Jason John got his start in marketing more than two decades ago working for Martha Stewart. He has since worked for J.Crew, RedCats, Gilt and Publisher’s Clearing House. Throughout his career, he has been focused on cultivating relationships with customers.
So when he joined 1-800-Flowers as chief marketing officer in April 2022, it was a natural fit.
“As a company, we are laser-focused on deepening relationships with our customers and finding ways to inspire them to connect with others and build more meaningful relationships. Our marketing vision is closely aligned with this mission,” says John. “We want to give our community the greatest gift of all – the chance to create better and more meaningful relationships.”
1-800-Flowers was founded as a single flower show in Manhattan by Jim McCann in 1976. “…personal, one-on-one relationships were at the heart of his success,” explains John. “We’re committed to staying true to that foundational spirit, even as we scale.”
The company has grown to encompass more than 17 brands, including their namesake flower e-commerce site, Harry & David, Cheryl’s Cookies and BloomNet, to name a few. The company is focused on building these relationships as it grows.
“It’s about helping people connect on a deeper level while remaining authentic to the values that have defined our brand from the very beginning,” adds John. “This blend of honoring our history and innovating for the future is what drives my passion every day.”
In addition to its own in-house brands, the company regularly does brand partnerships with other companies to surprise and delight. Last year, the company worked with Mattel, the NFL and Lionsgate to name a few. More recently, 1-800-Flowers and Cheryl’s Cookies teamed up with global lifestyle brand LoveShackFancy to bring customers a curated collection of romantic gifts.
Brand Innovators caught up with John from his office in New York to talk loyalty, LoveShackFancy partnership and customer experience. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
What is your brand mission and how does this show up in your creative?
Our mission is to inspire people to give more, connect more, and build more and better relationships. Our creative reflects this mission by showing the human emotion and reaction from both the side of the giver and the receiver. By utilizing user-generated content (UGC), we can capture these moments in a more authentic way.
We genuinely believe that giving is a gift in itself. Our goal is to create a platform that inspires our customers to connect with others. You’ll see this in everything we do, from our heartfelt messages, innovative tools, and helpful resources – it’s all about fostering those meaningful connections.
What is the strategy behind the 1-800-Flowers.com, Cheryl’s Cookies & LoveShackFancy partnership?
We are always looking for ways to help our customers express themselves. And we’re constantly on the lookout for like-minded innovative brands we can collaborate with and create experiences our customers value. This particular collaboration allows us to showcase our ability to personalize experiences with our offerings. From everyday occasions to more bespoke opportunities, our brands are designed to bring enjoyment and inspire expression.
We are thrilled with the integration with LoveShackFancy from online, social media, and retail store experiences as we combine with the amazing style aesthetic of their founder Rebecca Hessel Cohen. This is LoveShackFancy’s first collaboration with a cookie brand, and we’re excited to bring this unique, limited-time collection to our customers. We hope it captures the essence of joy and happiness that flowers and cookies bring, whether you’re gifting them to others or yourself.
How are you thinking about the customer experience of the brand?
1-800-Flowers started as a single floral shop in Manhattan, where our founder, Jim McCann, credits his initial success to the one-on-one relationships he developed with customers on the shop floor. As we’ve grown, we’ve prioritized recreating those personal interactions at scale through deep consumer engagement and personalization initiatives.
Our goal is to make it easy for customers to build more and better relationships by providing the resources they need, just like someone on the shop floor would. For instance, we create content that helps our customers express their feelings during important moments, such as sympathy messages.
We’re focused on understanding what our customers want and need throughout their journey with us, and we build content and experiences around that. It’s about supporting them at every step and ensuring they have the tools and resources to nurture their relationships. By listening to our customers and delivering personalized experiences, we’re building a community where they feel empowered to connect with others in meaningful ways.
How are you building loyalty with customers?
Our focus is to give our community the greatest gift of all – the chance to create better and more meaningful relationships. We’re always looking for ways to help people express themselves with their loved ones. Giving is the gift, and we’re creating a platform that inspires people to connect with others and build meaningful relationships.
A key way we’ve built a loyal customer base is by providing a variety of support and resources consumers need to nurture their relationships. For example, we’ve created guides on how to write a sympathy card because we know these are moments when finding the right words can be tough. For Mother’s Day, we introduced MomVerse, an AI-powered poem and song generator that customers could use for free, and for Father’s Day, we launched Dad Joke GPT, a fun tool that created dad jokes for free.
Another way we’re building loyalty is through our Celebrations Passport loyalty program. This program rewards customers and celebrates their thoughtfulness with free standard shipping and no service charge for one full year on purchases made across our portfolio of brands and provides the ability to unlock additional perks and benefits that grow as members gift. The program serves as an amazing opportunity to continue to inspire our customers to give more.
We also offer a variety of helpful blog content, like tips on how to care for your flowers, gifting etiquette based on the occasion, and more. Additionally, our founder and CEO, Jim McCann, writes a letter to our community of customers every Sunday afternoon called Celebrations Pulse. These letters aren’t about selling anything; instead, they share ways for our customers to build better relationships. We regularly invite readers to share their own stories, and Jim often shares many of them in subsequent letters. Over the past three years, we’ve created a community flywheel that’s growing stronger and stronger.
Our content, blogs, and influencer campaigns have enabled us to achieve over 127 million non-transactional consumer engagements in FY22. We know that customers who engage with our content convert 300 to 500 basis points higher than those who don’t. Through product expansion, creative collaborations, engaging content, and more, we attracted more than 5.0 million new customers in the fiscal year 2023.
How have your past roles helped shape your perspective in your current role?
I’ve had the fortune of working with tremendous leaders and brands over the years. Martha Stewart, Mickey Drexler at J.Crew, and Kevin Ryan at Gilt. Now under the guidance of the amazing vision of Jim McCann, I am able to blend the best practices of brand and performance marketing to support that vision.
What marketing trends do you expect to see in the second half of 2024?
We’ll see brands continue to refine their content strategies to better connect with their core consumers through relevant and personalized content. I’m also excited about the new technologies that are emerging, as they offer innovative ways to achieve deeper levels of personalization for customers.
