Ep 642: Kick or Keep These Trends with DÔEN's Ashley Kick: AI Creative, TikTok Shop, Amazon, and Branded Resale

0:00We're going to go through some topics and we're going to select whether to kick or keep. Am I buying cat toys on TikTok? Yes. Am I making higher price point decisions through TikTok? Not necessarily. As a marketer, I'm never going to say no to new ways to get in front of customers and new discovery pathways. The more that you shift who you are and the more that you shift your voice as a brand, And when you start to outsource it, it no longer becomes you. And you do start to lose control over what that identity is, whether it's intentional or not. We're kicking that one so far.

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1:24Back in under two business days with no sales pitch. If you're clean, they'll tell it to you straight. They say one supplement brand they worked with was down$162 ,000 a month to foreign infringers and they helped claw back$131 ,000 of it. Grab your free brand audit report at esqgo.com slash free dash audit. That's E-S-Q-G-O dot com slash free dash audit. The links in the show notes. Hello and welcome to the DTC podcast today. I am very lucky to have Ashley Kick in studio here, VP of e-commerce at Doan. I met Ashley at the triple whale event, the Whaleys, and I was on stage with her while she was giving some of her hot takes at the conference.

2:08And so this is also a first for the podcast because Ashley actually suggested a new format for the DTC podcast for this one, a World Cup themed topic selection sort of podcast where we're going to go through some topics and we're going to select whether to kick or keep. I was just realizing this is on brand with your last name being kick. I try and I'm going to have to show you the only lanyard I ever enjoyed wearing was my World Cup 2026 lanyard. I was lucky enough to go to Switzerland, Bosnia and Herzegovina game and it was as magical as one could ever dream. Amazing. On to the e-commerce topics that we pre-selected.

2:49We can kind of go through these semi-rapid fire, but I'd love you to expand on your thoughts on them. And let's start. So we're going to be selecting whether we keep these tactics or whether we kick them to the curb. Let's start. I'm ready. Okay. Buying through AI agents. Should we kick or keep that one? Is that going to be a big part of the future? Oh, goodness. You know, I don't think that brands should be the one forcing that decision. So I'm going to say if the end user wants to, if that's how they want to do it, they can keep it. Me as a buyer, I'm not feeling it. I think that's really a personal decision depending on their circumstances.

3:30Are you seeing it at Doan? Are you seeing it in your UTM showing up so far? No, I don't feel like it's made it to this. level. I'm not 100 % sure of this demographic is utilizing the technology. No, I feel like this is still, it still feels like an Amazon thing and like big, big box Walmart, you know, sort of moments. I don't know. What do you think? I don't think people are ever going to turn it over agentically. The idea of like agents deciding what fashion I might want and buying it for me, like I already am using it to make some purchase decisions. We're actually running a report right now with a bunch of merchants and consumers as well to understand their buying decisions.

4:10we're seeing it from an agency side and from a newsletter side. We're seeing people coming into our ecosystem from these agents quite a bit, but it's never going to be fully agentic. I don't think it's going to be fully agentic. Humans need to choose our things that we want. We don't need to be told what we should do by AI agents. And especially something that is so inherently emotional, like fashion, like beauty, like jewelry. I mean, if I'm choosing, I'm getting like a new cat toy, sure, maybe. but not what I'm going to be wearing and want to feel beautiful in necessarily. I feel like that's really more of a personal decision.

4:47Okay, kick it. Kick it. TikTok shop for a premium apparel brand. This one's very relevant to you. I don't see this necessarily happening at this juncture. I mean, I feel, once again, am I buying cat toys on TikTok? Yes. Am I making higher price point decisions through TikTok? Not necessarily. Is it an interesting discovery platform? Yes. But like TikTok shop, if I feel like if your AOV is over 100 or 150, I feel like you're gonna want to take a beat and see the site and see the brand a little bit more. I agree. Especially for a brand like yours, which is a premium, a very truly premium apparel brand in terms of price and quality.

5:31Yeah, there's so much more to do in than just, you know, here's a, here's a thing is beautiful. go by it. We really are working towards really just being a steward for the environment, working with manufacturers and with factories that are aligned with our values and how people should be treated, animals should be treated, and materials should be harvested. And so I think, those are stories that we want people who are interested in those things and aligned with those things. We really want those people to understand who we are and become a part of the community. And a little click off of a TikTok shot probably isn't going to make that happen.

6:11Is TikTok in general part of your content mix? Are people discovering the brand through TikTok? Yes, actually, but from user-generated content. So I mean, for us, wherever a person feels comfortable and wants to share their message, and if Doan is a part of that message, then absolutely we are here for it. Are we going out of our way to make TikTok specific content at this juncture? No. So what we like to do is, you know, we kind of maintain our story and our aesthetic through the channels that we feel most comfortable. And then we'll kind of depend on other publishers and content creators to, to tell a story through their lens.

