How Radley London successfully expanded beyond the UK

Written by
Fifty Team

01 Apr, 2021

Radley London is a premium British accessories brand, launched at a market stall in Camden in 1998. While it has grown into a recognised affordable luxury label in the UK, it has sought to expand its reach into international markets.

In 2018, the brand publicly announced a target of doubling its sales from £100 million to £200 million within a few years, with a goal of half of its business coming from international markets.

THE CHALLENGE

Faced with ambitious sales targets but with little name recognition in markets like Germany and the US, Radley enlisted Fifty to identify and analyse its core audience in order to better understand who their potential customers were in these markets.

While the UK campaign was a straight-forward analysis of Radley’s engaged UK fan base, the alternative markets proved trickier. With no Radley following in these markets the challenge was to paint a picture of a customer who had yet to engage with the brand.

THE SOLUTION

Radley launched in the US in 2017 through its own e-commerce channel as well as through American department store Macy’s and television shopping channel QVC. In order to build a portrait of the American Radley consumer, Fifty analysed QVC’s and Macy’s core audience to understand who shops there.

Examining overlapping interests and passions of these audiences alongside Radley’s own customer base, we were able to identify 12 tribes such as Deal-seeking Mums and Gen Z Females, who would be responsive to Radley’s messaging and then used our insights to push targeted messaging on social.

THE RESULTS

Radley London has experienced outstanding success in its global market expansion, thanks partly to a targeting strategy that is based on people’s overlapping interests rather than simply their demographics. Its direct online business in the US has seen web sales increase by 95% for instance.

While Fifty’s initial relationship with Radley was purely social marketing, the success of our campaigns has led to a long-term partnership. Fifty now manages all social and programmatic marketing for Radley in these markets, with Cost Per Acquisition consistently below the target, averaging a return over 1400% ROI throughout 2018.

CLIENT TAKEAWAYS

Fifty can build brand recognition. Radley went from selling hundreds of thousands of bags in international markets to millions. Using Fifty as part of their brand expansion strategy ensured they placed relevant advertising in front of the right audiences to build their name recognition.

Little or no social following is an opportunity. Even though Radley didn’t have a social following, we were able to use lateral analysis of other accounts to identify key tribes relevant to Radley. By using Fifty, Radley was able to harness its insights to target audiences based on mutual interests that align with the Radley woman.

Constant activation brings results. The Fifty platform analyses tribes in real-time and is therefore responsive to the needs of the client. By using Fifty to push advertising to different tribes such as Deal-saving Mum’s during a Sale season, Radley saw a particularly high ROI.

Radley London //  Check out our latest case studies here.

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