S5 Ep 5 | Can Circular Fashion Beat Fast Fashion? Inside Depop’s Bold Mission with Steve Dool

0:04Steve Dool:So welcome to Beyond Marketing, the podcast. I'm Mara Janowicz. I'm the founder and CEO of Amazon Power, a global integrated market agency. Today's guest is someone who lives at the intersection of fashion, culture and technology. Steve Dool. Dool, yeah. Yeah, we got it. is the Senior Director of Brand Marketing at Depop, where he leads the chart in shaping how a new generation discovers shops and defines style. He brings a unique lens on creativity, community, and what it means to build culturally driven brands today. So welcome to the Beyond Marketing, the podcast. Thank you so much for having me.

0:47Steve Dool:Thank you so much for coming on a very sunny, you know, warm day in London, finally to the podcast. I really much appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you. So before we started, tell me about you. What do you want to know? I want to know everything about Steve. It's just like, tell me about like you're from London, how you end up at Deep Hop, a career journey. I love to hear about people's stories before getting to career and marketing and all this stuff. Yeah. Yeah, I'm from New York originally. I've been in London for about eight years now. So it feels like a second home at least. so we can say.

1:22New York is always home. Never forget. But yeah, I started out doing, you know, after school in New York doing public relations, which was kind of a job that I fell into based on an internship I had back in Boston where I went to school. Okay. Did that for a few years. I think I was pretty good at it to be honest with you. But it wasn't, I didn't feel like it was exactly, you know, my calling. Especially in those days too. I was working at different agencies and I did things like crisis communication, which was fairly intense and could be very intense. Very intense. But it gave that foundation of like those transferable skills that are just pertinent to probably most industries, but definitely to marketing.

2:01And I'm really grateful for that. And I think about that in some ways as the stuff that I enjoyed the most. Like, you know, the clear storytelling, the working on a deadline, how do we keep cool in a moment of pressure, all of those sorts of things. And so kind of flipped that into more of the cultural side of PR. So I did a lot of like fashion PR. I worked for this. Nice. this consultancy in New York for that was the longest stretch of my time in New York where we it was a fashion wholesale showroom and then they also had a PR and marketing team and I kind of eventually led that team for a bit but I started to kind of write on the side a little bit freelance I studied journalism undergrad and I kind of always wanted to get back to that and eventually I just started getting more and more work on that side there's a certain conflict of interest in some ways of representing some brands and writing about others it limited what I could actually like ethically talk about and I just made the decision eventually like I really loved this and I just if I wanted to actually do it I had to jump in head first and so left that to go freelance as a as a writer and editor which was scary to a degree living in New York and trying to be financially independent but um it ended up working out really well I I was really lucky to write for publications like the New York Times and CNN and GQ and stuff that, you know, work kind of begot more work and took a job eventually as a as a style editor at Complex Magazine in New York.

3:24Steve Dool:Yeah. Amazing. It was great. It was the end of their their print era and really the beginning of when they were really pushing all their resources to online and video. So kind of wrote that out for a bit and then just really felt like I wanted to shake things up and have been getting some. I went freelance again And mostly because I just wanted to write about different things that Complex wasn't really covering. And in that time also was getting some consulting work in branding and marketing more specifically, mostly still within fashion. And it was good. It was all like word of mouth from connections that I had built.

3:56But I felt like to take that to the next sort of level, I needed to have some kind of credibility. And I also wanted to try something new. So I had come to London a lot growing up. My dad and mom lived here for a little while. And so I just decided like this is a good time. I went to grad school here.

4:14Steve Dool:So you went to school here. Yeah, I went to the London School of Economics to study marketing, which was the first year they had that master's program. You know, it was good and bad about any kind of thing. I think marketing especially, it's good. What it did basically was it allowed me to speak the language of marketing, which I didn't necessarily have that formal training. But you're going to learn everything you need to know on the job. And like there isn't really a replacement for that. There was some stuff that I never would have even thought about before. Like I took a class in pricing strategy.

