As part of a continuing series, Wunderkind sits down with some of our most influential clients from around the world to get their thoughts on everything from recent trends to newly emerging strategies. This time, we joined Nicholas Freddi from sportswear manufacturer Champion—a company looking to capitalize on exciting new brand collaborations and expansion into EMEA for massive growth in 2020. Beyond this, we chatted with Nicholas to discover his favorite buzzword, why he loves the in-store experience at Louis Vuitton, and even which influential people he is dying to get a coffee with!
Wunderkind: Choose your adventure: what is your favourite, or least favourite, buzzword recently? Explain why.
Nicholas Freddi: My favorite buzzword at the moment would have to be “omni-channel.” I think it’s my favorite because it’s one of the most relevant and probably the most mentioned buzzword in the past few years. Think about it, customers—especially the younger generations—exist within a multi-channel and omni-channel world. From posting to constantly emerging social channels to checking email on their mobile phones, companies are catching up to adapt to this modern way of life. Surely technology will help bridge this gap but even if we’re just talking about internal workflows there’s a need for organizational change to take place.
BX: What is the best online or in-store shopping experience you’ve had recently and why?
NF: I’d say it’d definitely be the offline experience at a Louis Vuitton store in London. It’s the best service level I’ve ever experienced. Shop assistants were outstanding in providing support, information, and comfort while I was browsing. The actual shopping process was quite standard, but overall you always had the feeling nothing in the store was left to chance. It’s the small details you never knew could make a big difference.
On the contrary, with online shopping—despite the huge industry emphasis on growing technology to design unique customer experiences—I don’t see tremendous differentiation at the top. There is definitely a greater consideration for creativity and content online but in terms of the store architecture merchants are very careful to not create too much distraction. Perhaps this is because of the famously short customer attention span when perusing the web.
BX: If you could have coffee with any thought leader or executive in the world right now, who would it be?
NF: Bill Clinton and Barack Obama surely for how they are able to speak to people’s hearts while stimulating their minds. When it comes to topics with a scientific scope I love to listen to Neil deGrasse Tyson. I’d also have to throw in the likes of Jeff Bezos, Jack Ma, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, and Elon Musk because I feel that they’re the most disruptive entrepreneurs of our time.
I really respect Premier League managers Pep Guardiola and Jose Mourinho who have both challenged themselves and the people around them to achieve football success everywhere they’ve coached. Lastly, leaders like Simon Sinek and Marshall Goldsmith would just be tremendously inspiring to talk to, and I would love to have conversations with them.
BX Bonus: Pitch your product! What have you launched recently and/or what are you really excited about right now as it relates to your brand?
NF: In general for the brand, I’m very excited by new collaborations coming up in 2020 with some world-renowned designer fashion brands. Additionally, new stores will continue to sprout throughout EMEA which will allow us to launch a wider and more ambitious omni-channel strategy next year.
Also purely from an eCommerce perspective, I must mention the re-platforming of our online store to Adobe Magento. The move will happen by the end of Q1 2020 and will allow us to radically change the way our customers will be able to interact with their favourite brand content in things like collections and our upcoming collabs.
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