6:56So it's kicked. It's kicked. What's the last thing you bought on TikTok? I, sorry, I've told on the podcast many times was I bought a adjustable weight set that was, I was trying to get in shape. You pick them up and they become heavier, but you know what they sent me? Baby rattles. Like they literally like inflatable baby rattled dog toy style things. Like send me nothing. Don't send me that as like an absolute insult. So I actually haven't bought anything from TikTok since. Don't send me trash. Yeah, exactly. It was just insulting. So it's kind of turned me off of that. Yeah. Has your daughter bought anything on TikTok?

7:35Not that I know of yet. We'll see. She gets everything through this podcast, as you know. Absolutely. Okay, this one I'm interested in. Number three, losing money on the first order and making it back on LTV. This is sort of standard D2C math. Do you keep or kick this idea? Luckily, that is not something I've had to deal with. I don't personally feel that's a super great long-term goal for a brand. Coming in as a loss leader, what do you expect from these users to become and to evolve into? I feel like if you're going to do that, your strategy for converting first-time purchasers to second and third needs to be on its super A game.

8:19But if it's not, and you're really having to depend on that, like we don't know what the market's going to be. And honestly, tomorrow, I personally would kick it. That's not where me as a marketer prefers to be or wants to put that sort of risk on a brand. And depending on anything could happen in the future. You know, tariffs happened overnight, straight-up form moves. Who knows where that's going to be tomorrow? And when you have, I think when we're in such a volatile world, the more you're trying to depend on futures just becomes riskier. And I think it just leads to less concrete and confident decisions.

9:02Maybe for subscription offers. Yes, maybe for subscription. Okay. But that's not a world that I've been stepping around in too often. So, yeah, it's a tough one for sure. Well, the World Cup is more about kicking today. The World Cup is more about kicking. There is a keeper, I do know, in World Cup. Absolutely. But we are kicking a lot of things. What about branded resale as an acquisition channel? I mean, absolutely. Doe N has kept it. Doe N, I feel like, has been a mild pioneer, I'd like to think. We have our Hand Me Doe In program. I think that's such a fun name. I know, right? That is fun.

9:42I'm surprised such a serious brand has a pun in that. That's great. I know. We try not to be too serious. Now you're right. It does feel a little bit serious. But it's fun. That's a fun pun. It's an aspirational moment. But yeah, and so what we have done, so we partnered with a company called Treat, and users are able to trade in their pre-loved Doen products. And for us, this really matches with just our brand tenants in a lot of ways. We are really focused on, we want our products to live for a long time. We want them to have a life cycle. We want people to be able to enjoy and feel beautiful in our clothes forever.

10:29And to be able to give product a second life, to kind of be a part of creating a circular economy is something that we were really excited and proud to be a part of. So what happens is users trade in their product for store credit. And then every quarter we have an event where we resell those products back to the public. And we feel like this is a nice blend. Our product already, with our happiness, has a strong resale. There's a strong resale market for DoeN product. There's a lot of BST groups out there. And it's very popular on Poshmark and things like that. But unfortunately, the counterfeit community, the dupe culture has found us.

11:17And so we wanted to make sure that we have an option for users that really want to make sure that this product is genuine. And so buying it from the Hand Me Doe program really does allow that for them. So it helps us to instill confidence in the workplace, maintain stewardship to our environmental goals that we have set up. and just offer product at a more attainable price point for users. I think it's definitely a keeper because it's consumer behavior and it's meeting customers where they're at. They're already doing it anyway and then being part of the whole life cycle. It also just puts you as a brand closer to the consumer for a longer time if you're also part of that.

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13:13Just go to triplewhale.com slash BFCM and start planning today. Okay, I think I know the answer to this one, but AI generated ad creative. Absolutely not. We're kicking it. We're kicking that one so far. That is a goal kick to the other keeper. Uh, if it makes sense for your brand, I'm not here to tell you to stop. Um, but I think, you know, every brand has what's important to them. And for Doen, it is creating, it's creating content is a major focus and a major tenant of like who we are as a brand and what defines our voice, working with our community, spotlighting how people, how people in our community are wearing our products.

13:58We have such a beautiful community of people that send us content of how they're styling our products that we don't need AI-generated content. We never will. But if you're selling something that you don't need any of that for, go for it. But you've heard me say this before, but our customers fell in love with the brand. It fell in love with the people behind the brand, it fell in love with the voice behind the brand that probably wasn't created by a robot when they first, I'm not going to say robot, by a bot. A clanker. We call them clankers. Clankers. They didn't fall in love with the clanker generated things and contents.