4:43I don't have to use that every day, thankfully. But I never would have had any of that kind of insight. If you have one to do school. And it also allowed me to be here and then stay here and look for a job here. Because I was legally allowed to on the visa that I had. And I kind of found Depop from a friend of a friend who was doing some consulting for them in New York with a team there. And they had a role. Initially, it was called Community Partnerships. But it was essentially influencer marketing. so I was brought in to kind of build out that strategy which is something that I had worked in a little bit through PR and then also covered quite extensively because at the time that I was writing about fashion it was kind of the influencer boom where people were starting with things about like how do we disclose that something is a gift or that you're being paid to promote this brand so I felt confident enough that I kind of had the lay of the land

5:28Steve Dool:that you could handle that yeah and then from there it kind of grew we launched brand partnerships as kind of an outgrowth of that and then eventually I took over the brand team and then we merged brand and marketing and threw in PR and comms back into the mix again, some social media. So it's all kind of, all the different parts of the career have come together. It just happened. Just like interesting point that you said about like influencer, that actually was the role that you're going to depot, but you're already having some experience that back in the days in fashion where brands didn't know.

5:57Steve Dool:Just wanted to touch in that point to start with. You saw the evolution of influencer, right? Because if you're working in fashion magazines before, and PR because, you know, PR before was PR articles, editorial. So you're not talking about too much engaging with influence. And then back in the days, especially when we started MG 12 years ago, there was a kind of like a tension between, you know, fashion editors versus influencers and how to give, for example, influencers first role in a fashion show. Sure. How do you, based on your experience going to be a writer and PR and then going to Depop to actually lead that influencer, tell me a little bit about the evolution and how did you transition to that and where do you see influencer today?

6:59Yeah, I mean, it's definitely it was a it was a journey and an evolution, as you said, I think there was also this idea of a real separation of church and state between what is organic editorial coverage that you kind of earn through relationship building and through doing good work and then what's paid for. that's all merged already like so many things are essentially sponsored content and the editorial side because the advertising money isn't the same as what it used to be on the flip side I think there there's there was a definite culture forever of this sort of you know I know it's kind of become a buzzword but it's like gatekeeping mentality of like we're the decision makers and we're the ones who are influential and you and keeping other people out of it a little bit But I think anyone who has any kind of sense of what actually moves the needle these days or where people's attention are, they understand that that idea of gatekeeping has been completely.

7:48It's being completely. Yeah, completely abreast open. So I think that that then led to some, I think, very kind of cynical ways of working with influencers where it's like, OK, we'll just pay them to do some posts then. Or we'll invite them to like an Instagram takeover at our runway show. And that's like fine. You know what I mean? It does. It does. It does. Whatever it does. Yeah. But I think the idea that just it's not top down anymore in terms of influence and things that are driving culture, it's oftentimes very much bottom up. And there's still a little bit of people who are there's a little bit of a sense that there are people in fashion who are really interesting creative directors who are able to kind of move things forward.

8:23But in order for it to really take hold, it needs to have a cosign from the people underneath. Everyone is a content creator. Everyone is a content creator. And even the content creators don't always have control over what hits and what doesn't. You know what I mean? or are even able to predict what will hit and what doesn't. So it's kind of a system where everything kind of needs to be working together in a way that wasn't necessarily true 10 years ago, 5 years ago.

8:46Steve Dool:And then just link that to Depop because Depop is a platform which I want you to explain to our listeners what is actually Depop. But Depop now is all about the creators. It's all about, it's actually, at my view, seen from the outside, it's all about the content that creators are creating and then reselling. But tell us a little bit about like, what is Depop? What is Depop is here for? And how creators are actually driving Depop? Yeah, I mean, I can give you the sort of, you know, the boilerplate of like, Depop is a community. We're a peer-to-peer fashion marketplace. No, it's a marketplace for where people, it is peer-to-peer, where people can buy and sell secondhand clothing, primarily, and accessories.

9:31So there's a lot of like functionality in the app that's very much inspired by and driven from and derives from social media platforms. It's kind of like native to that idea or to how people kind of engage with that. We have around 43 million users globally. Wow. Kind of, I think a broader age demographic than people really necessarily associate us with because historically we were super Gen Z. We're getting to the point where we're really reaching an older audience as well and hopefully can continue to reach, you know, Gen Alpha, whoever they may be as the time comes. Yes, yes. But it is predicated on this idea that like whatever you want, there's something someone who's either buying or willing to buy or sell it on Depop.

10:14Whatever your style is, that idea of how you can kind of express yourself through your clothes. And also there's a big like inspiration point to it as well in terms of people searching for things that are interesting to them to get inspired that maybe they see outside of Depop and bring it into the app or, you know, vice versa. I think also there's obviously this, I think, idea that's been gaining more and more ground in the public consciousness that our current system of fashion consumption is really harmful. Yeah. And the impact is tremendous with fast fashion and just this idea of constant newness.

