How Kohl’s is reinventing its back-to-school marketing playbook

Subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, check us out on Spotify and hear us on Stitcher. This is our RSS feed. Tell a friend! Some schools are only just finishing remote classes, but Kohl’s is already thinking about the back-to-school shopping season, and has been for some time. With the return to school in flux due to the pandemic and fears of another wave coming this fall, marketers have had to adjust their strategies. For Kohl’s, that means decreasing lead time for marketing and creating alternative pieces of content to air during all possible scenarios. Greg Revelle, chief marketing officer of Kohl’s, discusses the issue on this week’s episode of the Marketer’s Brief Podcast. “It might be back to home-school and we want to make sure we’re relevant, essentially no matter what happens,” he says, noting that the retailer shot a bunch of different creative for all contexts. “As we get closer, we’ll be able to put in the right context for whatever the moment may require.” Pivoting for back-to-school is just one of the ways Kohl’s is adjusting its marketing playbook. When the virus first struck, Kohl’s pulled out of broadcast media and increased its digital spend to try to attract shoppers buying online at home. The company also switched up its merchandise, based on what people are looking for—home products and loungewear. The changes have been “pretty dramatic from a media standpoint,” Revelle says, adding that Kohl’s has tried to be as efficient as possible. As it reopens stores, it’s now focusing on safety and ease of operations for shoppers. A lot of the new strategies will be implemented in the future, he says. “Can we incorporate some of this agility and real-time insights and decision-making into our long-term planning?” he adds. Hear more about retail marketing strategies at Ad Age Next: Retail, a virtual conference taking place on July 8. Register here.

How Kohl’s is reinventing its back-to-school marketing playbook

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