When it was time for H&M to announce it’s autumn-winter collection last August, the fast fashion retailer signified a clean start by deleting its entire Instagram feed. What came next was a partnership with Charli XCX that extended the pop star’s culture-shaking “brat summer” into fall and helped the brand capture the zeitgeist for months.

At the same time, H&M was undertaking a digital relaunch, a behind-the-scenes move that, while less attention-grabbing than social media makeovers and outdoor concerts, would allow the brand to fully capitalize on its newfound cultural attention.

“Digital is always going to be a conversion-driving channel for us, no doubt about that,” said Jenn Volk, head of digital for H&M. “But what we really wanted to lean into was how do we use the digital channel to inspire our customers to brand story tell as much as possible, and bring the fun that we feel at the brand to life in the digital experience.”

Volk has been at H&M for four years and oversees H&M’s digital business in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Colombia and Ecuador. She is responsible for the overall profit and loss as well as the digital journey from when a customer lands on the site through the post-purchase experience, collaborating closely with both marketing and merchandising teams. The digital relaunch included a revamp not just around its website and product-detail pages, but also a rethinking of how H&M turns IRL moments into URL ones.

“It’s the small details, whether it’s the look and feel, the font, the imagery,” Volk said. “We’ve invested a ton in ensuring that our styling and our imagery really inspires the customer, shows them who we are, shows them our fashion perspective and then also encourages them to shop more.” 

It’s Charli, baby

H&M’s work with Charli XCX was well-timed, pairing the brand with a formerly underground pop star at the moment of her mainstream ascent. The collaboration didn’t end with the curation of a collection and some photography.

“No matter where we were interacting with her, we were bringing that to life on social and on digital at the exact same time so we could really ensure that consistent, seamless, 360 [degree] experience,” Volk said.

Along with a London performance around the autumn-winter collection launch, Charli XCX also performed at a November concert in Times Square to promote H&M’s holiday collection, with music and fashion fans only given 30 minutes notice before the outdoor show at the TSX Stage at 1568 Broadway. To boost engagement with consumers beyond those attending the live events, H&M turned to The Studio, its fashion-forward, editorially minded online destination for young consumers that looks to build out campaign pages into more than places to buy products. 

H&M loaded photos from the live events featuring Charli XCX and others onto its site and tagged all of the products that influencers were wearing to create shoppable content. Similarly, around a SoHo block party hosted by Amelia Gray, the brand built out a campaign page that featured shoppable photos of the model and reality TV personality.

“We’re trying to utilize the site in this unique way to make customers who can only interact with us on site get that feel of an amazing H&M event, and then also drive that conversion overall as well,” Volk said.

Gen Z and Gen Alpha

Along with the live events and commerce-enabled campaign pages on The Studio, H&M is broadening its efforts on social channels to engage Gen Z and Gen Alpha consumers. The company has invested time and resources into influencer marketing to boost its social strategy.

“Influencer marketing has flipped the marketing funnel on its side, and we see that as such an amazing opportunity,” Volk said. “Influencer marketing can address each challenge in the funnel, whether it’s awareness or conversion.”

For major activations, H&M brings together multiple marketing elements to create consumers experiences where each channel is focused on what it does best: on-site content is shoppable and product-focused, social content highlights influencer identity and the H&M brand, and so on.

“We are cognizant of the fact that the content itself has to be really authentic to the platform where the customer is actually experiencing it,” Volk said.

H&M is also investing heavily in an omnichannel customer experience that extends beyond digital channels, an acknowledgment that young cohorts value in-person experiences. In-person events are not just measured by attendance, but also by the traffic they drive to nearby stores and the halo effects they create via online shopping.

“It can’t just be digital that leans into this young customer and provides this amazing experience like The Studio,” Volk explained. “It’s really this expectation of being able to interact with the brand across so many different platforms that we've reacted to and seen and seen the receipt on as well.”