14:45And the more that you shift who you are and the more that you shift your voice as a brand, as long as you, When you start to outsource it, it no longer becomes you. And you do start to lose control over what that identity is, whether it's intentional or not. And so it's a slippery slope. And each brand needs to approach that with caution just to make sure they don't lose it. Those things are hard to come back from, for sure. Are there any aspects of the creative, like any of the copy or anything that you'd consider, any like the catalog details or anything? Is there any AI fingerprints on those things?

15:24Not from our brand. We have a copywriter who is actually thoroughly immersed in writing our new mailer copy as we speak. So for us, no. But does it match other brands? Absolutely. But no, not us. Yeah, I'm kicking it. I'm kicking it so far. Yeah, it brings me to it. There's an interesting thought I had in a group that I'm a part of. It's called D2C Snipers with a bunch of D2C brand operators. And they were talking specifically about the opportunity to really work with amazing human talent, specifically in Hollywood. There's a real crisis, I think, in Hollywood for talent there for what, you know, a lot of movies are getting harder to make or harder to make successful, I guess.

16:06And so there's a real glut of talent available at like very reasonable prices. And the thinking is like if someone can write like a Golden Globe nominated screenplay, like they can write your ad copy or they can write your catalog copy. And so that's something to really think about is keep the human writers employed. Yeah, we've actually used novelists before for some of our writing. I bet. And I really believe, you know, there's this pendulum, right? You know, it started with everything being human created. You know, I feel like it's really moved to the other side. And I think when a pendulum moves, I think as quickly as this one has, it really, I think a vacuum has been created.

16:43And I think a great moment for differentiation has been, you know, vacated. And this really is a chance for brands to stand out by having truly authentic, clearly personal brand content out in the world. What about agentic media buying? Kick or keep that trend? I would keep it. At this point, as long as the content that we have is authentic, if we want to work with an algorithm or a bot to make sure the right people are seeing that content, I'm not against that. We use regards like straight on media buying. I don't know if we've delved into that necessarily, but algorithms are everywhere choosing placements for us, whether I think we know or not all the time.

17:30Meta has is, you know, if you set meta to find more clicks, it's going to find you more clicks. If you have it set to landing page views, it's going to find you landing pages. If it has it set to revenue, it's going to find you revenue. And, you know, it's not doing that from us. You know, it's using AI to create those moments. And, you know, I use the Klaviyos. I'm on Klaviyo and we use their optimized send times. You know, once again, you know, it's if you want to open your email at four o 'clock in the afternoon, I open mine at seven and somebody in Australia certainly isn't opening it at the same time as we are.

18:05You know, that's that's I think that's an excellent example of where AI can come in and truly be a helper to disseminate. And then you can spend your time creating content and then the bots can go out and find the best people to see that content. Love it. So we're keeping. We're keeping that. All right. Number six or seven we're at now. Retention over acquisition as the priority. You know, I mean, I guess I think this kind of goes back to your the idea of loss leader on the first purchase. I think you need to have both. So I don't know what I don't know whether we're kicking. I guess I'm just going to like pass that one.

18:43to a defender. Maybe pass it back to the keep. And so there's not a world where you can't do both. I mean, you have strategies for both. You just make sure that you're treating them both in a way that makes the most sense for them, which I think is where, once again, AI can come into play. It's like having a welcome series, maybe somebody bought immediately, they shouldn't be getting the same welcome series as somebody who hasn't purchased, or maybe a cart abandoned for people that have a higher AOV than maybe brand new people who haven't purchased yet. I don't think there's an excuse at this point to pick an either or, and I don't think that would fly with a lot of people's bosses.

19:27I have one more AI addendum here. AI for customer service, kick or keep? I'm kicking that one as well. You know when you're talking to a bot. But, and I think particular, I mean, if you are physically unable to answer every single person, you probably have other issues rather than your customer service, you know, numbers and staffing. So something is also personal to Doan. I mean, do we have, is there a macro that probably tells you when, you know, what your order delivery date is? That probably does exist. But if you're texting with us, if you're calling us, you're absolutely not speaking to a robot.

20:10And I don't think that, I think that, you know, it certainly does, you need to look at your demographic, look how they feel comfortable. And you need to make modifications to your outreach and your communication, depending on what your customer is expecting and how they best receive whatever, whatever way they're being communicated with. Like, yeah, there are probably are people who are fine speaking to to bots, particularly if they are very relatively simple question and answer moments. But if there is, you know, somebody really wants to talk about the fit of a certain sweater, pant or dress, you know, that probably is best.

20:48That's best coming from another human. Love that. What about, I guess I was going to do a versus, but you can't verse both, but you guys have retail stores, right? So you're not going to be, what's your, what's your take on, on retail footprint. For Doen, it's become very important. We're opening a new location in Wilmette, which is a suburb in Chicago. We're continuing to build new locations across the country. We also have increased our wholesale footprints in various boutiques and wholesalers just across the globe. As a brand, it's become a major initiative for Doen to continue to meet customers where they are.

