EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

In July 2018, Lisa DeLuca, Head of Marketing (HOM), was at a crossroads on how to continue the growth that Spruce + Pine had following two years of doubled sales in an environment where brick and mortar retailers were under pressure. Their e-commerce business was booming but the desire to grow the brand across Canada had caused her and team to pause.

DeLuca took over as HOM in January 2018, after serving as President of Growth, Innovation and Digital for another retail brand, where she had implemented an integrated marketing strategy using an analytical approach that made that retailer a household name. She was drawn to Spruce + Pines values and their commitment to their customers. Their innovation and strategic partnering created superior customer experiences, being one of the first retailers to launch a brand fully online first before implementing a brick and mortar strategy. However, the online retailer was going to be opening six brick-and-mortar locations across Canada this year, starting with their Toronto store in just 3-months.

Being mainly focused on a US market, DuLuca knew that she needed market research and consumer insights specific to each location if she wanted to launch each store successfully. She had made the decision to work with the Canada Post insights team to assist her with compiling digital and ecommerce information by segmenting consumer profiles. Canada Post worked with a number of other high-end and large retail chains to better understand their data and integrate it into their overall marketing strategy.

Spruce + Pine's opportunities and challenges were not new to DeLuca; but she knew that she also needed to expand their marketing efforts and increase brand awareness in key Canadian markets, acquire more millennial shoppers, and motivate clients to spend more. With conflicting demands she needed to find a solution that would support her and her team to build upon that growth.

ABOUT SPRUCE + PINE

Spruce + Pine offered customers a unique experience. Its mission - to help a generation of men and women dress and live well - percolated through the entire business. Design and manufacturing, digital and in-store shopping experiences, returns and customer service: Spruce + Pine did it all, ensuring quality at every stage.

Based in the dynamic Montreal, Quebec fashion sector, Spruce + Pine was founded in 2012 by two designers on the principles of quality essentials and personalized experience. They had built a reputation on creating exceptional experiences for their customers and taking environmentally conscious clothing to the next level. The company had an emphasis on recycled materials to reduce waste, approximately 50% of products will be made with minimal impact processes. This unique and conscious product was a hit amongst millennials.

Spruce + Pine was one of Canada's leading omni-channel innovators. Spruce + Pine prides itself on creating an easy and exceptional online shopping experience for its customers. With six brick-and-mortar locations across Canada, majority of their products were purchased through their ecommerce site. However, most of the company's online sales were to the U.S. They needed to ensure that their products were getting to their customers quickly, and that shopping, delivery and return experience met their brand standards.

Spruce + Pine was the first e-commerce retailer in Montreal to integrate Canada Post's Web Services solutions, less than a year after the launch of their website in 2014. These solutions made returns hassle-free by letting customers go online, request a return, then download and print the return label. Customers could now drop their return into any of Canada Post's nearly 20,000 street letter boxes or more than 6,200 retail post offices. This allowed Spruce + Pine to keep their customers updated at every stage of their journey, which was important as it drove customer loyalty.

To continue to improve this exceptional customer experience the company had decided to launch six new brick-and-mortar locations across Canada in 2018. These stores would be located major urban cities, including; Vancouver, Calgary, Halifax, Montreal, and Toronto. The first store would open in three months downtown Toronto.

As demand grew, the marketing team was under a lot of pressure to ensure a seamless customer experience between brick-to-mortar and ecommerce. Within a decade, marketing had gone from being one of the least tech-dependent business functions to being one of the most. At the center of Spruce + Pine, their customer relationship management (CRM) technology and digital tools enabled their marketing team and manage marketing tasks through automation and data-driven decisions. They had to ensure that the message was correct and tailored to the consumer, and that the result would be increase foot traffic in-store or online sales. They were keeping pace but barely.

Lisa DeLuca, Head of Marketing, knew that they needed to ensure that their marketing efforts would increase brand awareness in Toronto in order to attract and acquire more shoppers to

their first brick-and-mortar store. With conflicting demands she needed more insights that would support her and her team to build that marketing plan.

ENHANCING THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE

Lisa DeLuca was one of Spruce + Pines newest employees. She was brought on the team earlier that year because of her background in innovation, digital marketing, and capabilities to address consumers' shift to omnichannel shopping, focusing on dissolving the wall between physical and digital channels. She knew that many of their customers began their journey with Spruce + Pine in their stores and they finished it online.

She believed in data-driven decision making and pushed her team to utilize data to learn more about customers' behaviors, and thereby deliver a better customer experience. As DeLuca pushed her team into digital, she pushed her managers to continuously test and refine products or experiences by listening to the customers by tracking feedback and usage. As they did the research a surprising finding arose, despite the explosive popularity of shopping not just online but via smartphones and tablets, 80% of Spruce + Pine customers still preferred to visit a store to try on the clothes.

Personalization and customization was an area that DeLuca wanted to better utilize and felt that the company did poorly in. She wanted to continue to invest heavily in digital and mobile e-commerce platforms to drive engagement; but knew that any marketing plan could not be so heavily weighted on digital. "Alongside the explosion of highly targetable digital media, consumers still respond to analogue, tactile experiences," Deluca believed. She was a big champion of integrated communications and marketing. She also knew this was critical to successfully launching Spruce + Pine's brick-and-mortar stores across Canada.