10:47That has taken hold culturally. I like to think that Deepa played a part in it, but I think it's also just generally speaking in the consciousness of how wasteful we can be. so that that idea of secondhand fashion of extending the life of clothing of making better purchases so things will last longer whether it's because you want to wear it forever or because you know the value of how it's constructed and made will mean that you can resell it to someone else when you um when you're done with it and maybe not recoup the full investment but it will retain

11:16Steve Dool:some value some value but it's interesting because deep hop's kind of been a pioneer on that because like we are talking much more now about secondhand fashion and about being sustainable much more in the past you know i would say two three years but you guys has been talking about that since the actually the launch of depop so it's kind of like you're much more ahead of the game when it comes to understand the importance of circular fashion yeah i think so i think also you know our founder simon he didn't um set out to be like i'm gonna be a revolution in secondhand fashion it was for him it was just this was a place where he knew a bunch of creative people who had a bunch of stuff that other creative people would want and that was really the genesis of it and that ethos is still there but i think it was that these we kind of rose together along with this movement and we were very willing to accept the role that we could play you know we didn't try to we've never tried to like fight the way the culture is moving we've tried to embrace it in some ways anticipate it and in some ways also help create it or give it momentum but just sort of being give a platform yeah and and and this is so i mean we we've definitely embraced it and and then realize that like our role in it is not necessarily you know we can't take on fast fashion companies alone you know what i mean but what we can do is make shopping secondhand the most appealing that it can be and that's kind of the way that we think about our mission and the role that we can play to actually drive impact is like what are we doing to make sure that people know that it's fun it's cool for everyone and it is literally cool for everyone do you know what i I mean, it's not just people who know how to put together a wild fashion-forward outfit.

12:51It can be for people just shopping for their everyday things, people selling one or two pieces from their own wardrobe. They don't have to be professional sellers. But if you want to, we've also got that for you.

13:00Steve Dool:And then it's amazing how TikTok played a huge role for deep-hop growth. So I was just discussing with Andrea four or five years ago. we did a campaign with one of our clients, which is an app that added video. And there was a collaboration with Depop because there was a lot of creators from Depop using their app to actually edit the content to go to Depop. And then it was all down to a trend on TikTok. So it's kind of like, tell me a little bit about like, you know, the role of social media impact, how Depop became, you know, such a, you know, an incredible tool for reselling. but TikTok play a real role for that right yeah I think it's like you know in an organically way I'm going to say so it's something that happens I don't think you can engineer that no you can't try as some if you know how to engineer tell us right yeah yeah exactly but I think it's more this idea that like the influence of people whatever that means whether it's like your specific friends or if you're someone who has a huge audience it's like very porous where those audiences can be so we've seen people who have built a huge following on Depop from just building their shop and curating what they want to sell and be known for and what they can source.

14:20And then that's been the launching pad for them to then become big on other platforms like TikTok or Instagram or whatever. And then we've also obviously seen it go the other way. I think that the part about how we sort of embrace it is like, we haven't tried to push it too hard. We've like, this is very corny, I have to warn you. But one thing that we've that we say sometimes is like dpop is the stage our community is like the actors if you use that metaphor so we're there to like ease the barrier of entry to like make it frictionless to make sure people understand it to surface the good inventory and then we kind of that's like the spark that lets people do what they want to do and that follows through to our marketing as well we try to cast all of our campaigns as much as we can from people who are actually you know have of Depop shops and our Depop users.

15:08We certainly listen to the voice of buyers and sellers in the platform all the time when making those kind of decisions. But we're not out here trying to push viral trends or do TikTok challenges, because that is just, I think, I'm sure it does work sometimes, but it's also such a, it's like you're just chasing your tail constantly instead of providing a little creative spark to let people then do it on their own.

15:36Steve Dool:So that means like you guys co-create a lot with the community from Depop. So you listen, like as you said, like we listen a lot to our buyers and to our sellers to take in consideration what we're going to do as a mic. So you use, like it's a co-creation collaboration with the users. Yeah, I mean, sometimes it's literally that, like we'll literally commission people to make content about like a new product feature that we want to tell people about because they can do it better. They can speak to the audience that we're trying to reach in a much more natural way. And we're not trying to also like hide it.

16:07Like it's very clearly, we put it on our channels. You know what I mean? It's like very clearly that's what it is. And other times we just look at what people are saying about us, whether it's good or bad in whatever form it may be. And obviously applying a certain lens to it, like is this one specific person's problem? Is it actually the way they say it is? Or is this just someone had a great experience or a bad experience, but it's not really applicable to the growth? So it's not like we're getting, you know, wringing our hands over every single thing, But you definitely can get a sense through just being aware of what people are saying about you, of where the movement is going.