21:29And, you know, I think it also very much depends on the product. You know, if you have product that's incredibly well-manufactured, like Doen says, you really want people to be able to experience it and truly, truly understand what they're getting. And it's also just a great moment for people to be able to become immersed in the aesthetic and the world that we're trying to create. And that's something that we put a lot of effort into for our stores. So a lot of some of our retail, they'll have like hand-painted borders around doorways and things of that nature. So, and just a lot of the furniture that's utilized really does, you know, sit with our aesthetic.

22:11So I think it's, and I think the, I'm not sure, I don't remember what the formula is, I think, but whenever a new store is open, And you can expect a 20 % lift in brand awareness in that area. So from a marketing standpoint, a brand awareness build, it's absolutely something that we're excited to continue to build into. And I think as a marketer, I'm never going to say no to new ways to get in front of customers and new discovery pathways. And to build out the brand. Yeah, definitely keep it, especially as you're talking about it in this experiential way. Like people are looking for ways to, you know, have experiences in this AI-saturated world or whatever.

22:52And if you can create that brand experience at your retail location, it's only going to deepen the connection to your brand. Yeah, I mean, gosh, if anybody's seen the Love Shack Fancy store, they definitely are creating an aesthetic in a moment out in the world as well. So, yeah, I think there's a few brands that really are leaning into it and doing it beautifully. I was just chatting with someone about the Doc Martin store in London and how it's almost like a museum that you're walking into of like the history of Doc Martin, which I think is a really cool idea. Absolutely. Yeah. And those have always been fun.

23:24Then, of course, like La Labo and Diptyque, you certainly want those have to be, you know, experience driven as well with the assumption that then they'll come back and purchase. The second and third purchase maybe would be online. Okay, so for a company that has your D2C game so dialed, you have retail that's expanding. What about wholesale? Do we kick or keep wholesale? Keep. Absolutely. It's been, yeah, we're also growing incredibly quickly in wholesale. The way that we're growing, it has been focused around boutiques that kind of manage the aesthetic. They have a similar aesthetic to us, similar voice to us.

24:04We feel as like a good partner. It's nice to be around other brands in a wholesale environment. So 100 % key. It's just another discovery platform that would never would turn away. What about being on Amazon? Are we kicking Amazon or are we keeping it? I don't believe Elevated or Luxury fashion necessarily belongs on Amazon. on. It's just not something that, you know, I think aligns with how Doan in particular wants to grow and the partners they want to be aligned with. How about, so we're, for high-end brands, we're definitely kicking it. What about discount discipline or sort of full price integrity is how I'm wording it here.

24:47This is something I believe in very much. I think at all points of the user's decision and buying cycle. Doen does not offer discounts or free shipping for email addresses because I believe that when you offer those things, you know what you're going to get? You're going to get a lot of third and fourth emails from people who want 15 % off. And that really diminishes your email list, it diminishes your deliverability scores, diminishes your open rates and all of that. So you can either have million person lists with 20 % that you're sending to maybe a three or four hundred thousand person list that you have a deliverability and send of like maybe 60 to 70 percent.

25:32And so I think it artificially inflates user behavior and I feel it condenses user behavior in a way that it becomes more difficult to predict and it becomes more difficult to really understand forecast trends to. When you have a product that customers are not have you find that people have an affinity for that product at the price that that you're selling it for that's how you create you know these meaningful moments and these meaningful touch points that truly is about the product it's just not about that low hanging fruit quick 15 percent what about this this one wasn't on our list but it's something we're talking about recently is the idea of like the halo effect of of when you spend on top of money channels at, you know, again, we're talking about at a loss potentially for this idea that it's going to have lift in other parts of your, of your stack.

26:24Do you, what do you say about the halo effect? Are we, are we kicking it or keeping it? The way that we utilize that is we have a certain subset of products that we think if you're going to have a Doan item, you know, what would we choose for that to be your first experience with Doan. And, you know, for us, like the Henry top, the Sebastian skirt, the Petra cardigan, which I, nope, nope, this is not the Petra. But, you know, there are certain products that, you know, we think this is going to be the best experience for you as a first-time purchaser of this brand. And with that, once you've got this product in your closet, you're wearing it, you're loving it, you know, then you can go back in and discover what's your next moment.

27:10Where do you feel like your product journey with Doan? should go. And that's how we approach this. And the first purchase products are not loss leaders. They're just what we feel is the best experience for the end user. And that's, once again, we don't know what is the trend for whatever your loss leader going to diminish. And now here you are trying to struggle to find out what that new thing is and have to buy inventory into it and so on and so forth. Whereas if it's just natural part of your line and natural part of your brand, then that should be how you approach it. Sure, it's like it can be considered a game, but like for something that, particularly for us, where the users are investing their hard-earned dollars for it.