Wayfair’s Kara O’Brien on unifying the in-store and digital shopping experience

The Current Podcast

Wayfair Head of Brand Marketing Kara O’Brien joins The Current Podcast to discuss blending the in-store and digital shopping experience.

Please note, this transcript may contain minor inconsistencies compared to the episode audio.

[00:00:00] Damian: I'm Damian

[00:00:00] Ilyse: I'm Ilyse Liffreing

[00:00:02] Ilyse: And welcome to this edition of The Current Podcast.

[00:00:05] Damian: This week, we're delighted to talk with Kara O'Brien, Head of Brand Marketing and Analytics at Wayfair.

[00:00:11] Ilyse: For years, Wayfair has been an online one stop shop for people looking for everything from beds to couches to kitchen appliances. In fact, for those browsing home goods, the choices often seem endless.

[00:00:23] Damian: I know, because I've spent many long hours looking for the perfect bathroom cabinet to fit into my tiny New York apartment. But seriously though, one of the big draws for Wayfair has always been its reasonable prices for its products.

[00:00:35] Ilyse: Wayfair is famous as an e commerce platform, but now that's changing. In May, the company opened its first brick and mortar store. start by asking Kara about why the company made this move.

[00:00:47] Ilyse: First, I believe congratulations are in order because Wayfair opened its first brick and mortar store back in May.

[00:00:54] So, why don't you walk us through the decision to make the leap into a physical storefront?[00:01:00]

[00:01:00] Kara: Absolutely We are so excited about this milestone. It's something that's been a long time coming. I personally have been at Wayfair for 10 years, and it has been one of the peak moments of my time there to see our brand come to life physically. so why now? I mean, our ethos has always been to deliver the best possible experience for our customer, and now we want to really be able to do it however they shop and however they choose to shop.

[00:01:24] And so to be able to bring the It's a product to the customer. Let them see it in person, help guide them through the purchasing process. It's it makes a ton of sense. And, consumer demand has shifted so much during and since the pandemic, there was, pretty strong move to buying these more considered purchases online when people had no option to go in store.

[00:01:46] But, now we're seeing the pendulum swing back and the consumer preference is to have a mix, to have a balance, to be able to see things in person, but have the convenience of being able to shop and research from home.

[00:01:57] Ilyse: Yes, now I know I'm, I have an apartment in New York and i've spent too many hours on Wayfair, probably.

[00:02:03] Kara: - love to hear that.

[00:02:04] Ilyse: but why did you land on Wilmette, Illinois for this touch point? And how are you bringing the brand to life in store?

[00:02:12] Kara: Yeah, to start with Wilmette, I think there's two big considerations that ended up there. one is convenience. And so we really want to make shopping for your home as easy as possible. It's a process. It's something that's so important to so many people.

[00:02:25] And so we don't want the process itself to feel onerous. And so for us, we had found this wonderful space. It's in a revitalized shopping center. It's surrounded by suburbs with lots of young families who are really kind of our core customer. And then the access to the broader Chicagoland, uh, area was fantastic.

[00:02:45] So that's always been a strong market for us. But more on the business side, it's, It's very well positioned within our logistics network, and to kind of come back to that idea of convenience, we can ship products to, directly to customers home instead of trying to fit something [00:03:00] large and bulky in the back of your trunk.

[00:03:02] And so we're able to do that fast, free, easy, when they've seen something in store or if they've explored beyond.

[00:03:10] Ilyse: mortars follow or?

[00:03:12] Kara: I think that's the idea eventually, but I think one thing we're really trying to do is learn at being an e commerce company. First, there's so much one way conversation that you have with the customer through your marketing, through your site. This is an opportunity to have that two way conversation.

[00:03:28] And, we recognize we're new to the space. We're going to learn a ton and hopefully be able to apply that

[00:03:34] Ilyse: what

[00:03:34] Damian: to what extent does the physical store help build the brand perception? And I know you sort of touched on that, but what I'm interested in is, it's known as an e commerce platform, and here you are now building out a physical store.

[00:03:46] So What does that do? How does that help?

[00:03:49] Kara: Yeah, well, I think it's rooted in who we were as an e commerce company, right? We have so many different types of products. We have, tens of millions of products on site. [00:04:00] And so the challenge at hand was really how do you take that vast selection and put it into a box, right? You can only put a finite number of products in.

[00:04:08] And so for us, what we were really trying to solve for is how do you at Google Demonstrate that breadth, but still assist people through that purchasing process so that they can find that thing they were looking for, even if they didn't even know they wanted it. And so a lot of our philosophy was we want to be able to give you departments that are specific to a space, but we also wanted to have a through line that We're specific to your style.

