Neiman Marcus Is Prepared for Its Second Act

For its new Fall Guide and accompanying marketing campaign, Neiman Marcus deliberately took a web page from its storied previous—one thing its new management can also be doing because it charts a brand new course strategically for the model itself.

With nods to the posh retailer’s Dallas roots, a fateful inferno that led to the development of its flagship location six years after opening in 1907, and its popularity for providing its clientele distinctive luxurious gadgets and impeccable customer support, the most recent marketing campaign, “New Frontiers,” goals to remind present and potential clients of its standing because the premier vacation spot for luxurious vogue items.

Neiman Marcus president and head of NMG buyer insights, Ryan Ross, and chief model officer, Nabil Aliffi, who oversaw the marketing campaign’s artistic course, even eliminated all subtlety with a picture of a butterfly on the e book’s cowl (representing a metamorphosis), and the corporate’s new tagline: “In Pursuit of the Extraordinary since 1907.”

“One of many issues that we recognized reasonably rapidly collectively is ensuring that we created a marketing campaign that revered our historical past, but in addition modernized it, and remindedeveryone why Neiman Marcus even exists,” Ross instructed Adweek.

“I feel [the tagline] captures the three pillars of the model that we’re leaning into,” added Aliffi, who joined the corporate in January from Soho Home. “It’s about everybody who’s on their journey, hopefully seeing themselves mirrored within the Neiman Marcus model.” 

To capitalize on the recognition of the Guide—which is Neiman’s reply to “the September Difficulty” of conventional vogue magazines, that includes profiles with “Achievers” corresponding to creator Amy Sall, artistic director Carolina Herrera, Wes Gordon and others between luxurious pages crammed with designer wares—Ross instructed Adweek the corporate has created a particular numbered editions of the e book, which comes with its personal storage case, and can be despatched to the retailer’s prime 300 clients. The three-tiered rollout features a soft-covered model of the e book being despatched to Neiman’s “loyal” clients, and, for the primary time within the firm’s historical past, a mailer can be despatched to new and rising clients. 

“We now have a large alternative to proceed to have interaction with our clients in new and other ways,” says Ross, who beforehand held management roles with WIlliams-Sonoma and HSN earlier than becoming a member of the corporate in August 2022. “And so, after we take into consideration our prime tier clients, I feel it’s essential for them to get [something] somewhat bit extra particular after they expertise the model.” Ross instructed Adweek the corporate has seen quite a lot of success from such initiatives, including that he’s spent quite a lot of time talking with prime clients and shared that the crew’s advertising and marketing technique over the approaching months embrace extra unique in-store occasions that “carry them bodily collectively,” together with one celebrating the e book.

The marketing campaign was shot by Arnaud Lajeunie, and may have a print, OOH digital and social push throughout all Neiman Marcus channels and touchpoints, together with a takeover of the shop’s home windows. It additionally options 90s supermodel, Mark Vanderloo amongst the beautiful and numerous forged, in a transparent acknowledgement of Gen X’s standing as a rising buying group for luxurious gadgets together with Gen Z.