Coach President & CEO Todd Kahn Talks Focus on Gen Z, New Customers & Power of Pricing
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Todd, it's great to see you here. We're in Coach House right here on Fifth Avenue in New York City to really talk about what I guess has become a bit of a revival for the Coach brand itself. Sales have taken off, sales growth, I should say. And a lot of that has to do with the laser focus that you and your team have put on Generation Z and their shopping habits. And I wonder if you can maybe start off by just talking a little bit about what exactly you learned about what they wanted.
Well, thank you, and thank you for joining me in Coach House. We love having you here. It is our home. It's our global flagship, and it's probably the best representation of the brand. So come visit. That's the quick editorial. No, we focus very much on trying to figure out Gen Z. I often say we're an overnight success story six years in the making. And Stuart and I, many years ago, recognized, among other people at Coach as well, that we were too much often considered a brand for everyone, and hence a brand for no one. And we became extraordinarily focused on Gen Z. And part of our focus was listening, learning, doing a lot of sometimes what I call big data and little data. Big data is we're a direct-to-consumer business.
We have millions of customers. We have a lot of data from them. Little data is sometimes going into people's houses, doing shop-alongs with them. They don't often know what brand, which brand they're speaking with. and listening to them. And we gain real insight from them. And so what I often say is, I don't want to supplant the gut of our creatives. I just want to create an informed gut. So that's what we're doing. And that's what you're seeing working.
What insights does Todd Kahn share about Gen Z shopping habits?
There was a great line by your predecessor, Lou Frankfurt, who ran Coach as a company for years, who talked about the idea of never assume, always ask. And I am curious about the balance between asking the consumer what they want and just looking at the hard data. What is sort of the line where those two intersect?
That's such a powerful place to talk. Lou's a mentor, a dear friend. I had the opportunity to be hired by Lou. I worked with him for many years. He's still somebody I talk to often. We launched his book party. at Coach when it first came out. We talk a lot about balancing logic and magic, and that's the art. You want to hear from the consumer, but I don't want the consumer to create a back, okay? We'll get their input, we'll co-create with them. But we have an amazing creative director, amazing designers and merchants. I want them to be informed. But ultimately, I don't want to outsource our commercial judgment or our business judgment or our creative judgment. And finding that balance is where the magic takes place.
I think that's really interesting because it sounds like basically you're saying that you don't want to be too reactionary. You think about fashion, you think about handbags, and this is actually a conversation we've had with Lou. How much of it is being that tastemaker, trying to anticipate where the trends are going to go versus following the logic, following the data and seeing what is resonating with Gen Z, for example?
Yeah, so what we do, again, Lou said it, we have to remain curious. Also, what I often talk about, we have to remain humble. We don't have all the answers. We have a sense of where fashion is going. We pick up cues. Our creatives, our designers, our merchants are shopping the streets of Shanghai, of Tokyo, of New York, of LA, and seeing and listening to trends.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–2:31
2
What insights does Todd Kahn share about Gen Z shopping habits?
2:31–7:22
3
How does Coach gather data to understand consumer preferences?
7:22–13:03
4
What is the balance between consumer feedback and creative intuition?
13:03–24:17
5
How does Coach differentiate itself in the luxury market?
24:17–34:10
Speakers
6 identifiedMore from Bloomberg Talks
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