A top-to-bottom rebuild of Francesca's paid media after bankruptcy, and a hard look at who was actually buying, that opened a brand-new television channel and turned marketing back into a growth engine.
Francesca's brought me on shortly after the brand emerged from bankruptcy, at a moment when the entire marketing organization was being rebuilt. My mandate was broad: own all paid media across both the e-commerce business and the boutique fleet, and turn marketing back into a reliable engine for growth.
Before spending a dollar on new acquisition, I ran an exhaustive dive into our own customer analytics, and what came back reframed the entire strategy. The brand's actual customer was older, more affluent, and cared deeply about social causes like sustainability. We had been marketing to an audience that wasn't buying, while underserving the one that was.
We were spending to reach a customer who didn't exist. The one who did was hiding in our own data.
That single finding changed how we acquired customers. I rebuilt our messaging and creative around who the audience actually was: new imagery, new positioning, and offers aligned to what they valued.
To bring the brand into the home, I wrote and produced three original CTV commercials, opening a television channel Francesca's had never used before.
And I rebuilt the affiliate program from scratch on a dual strategy: leaning into influencers for social proof and audience reach, and partnering with major credit-card and rewards programs to drive sales through cashback offers.
Digital customer acquisition grew 66% over the prior three-year period. The three CTV commercials together drove $8M in e-commerce sales and $22M in boutique sales, $30M in total from a channel that hadn't existed for the brand before. And the rebuilt affiliate program grew boutique incremental revenue from roughly $1M a year to $5M, a 400% increase.