[00:04:34] So the way you can shop the store, it's not, living room over here, bedroom over here, completely cordoned off. It's more of a choose your own adventure. So if I have multiple projects and I have a modern aesthetic with a little bit of a rustic twist. We have pathways to carry you through.

[00:04:49] If you are mission driven and just need a new set of pots and pans, we can get you there quickly too. and so then the other thing that's a component to that, given how much we have, is the [00:05:00] support needed along the way. And so we have our associates trained to help you find the things you want, if you want a different color, we can show you that through our e commerce platform, but then you know that the size is perfect because you saw it in the store.

[00:05:12] Damian: So you're connecting the in store experience to the digital experience.

[00:05:16] Kara: closely. The technology enablement was so important to us. We wanted to make sure people could understand again that endless aisle, but make it a very shoppable experience in store. we also are going to be launching new services like design services to help customers complete that project with confidence.

[00:05:31] and so very much want it to be an interplay. Now,

[00:05:40] Ilyse: back in March, which included a full omni channel activation featuring celebrity spokespeople and an updated logo. What were the most successful lovers within this campaign, and are there any surprising insights so far? Yeah, well, we

[00:05:54] Kara: Yeah, we were really excited to bring this to market. along with this campaign, we have a revised tagline [00:06:00] of every style, every home. And I think the whole goal in the campaign was to be able to show that, not just say that. And so by bringing in different personalities, some recognizable, some just relatable, we felt like we could showcase that breadth, but in ways that, a consumer looks at the ad, the campaign and says, Oh, I see myself in that.

[00:06:17] I know that I can get what I'm looking for. as it comes to the winds, it's still early days, just launching in March. Not a ton of time. But we're seeing really positive response to the casting to the breadth of personalities were showing. It's quite memorable as a result. So we're seeing good spikes in attention metrics.

[00:06:35] We know it's resonant, and we know that people are associating it with wayfair. So for us, that own ability was a really important goal in the campaign.

[00:06:43] Ilyse: TV spots during the Oscars. Yes. What was the impact of those pretty high profile ads?

[00:06:49] Kara: Oh, I think it was really nice as we went on this more of an evolution than a revolution of the brand. It was really nice to be able to showcase that in a big splashy way and have as many people [00:07:00] see it as possible. And then as you've seen and will continue to see over the course of the year, we're really building on that.

[00:07:06] So we have a few different spots. They all exist in this world of the waverhood and, that sort of, The sort of universal experiences that people have in their communities are the things we're trying to show in all different ways. Now beyond those

[00:07:19] Damian: Now beyond those big TV spots, are there other sort of digital channels that you're exploring?

[00:07:24] Kara: lot of this campaign was not just about the what, but the where. And so we've definitely taken an expanded lens to how we show up for our customers, and really trying to make sure we understand where they're spending time. We show up there and then as a result are additive to their experience, too And you know some of the newer spaces were in definitely moving more into streaming video Moving more into audio which we hadn't done before home tends to be quite a visual category So that's been a really exciting experiment for us and then working with all sorts of creators I think that's an emerging area [00:08:00] for us but really important for thinking about home and showcasing style and self expression

[00:08:06] Damian: a sort of Specific demographic. You mentioned young homeowners. That's interesting. And that perhaps predetermines which channels you might like to engage people in.

[00:08:16] Kara: Absolutely.

[00:08:17] we are a mass brand. We do have something for everyone. But at the same time, when you think about who's spending disproportionately on their home, who has more needs, it's definitely the folks who are going through these meaningful life events where their notion of home is changing. And so really the sort of bullseye of that are young families.

[00:08:36] you're getting married, you're moving in together, you're trying to merge styles maybe successfully, maybe less successfully, you have parents who are now thinking about safety and designing a nursery all the way through durability as the kids get older. And then, moving on up through to empty nesters.

[00:08:53] There's a very different set of needs. So we really want to start with that sort of nucleus of a starter family, a young family, [00:09:00] and grow the relationship from

[00:09:01] Damian: That absolutely makes sense. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:09:11] Ilyse: an e commerce company? That's

[00:09:13] Kara: that's a fantastic question. for us, we're longtime digital marketers. Digital is a very direct path to our site. And so a lot of the challenges when you're, telling a story and you're trying to guide towards that less direct path to get to site, how do you do so? And, help the customer understand what they should expect when they show up.

[00:09:31] And so for me, the things that I'm thinking about all the time are storytelling. Really trying to make sure that we are contextually relevant wherever we're showing up, again, something that we're tackling with the new distribution channels. and then really making sure that a company that has been so digitally minded is making that connection.

[00:09:50] And so, now under my purview is our on site team. Marketing team and thinking about when you see us in a TV ad, and then you show up on our home page. How do we make that feel like a [00:10:00] continuous journey? so it's definitely been a journey. I think it's an exciting one. Again, as somebody who's been with this brand for a long time, it's really exciting to see us lean more into that storytelling.

