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Ad Age Marketer's Brief
How David's Bridal applied the power of AI to wedding planning and dress shopping
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- [00:00]
A
This episode is sponsored by Warner Bros. Discovery Advertising. You've probably seen the headlines and yeah, there's a lot happening at WBD right now. But here's the thing. Change is happening everywhere. Media planning has never been this complicated. More platforms, more data, more pressure to drive results. And that's what WBD delivers. Iconic stories and the audiences who love them. So your brand shows up in the right place at the right time with real impact. Visit adsales.wbd.com to learn more.
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B
You may not think that AI and wedding dress shopping go together, but the team at David's Bridal would say otherwise. The retailer has leaned heavily into AI, both internally and consumer facing. Hi, I'm Erica Wheelis, consumer trends reporter here at Ad Age. And this week I'll be talking to Lisa Horton, Chief communications and Creative Officer at David's Bridal. We'll talk about how AI optimization has changed the way David's Bridal thinks about product descriptions, how AI shopping integrations are going and how the brand is leaning into technology in its boutique retail spaces. But before we begin, I want to call your attention to a new awards program. Ad Age Mid Size Brand Leaders honors senior in house marketing leaders making a difference at mid market brands, typically companies with 50 million to 1 billion in annual revenue. Does this sound like you or anyone you know? Find out more, including how to enter@adage.com midsizeleaders and now here's my conversation with Lisa. Hi Lisa. Welcome to the Marketers Brief podcast. Thanks for being here.
- [01:53]
C
Thanks so much for having me. So excited to chat.
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B
Oh yeah, very excited to talk about AI for this episode. I know it's, I mean, very happening, very popular in the industry to help maybe orient a little bit. What some folks may not know is so David Spradle came back from bankruptcy and like almost immediately, you guys announced this very sweeping AI first strategy called aisle to algorithm. So really quickly, can you just tell us a little bit about what is this and what problem are you trying to solve? What was not working before?
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C
Yeah. So April 1st of 2025 is when we announced Kelly Cook as our new CEO as well as our IELTS algorithm strategy. And it's really the culmination of our transformation going from a traditional retailer to this 360 tech enabled marketplace and ecosystem where we're really connecting inspiration, planning and commerce into one unified platform. And so at the cornerstone of that is AI and technology. We really consider ourselves to be a technology company, not just a retailer. And as a part of that, we have expanded into several AI initiatives and offerings both internally within our company and changing the way that we work and operate and think, think as well as what we are doing with customers as well. Which has been really exciting. You know, we launched Pearl Planner, which is the first AI powered wedding planning platform. We built that entirely in House, proprietary LLMs. We also launched a retail media network. And you know, we're really expanding on our digital experiences in store and online, which has also been really exciting. But our goal is to really meet brides from the first moment of inspiration. You know, brides are typically entering our funnel in our ecosystem 12 months before they even get engaged. So you know, in our minds if we are catching her at the moment of engagement, we might be a little bit too late. So we're really leveraging AI and technology to allow us to propel, you know, our entire funnel and journey. And you know, we really believe firmly that this is an entire shift in our business model and how we're really tackling the pain points of the broader wedding ecosystem. So, you know, we're excited about the flywheel that we're creating around AI, not just from a marketing perspective, but holistically in terms of our business operating model.
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B
And so my understanding is that a part of this is you guys are using AI to optimize press releases, blog posts, even like the product content on page, like product pages with AI search in mind. So walk me through that in practice. What does that look like? What's changed on your backend? I guess.
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C
Yeah. So we have a really fantastic team in house. You know, our head of search and optimization, she's, she's brilliant and she works with some of our in house team as well as our, you know, great agency partners. We put SEO, AEO, GEO, all the EOs, you know, they're, they're all top of mind of everything that we do. And you know, one of the things that we have learned in the last, probably, you know, not even 12 months, but really the last six months, as we all know, there have been changes to the Google algorithm. And obviously with AI search now, you know, being so part of, of everyone's kind of top of mind of how people are searching and shopping, we need to think about content differently, whether that's press releases, blog posts or like you said, just optimizing content on our site. And so it's really important that we are looking at all of the opportunities for how we can best optimize that before we even start it. Because I think a lot of times what happens is folks will draft a press release or they'll put together content and then they'll connect with their optimization or SEO partners and say, great, now how do we optimize this? We start from the opposite end where the first thing I want are keywords and phrases and, you know, how are people searching and then using that to actually shape how we're telling stories and how we're talking about it in ways that are, you know, searchable and are going to also help us when it comes to AI particularly. So that's really important. And I think another big focus of ours is making sure that we are driving discoverable products through AI. So, you know, we have been partnering with Shopify, we migrated to Shopify last summer and through their agentix storefront, we are now, you know, our entire inventory online is fully shoppable and in ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot. So we're really proud to kind of be one of the first that's really moving forward in that because we really believe that that is going to be the forefront of shopping and search and commerce moving forward.