Lisa DeLuca needed to successfully launch this new store and realized that her team needed to ensure that there was an integrated marketing approach to their overall strategy. In order to develop a strategy that would enable her to achieve any of these goals, Lisa felt that she needed to rely upon Canada Post's Insights Team's expertise to better support her and her team.

DELUCA AS HEAD OF MARKETING:

When DeLuca was appointed Head of Marketing, she faced some key challenges and opportunities:

1. Rapid Growth in US Markets: Spruce + Pine competed in the $3 trillion global apparel industry, which accounted for 2% of the world's gross domestic product (GDP). The US and Canadian markets accounted for over $250 billion and were expected to grow

annually by 2 through 2025. These two markets account for 100% of their sales, however 70% of online sales were focused in the US vs Canada.

2. Competition: the mid-tier apparel landscape was highly fragmented, overcrowded and competitive

3. Rise of e-commerce: Consumers were shifting their purchasing from brick and mortar stores to online channels. As online sales grew, brands did not need the same number of storefronts. Front + Oak were now just opening 6 brick-and-mortar stores in Canada. By 2018, their online sales exceeded $15 million.

Given these challenges, DeLuca believed to keep ahead of this rapid growth and to continue to find its place, consumers needed to be exposed to this brand. The results of the 2016 and 2017 fiscal year had been solid with an overall sales increase of about 10% per year. Marketing expenditures had remained flat. However, if Spruce + Pine wanted to continue to capitalize on their previous success they would need to look for long term solutions to broadening their audience. She knew she had to broaden their marketing strategy in order to grow their business; especially, as it related to successfully launching the six new brick-and-mortar stores across Canada. To truly an exceptional customer experience, her solution needed to be multi-faceted and incorporate all elements of the marketing mix.

PREDICTING CONSUMER PREFERENCES

Predicting consumers' behaviour and future tastes was a difficult situation. Traditional marketing methods, such as surveys, focus groups, had its place, as did past purchase behaviour from their e-commerce site. DeLuca knew that she had to broaden where she received her data and better understand the Canadian Online Shopper. Canada Post had a wealth of information regarding Canadian Demographics and had just released a new study about the online shopper.

From the report, DeLuca knew that Canadian online shoppers spent more online in recent years and shopped more often than ever before, she also found out:

Eight in ten shop online, and they're buying more items, more often, across many product categories. Most growth will come from existing shoppers buying more online, rather than store visits or new online shopper.

One in four online shoppers say they spent more online than in-store last year and they expect to increase the number of online purchases made in the coming year. This shift in behaviour is transforming the online retail industry. Further growth will occur from consumers shopping online more often, essentially creating a nation of savvy and lucrative hyper shoppers.

Millennials and gen-Xers are two shopper segments that present a wealth of opportunity for retailers. While unique in composition, it's the combination of digital savviness, high

purchasing power and evolving needs that make these lucrative shopper segments for retailers to foster - all in the name of growth.

Based on these findings retailers were also responding. They adopted innovations such as mobile optimization, personalized and curated experiences, omni-channel strategies and unique delivery models, among others.

In addition, the insights team also had provided her additional information about a new product that Canada Post call Smart Mail Marketing (see two Appendixes).This solution would empower Spruce + Pine to connect with their most receptive audiences and drive more powerful action. This would also allow them the ability to reach prospects and get their message out to the market quicker.

LOOKING AHEAD

DeLuca was betting that this new market intelligence fueled by ecommerce trends could help drive customers both online and in-store. She knew that if she wanted to increase brand awareness and increase foot traffic in retail stores she needed to ensure a seamless customer service and bridge the gap between offline and online channels.

The company was at a pinnacle time in its growth strategy and DeLuca saw an opportunity, "We're in an industry that was changing drastically. And looking back on it now, I think we've underestimated the speed that was needed to ensure a superior end-to-end experience we were determined to create."

The goal was to deliver an enhanced customer experience, that enabled growth by enticing millennial shoppers to purchase more often both in store and online. DeLuca wondered if Spruce + Pine could also utilize this marketing information as it related to the launch of their Toronto store?

She knew she had to develop a strong customer experience and marketing strategy that would allow for a successful retail store launch in Toronto and increase sales, as well as bridge the gap between offline and online channels. But how exactly was she going to do that?

• How to simple executive summary (including a description of your business's current marketing position and what is/not included in your plan)
• How to Set SMART marketing goals/objectives for your plan
• How Identify your target audience/persona and segmentation criteria(some of this is from assignment 1 appendix)
• How does actionable omni-channel approach based on your Persona and Customer Journey Map (identify both online and offline channels and give an overview of why you selected them based on the data provided). Don't forget to include lead nurturing here too.

How to include:

• Which type of tactic you'll take.
• The goal of each tactic.
• Channels you'll distribute too.
• Reasoning based on data/case study provided.
• Budget.

How does this link back to your CJM and persona? Use data.

How to Determine the KPIs/Metrics you will be tracking and why. How will you measure success?

How to plan campaign including timelines and who is responsible for each step

How to conclude to your plan