16:40You know what I mean? And how we can either support that to like amplify it further or take it as be like, hey, this is a really good consideration that we need to make our products better or our marketing better or whatever.

16:49Steve Dool:And do you guys recommend to your sellers what is kind of trend on search? because I think I read an interview from you where you said that there's some search about like, oh, I saw this Netflix series and I'm looking for, I don't know, like that top that the actor actor was wearing. So how do you use search engineer on the app to actually support your sellers and your buyers to, you know, a certain direction? Yeah, we do it. We're, you know, there's a lot of people on the app. There's a huge volume of daily searches. I can't imagine. for all sorts of things. But we kind of try to pick the things that are most widely applicable.

17:26So like, and some of it is really simple. Like we do, we share stats on our Instagram of like what searches are trending. And that is, it serves like a bunch of different purposes for people who are sellers who might think, oh, I have something like this in my closet that I don't wear. Maybe now's a good time to sell it. Or like the more professional sellers, if you will, who are like, oh great, I'm gonna go source all of this kind of stuff or move those listings to the top of my shop or whatever the case may be. but it also then serves as sort of inspiration too for people who are looking for like what's my summer wardrobe going to be or you know what am I going to wear for this party um to kind of let people just let people in a little bit to say like oh this is maybe a good idea or maybe I don't like this specifically but it made me think of this and things like that um and then we also highlight like trending items and sellers in the app on just our like you know search pages and things like that um just like to further that engagement to also like let people know the breadth of what's available especially for new users or people who don't use it that frequently just like ease all that all those those pathways that ux you know make it as as sticky as possible

18:26Steve Dool:and then and like just like this now as we just was a lot of you know like we're talking much more about you know secondhand fashion and there's just so many you know different technologies and app and now even like you know proper you know stores that are you know reselling yeah so how How do you guys follow the, I don't want to say the compassion, but follow where this industry is going to keep yourselves up to date and making sure that you continue to retain your loyalty. Because as you said, you have a huge database, right? Yeah. But you still need to look at where the industry is evolving and how it's evolving.

19:06Yeah. I mean, it actually is a shared responsibility. I think it's kind of everyone's responsibility internally, to be honest with you. Like no matter if you're someone who has an internal role on the, you know, legal team or if you're someone who is doing the most kind of community facing or audience facing work, consumer facing. So it touches all things, right? Like we need to think about like legislation. There's a lot of EU legislation specifically coming around fashion and resale that is relevant to us. It's an opportunity to engage with brands as well. You know, they need to find solutions for stuff that doesn't sell.

19:40And they need to find a better solution than sending it to a landfill somewhere else. Or incinerating it, which is shocking what some brands still do about today. It is shocking, yes. And then for the consumer, it's also just sort of showing up where they're getting the same information. So, you know, you see people on, if we just use the TikTok example, there are a ton of people talking about how wasteful fast fashion is. and then there's still a lot of people who are still buying from you know big brands that are turning over a tremendous like a shockingly irresponsible amount of of product um and how do you kind of mold those two things together to say here's the problem here's behavior that's furthering the problem why are still are people still doing this oftentimes it's ease and price and just awareness and so that gives us a little bit of a space to play too to say like cool we You just need to make people more aware that this is an option to consume more responsibly.

20:32And also, like, let them know how easy it is and make sure that that's real. Like, when we're saying it's really easy to list, how is it really easy to list? You know what I mean?

20:42Steve Dool:So you have to educate it to ensure that they know better. Yeah, and then constantly just improve to meet the demands of whoever the audience we're trying to reach is. And at this point, I think it's different in different markets. The U.K. resale has, like, really penetrated in a deep way. the US is still on like an awareness curve. And so a lot of our job there is, because it's just a big market. It's a big, huge market. Yeah, I think sometimes bigger than like even me as an American realized until we're actually like looking at the numbers. But yeah, so I mean, we're still talking about in some ways there, resale versus retail.

21:14Whereas here, maybe we're talking more about like what our USP is versus like some of our competitors.

21:20Steve Dool:And then like what I love about Depop is your editorial concepts at Depop. hands yeah so are you much more you're very much involved on the content the storytelling the story yes we have we also have um like you know we have a creative an in-house creative studio that does a lot of that of that work we have a social and organic social team and a paid social team and then and then my team which is the brand and marketing and we do work very collaboratively across the board in addition to people like you know we have a crm team and and our paid marketing team you know can kind of give us the the parameters so it is it's a group effort um but I have something to do with it.

