will reward you for taking that step,” he concludes.
Listen to the podcast above for key learnings from Elton's career so far.
From opening up about mental health issues to closing the career confidence gap, listen to previous episodes of Marketing Week's This Much I Learned podcast on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, and Spotify.
