Alvaro De La Rocha, chief marketing officer at Bespoke Post, is on a mission to grow the lifestyle startup. The ecommerce shop delivers curated goods and guidance through a monthly subscription service.
What Birchbox is to beauty, Bespoke Post is to “quality gear for people who give a damn.” Subscribers receive a monthly box of bespoke gear based on the customer’s interests, be it camping, grilling or travel. Boxes might include anything from men’s clothing and wallets to candles or hunting knives.
Under his leadership, the startup has grown to reach more than one million customers across the U.S. and Canada. As a founding member of the Bespoke Post team, De La Rocha oversees all marketing, customer acquisition, public relations and customer experience initiatives.
“I think it’s about growth, first and foremost,” says De La Rocha. “How do we grow the brand, how do we grow our customer base, and ultimately, how do we grow our revenue. So if that’s the objective, then the strategies and tactics for my team roll down from that. How do we define ourselves in the market? Who do we target? How do we create the most amazing customer experience? How do we drive increased lifetime value?”
Prior to Bespoke Post, De La Rocha worked in Microsoft’s advertising division and spent six years at Ogilvy rising to the role of partner, management supervisor. Brand Innovators caught up with De La Rocha at his office in New York to talk about curated discovery, innovation and AI. This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
What is your brand mission and how does this show up in your creative?
Our core mission at Bespoke Post is around curated discovery – helping our customers discover great products and amazing small brands. There is a lot of noise in retail. Just go to Amazon, search for a product, and you’ll be bombarded with so many products and brands that it can be hard to navigate. When our customers come to our site, they know they will get a curated selection of amazing products across several categories and learn about a new brand or two along the way.
This means a couple of things from a creative perspective. First, more often than not, we are focused on an execution that simply showcases the product. If you’re selling a cool cocktail smoking kit, then no better way to sell it than by taking an amazing photo of smoke billowing up through a prepared cocktail. Second, storytelling is a big part of what we try to do. We get to work closely with small brands and we feel it’s important and compelling to tell their stories – the people behind the brand, the craftsmanship associated with a particular product, the origin of the idea. More and more, consumers care about intent, purpose, and so our story telling tries to bring that to the forefront.
Who is your target audience and how are you reaching them?
When we first started the company, our target, using traditional demographic definitions, were males in the 25-45 age range. But the psychographic target was people who were curious and open to discovering new products and brands. Over the years, I think that psychographic definition has been more the focus, and it has expanded our target so it’s not as bounded by gender or age or geography. So we reach them by trying to best communicate what we do in social, in our ads and on site and letting the respective platform algorithms (e.g. Meta, TikTok, YouTube) find those consumers.
How are you thinking about innovation in the ecommerce space?
The ecommerce space has always evolved rapidly, so I believe innovation can mean very different things year to year. Thirteen years ago, our subscription model and our “Box of Awesome” was a relatively innovative approach in retail. Back then, there were not yet a lot of ecommerce subscription companies, and particularly not a lot specifically targeting men. So that was innovation then. But over the years, it became clear that we were being constrained by the price point of the Box ($49) so we decided to build out our normal ecommerce store. That was not innovative in the market, but it was innovative relative to what we were doing before.
Then we realized there were products we couldn’t find or ones we felt could make better, so we began making some of our own goods. Again, having owned brands wasn’t innovative broadly, but it was relative to what we were doing before. So, the next innovation for us might be having a physical location. Now ask anyone if having a brick-and-mortar location is “innovation” and they would probably laugh, but innovation is relative. Ultimately, innovation for us is thinking of the best next way to deliver on our mission of product discovery and sometimes that innovation can be the simplest of ideas.
What are the current challenges in running your business and how are you navigating this?
Post iOS 14 and ATT, it continues to be a challenge to grow as efficiently as we once did. We are continually trying new channels, optimizing our media mix and testing new creative approaches to scale our business and it’s definitely harder now than it was two years ago.
How has your background helped shape your perspective in your current role?
I started my career in digital advertising over 20 years ago. At that time, digital marketing was very nascent and mainly consisted of banner ads and search. Back then, Facebook didn’t even exist. But in the intervening years it went from a social media platform only found on college campuses to now the number one media channel for most DTC brands. Having spent my entire career in digital, I have grown very comfortable with rapid change, and the entrance (and exit) of new technologies and media options, which I think helps as we continually evaluate how we should evolve our marketing strategies.
What big marketing trends are you keeping an eye on heading into the second half of 2024?
It’s less a trend and more of a new reality, and it’s almost too obvious of an answer, but without a doubt AI will be the thing that I will continually be thinking about and trying to leverage. Everything from how generative AI might facilitate the conception of new creative to how conversational AI might revolutionize how our customer service teams approach their jobs. And the biggest impact AI will have on our marketing organization is probably something I can’t even conceive of now, which I personally find very exciting.
I am also interested to see what the next phase for influencer marketing will be. Over the last ten years, influencer marketing has gone from a niche tactic for some companies to a core part of the overall marketing mix for most brands. It has gone from influencers only being celebrities or people with huge followings on Instagram and YouTube to now anyone with even 1k followers on TikTok promoting items and earning direct commission on sales they drive. I am curious to see what is next.