[00:10:09] Ilyse: So you've been with Wayfair now for over 10 years. In that time frame, How would you categorize and characterize the changes in the media landscape?

[00:10:20] Kara: I really think how the consumer expects to discover content has changed dramatically. Where they go, Who they go to, how they think about sharing. It's just, it's changing so rapidly and continues to do so. So for us, as we think about a category that is quite emotive, quite personal. Quite unique to an individual.

[00:10:43] We want to make sure that we can show up in a way that helps somebody discover what they're looking for or discover that perfect piece. And so, you know, insofar as the media landscape, it's not just turning to a single celebrity or a single friend. You actually have access to so much. And so, we want to be a [00:11:00] breakthrough voice.

[00:11:00] We want to help people parse through that and find that perfect thing, which ends up being then this ultimate combination of content and commerce.

[00:11:09] Ilyse: How does Wayfair go about measuring the impact of the users on its sites?

[00:11:16] Kara: yeah. So I mean, picking up on that thread of bridging the offline and the online, I think what's been, you know, a challenge faced by many brands is that you have to think about that total ecosystem that a customer is interacting with and how you can understand how they're moving through it, what they're seeing, what they're reacting to.

[00:11:34] And so for us, we've been on a little bit of a journey to expand how we think about measurement. we've Certainly done a lot of investment in multi touch attribution, especially being more digitally native. we're expanding to think about running different kinds of experiments, understanding, lift on brand metrics over the short term and over the long term.

[00:11:54] and then adding to our based model arsenal. what's great about being e commerce [00:12:00] first, though, is we do get a lot of first party data on our customers. We can see how they move around our site. We know where they've come from, largely, and we can start to stitch that story together so that we can serve them better through personalized mediums as well as an aggregate understand, where they're gravitating towards.

[00:12:17] Ilyse: What are some of the major KPIs that you try to hit or some of those analytics that you really strive for?

[00:12:25] Kara: Yeah, for us, we always just want to build a notion of impact. And I think what's been growing us as marketers is that's not a singular definition. And so it depends on the campaign. It depends on the goal of the test. when we're thinking about offline marketing or brand marketing, we're looking for immediate recall.

[00:12:44] We're looking for a lift in certain impression metrics. or, perception metrics, rather, depending on what we're trying to convey through the campaign, all the way through to more of the mid funnel and consideration, where are we driving visits? What share of those are from new customers versus prior customers?[00:13:00]

[00:13:00] And then how are those customers engaging on site? Are they purchasing right away? Did they come in because they saw a specific category or style? All the way through to how many visits does it take before you're comfortable making a large purchase? and so we follow them, you can call it a funnel, though it tends to not be quite so linear as a funnel.

[00:13:18] Um, yeah.

[00:13:19] Ilyse: in some cases, the funnel has kind of died with like e commerce. Yeah,

[00:13:23] Kara: it's much more of, I said the word before, an ecosystem, right? Like things are moving together non linearly and it's about telling that story, that narrative internally and then playing it back to the customer to give them what they're looking for.

[00:13:37] Damian: as we, you know, look to 2025, what are the things that are sort of exciting you in terms of innovation when it comes to marketing?

[00:13:44] Yeah,

[00:13:48] Kara: and back again, I think we really want to create a total experience for customers, and that'll be through storytelling. That'll be through working with different types of [00:14:00] partners, really thinking about how consumers want to do discovery, and, that's going to be a big focus for us.

[00:14:06] I think like many brands, we are exploring the right use cases for AI to power a lot of what we do. There's everything from the, the stuff behind the walls of how do you get more efficient in your processes all the way through, expanding the number of creatives you're able to put out in a given test.

[00:14:24] so that's very much an area of investment and innovation for us. and then, you know, as we continue to learn through the store, going back to where we started and understanding how we can just make customers lives easier, you think about expanding that to the entire delivery experience, any type of follow on customer service that's needed.

[00:14:44] There's a lot of places where we think we're quite differentiated and we always want to take a technology first approach to it.

[00:14:51] Ilyse: And that's it for this edition of The Current Podcast.

[00:14:53] Damian: We'll be back next week, so stay tuned.

[00:14:56] Ilyse: The Current Podcast's theme is by Love Caliber. The current [00:15:00] team includes Cat Fessy and Sydney Cairns. And remember,

[00:15:03] I'm Damian.

[00:15:04] Ilyse: I'm Ilyse.

[00:15:05] Damian: And we'll see you next time. And if you like what you hear, please subscribe and leave us a review. Also, tune in to our other podcast, The Current Report.