During our trip to Amsterdam, BCU took us to the CLUSE offices in Amsterdam where we learnt about their Marketing, PR and Creative team. When we arrived, we were greeted by Ileana, Brand Communications Campaign Specialist and Evelyn, Influencer Marketing and Customer Insights Specialist. We were first given a tour around the office and introduces to the different teams that worked there. The office was trendy, fun and had a gorgeous view of the Amsterdam docs near the A’DAM Lookout. Then we were taken into a meeting room with a long table decorated with snacks, drinks and little gifts for us!
To start their presentation, Ileana and Evelyn gave us a brief background into how they got to the positions they are in today and a little history about CLUSE itself. Ileana graduated from BCU a few years ago and moved to Amsterdam to do an internship and CLUSE straight after graduation. She studied marketing and knew that she wanted to work in fashion in Amsterdam and she did just that! Evelyn is from Amsterdam and went to university for her bachelors and her master’s degree there. She found a job at CLUSE as a customer insight specialist and knew that she would fit in straight away.
Building a Brand
CLUSE was founded in 2013 and now has over 100 employees. The brand grew quickly through influencer marketing on Instagram and the company now has a strong presence on the sight and has become one of the fastest growing accessories brands in the world.
CLUSE’s mission is to inspire women to celebrate their uniqueness, valuing togetherness and creating a vision for a world where you shine.
Understanding the customer is very important to the CLUSE strategy and understanding the customer journey through research and analysis guides the brand into what they should be focusing on to improve customer experience. To further understand the customer, CLUSE follows a trend forecast to start new designs in advance. The creative team will create a story for the design and a campaign will be created to compliment the story, including working in influencers.
I found the time frames for a campaign interesting, as Ileana explained that a small campaign might take up to two weeks, a medium campaign could take two months and a large campaign could take around six months to a year! The campaigns incorporate both online and offline marketing including social media and press events. Ileana expressed that although online marketing may seem to be more popular today, offline marketing is just as important.
Brand Awareness
CLUSE had a significant presence in European countries such a France and Spain, but a target market for CLUSE now lies in the UK. Ileana has a great role in the company to advance their UK marketing and appeal to the UK market. London has a massive fashion presence, including the London Fashion Week that CLUSE attended by setting up a blogger program and setting up an ‘Instagram Corner’ where people at the event could pose for their latest upload.
As said before, Influencer marketing is an important and significant part of the CLUSE brand and their marketing. But not only do they want to focus on Instagram and online platform, CLUSE has set up Closet Sales where bloggers and influencers can sell their clothes and meet their followers. This is a great way for the influencers to network and to create a broader brand awareness.
I loved hearing from the team at CLUSE and felt really inspired as a PR student. We got insights into CLUSE and had a little taster of what it would be like to work there. Networking and attending talks like this one is such an important part of your time at university and will help your career in the long run.