21:56Steve Dool:Yeah, but again, the content from Depop and editorial and then the way you guys talk about Depop and your brand, how you educate and awareness and everything is something that is very unique and then it's engaged. So is it Depop? Tell me a little bit about what's the content editorial? What is the role that plays for Depop? Because you guys are known for the amazing editorial content. Yeah, a lot of it is use GC. And either we see something that we like and we ask people if we can use it and compensate them in that way. Or we kind of commission people and say, hey, we want to talk about this. Do you feel like you can talk about this, first of all, in an authentic way?

22:40And then would you like to? so that's that's always kind of at the heart of like let's let people speak for themselves if we can figure out how to do it in a way that makes sense financially for both of us and also like is real we're not trying to make someone talk about something they don't know anything about and then there's the other part that's what's more like our control and I think what what we what we kind of try to do is this idea that I talk about more and more frequently at work is like a lot of brands will try to be the fire when you can just be the fuel and so what I mean I love that thank you i made it up but um what what i mean by that is just like you can't so like you can't force cultural relevance you can't tell people we're culturally relevant because of this but what we can do is create good content that's creative that explains a little bit about who we are and there's something in there that sparks some inspiration somewhere else to let other people make content so we're basically like you could look at it as we're we're the you know the fuel or we're also just kind of getting out of the way of ourselves and just trying to spread our message in the most engaging and like interesting way and then letting other people do what they will with it.

23:46So those people are defining our cultural relevance, you know, our audience, our users, our communities. I love that. And not us. I just think you can, the consumer is too savvy and they don't want to be marketed to in that way.

23:57Steve Dool:And they are getting more and more savvy. They know what's up. They know when something is like not real. And you know, there's all this stuff, especially on TikTok, which in some ways is kind of like lawless as a platform. Like you see this stuff, like that term astroturfing where you like which is you know the response to grassroots kind of stuff where you like pay people to pay creators i guess to make it look like it's their organic content and then you just boost it like you know what that is already if you get three videos in a row with the same script you know yeah it's like give me a break and also it doesn't make there's a dissonance between these people are so excited about something that nobody else is talking about you know what i mean yeah it doesn't feel is a tiktok shop something that you guys are typing into it or has it any impact on depot um i'm sure it has some impact in terms of like where people are spending their attention and wallet um we're not actively on it um we we're we're an e-commerce platform ourselves you know what i mean so like to stretch ourselves out that way would see and like you i don't know we we've talked a lot about this as various opportunities come up yeah and there's some that are more appealing because you're actually just making the you're sending people back to the app and then there's others where they keep everything everything that and it's like it's so many steps removed from what we actually do that um i think we have to kind of spend a lot of time thinking about how that would work as opposed to just making our own app experience and i love that because everyone is talking about tiktok shop right i mean then it's got the audience there yeah it's getting out just but i think like it's not just because everyone is talking about that you need to jump into tiktok shop without having you know understanding yeah if you can be at the tiktok shop right because i think there's a lot of you know as an agent we have a lot of brands that come to us and say oh my god we need to be on tiktok shop like why do you need to be in tiktok shop let's let's understand first like what would be the role of tiktok shop for your brand you know it's just like let's understand how it's what let's understand like who is the audience that is going that actually buy on tiktok shop because it's it's sometimes brands they tend to see a trend and then feel that the need of being there is straight away, where I think is the opposite.

26:01I would love to, I'm going to look in the camera, relieve yourselves of the burden of being first. Just focus on being good. You know what I mean? I think there's the days of like, all this new tech and social media is like brand new and there's a new platform. First of all, like we haven't really seen a new platform hit in any significant way since TikTok, if we're being honest. And also a lot of like, YouTube is really the best and most clear example of even a platform that's like jumped generations. You know what I mean? Like, let's be real. Facebook is not what Facebook used to be in terms of the audience.

26:33And that affects its relevance. So you're spending all this time and energy to focus on like getting something there. It does, it feels to me, and I say this with love, it feels like that's when you're marketing to other marketers. It's so true. And not to your community. Like, can you think of a time when you've seen something that a brand, you know some new tech or some new platform that a brand jumped into first and you thought like wow that's really a brand for me because they got there early you know what i mean it's a little it's attention is attention and if it makes sense then sure but if this is like the solution you've been waiting for then by all means jump in but if you're just doing something to do it early like i