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B
I want to get into the AI shopping aspects, but let me come back to the SEO AEO, all the AEOs, and talking about, let's start with the optimization first. So let's start with our, you know, our SEO, our aeo, and then go from there. Can you give an examp of that? I'm curious how like, are there certain keywords that you're like, I did not think that that would be something we should include in aeo, but we should. Or has how has it changed what you put on product pages?
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C
Yeah, I think, you know, when you're thinking about SEO and A, you have to put yourself more so in the mindset of the customer than ever before. Right. Because you want to figure out how is she searching. She. You know, one of the funny things I used to laugh about is we always used to say guest of wedding and no one is probably searching guest of wedding. They're probably searching wedding guests. Right. Wedding, guest dresses or things like that. Now maybe there is someone that is. But you know, it's about. We say this all the time internally. We don't want to market to ourselves. Just because it's. It's nomenclature and terms that we like to use internally doesn't mean that that's necessarily how she shops or how she searches. So it's really important for us. We do a lot of quantitative and qualitative studies and surveys. Our insights team is really fantastic. Our search team is really great. We are constantly looking at search terms and making sure that we are then optimizing our content. And we also really believe in real time shifts and pivots. I think that's also really important. You know, a lot of times we as retailers particularly, we of course like to plan ahead, and we want to plan seasonally and, you know, monthly. But for us, if we see that something is spiking, we want to be able to move really fast in that, whether that's how we're merchandising our product on our PLP pages and categories, or again, maybe we're working with our team to put out a specific type of press release that talks about a certain offering. So, for instance, we're seeing spikes in things like black wedding dresses, so we want to go ahead and increase that. And what's very cool is because David's is vertically integrated, we own everything from sketch to the final product. We cannot just sort of talk about it. We can be about it. Which I think maybe I'm biased, but, you know, we're probably one of the few retailers who can really do that. And what I mean by that is, for instance, when we saw, when, you know, the show Wednesday came out, the search term for black wedding dresses really spiked. And so what we actually did was not just change how we were merchandising on our pages and leaning into content across our website or putting out content across social or other marketing channels. We actually were able to go and increase production in black dresses and actually bring customers more options quicker and really bring that. That really close that entire gap and that entire loop for the consumer. So that's, you know, really exciting.
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B
Okay, let's come back to the, like, ChatGPT, the agentic shopping element of this. How are you guys thinking about which of the. I guess I'm going to say, like the AI pipes, I guess, to invest in. And I mean, are you happy with being like, we're. We're happy with what we're already seeing. Are you still waiting for certain results to come in?
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C
It's early still. We're obviously, you know, we. We just launched through Shopify's Agentic storefront, and we're pretty pleased so far with what we're seeing. I think, you know, it's all about creating that frictionless shopping journey for our customers. So they're going into ChatGPT or they're going into Copilot and they're searching for blue bridesmaids dresses. And what we love about it is it's really closing the gap because it's allowing them to stay within the chat find what they're looking for and actually purchase it. Right. So it's a structural shift really in how consumers discover and buy. You know what we have seen in recent reports is that more than 70% of of consumers are saying that they're willing to complete purchases directly within AI environments. So again, we want to meet the customer where they already are. That is going to provide a win win for everyone. And so we are really bullish in continuing to these types of channels and we're investing in those channels not just from again a consumer perspective, but even internally. We use AI workflows and private instances internally in every single part of our business from the marketing team to our merchandising team to our IT team to our customer service team. So we're really very much invested in AI in general.
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B
Let's move now. I want to talk about the Pearl Planner that you guys have. This is an AI powered wedding planning tool. I think that this, this was already getting a fair amount of traction and you were seeing good results. And I believe if, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but you guys hadn't put any marketing materials behind it either. It was just taking off. What does that tell you about, you know, how brides are, are going through their wedding process and what does that tell you about, okay, marketing with, for a tool within, you know, an AI backed tool.
- [12:16]
C
Yeah, we are so pleased with the results so far of Pearl Planner. You know, we are excited in, you know, the balance of 20, 20, 26 to really put more of a concerted marketing effort around it. We're actually going to be announcing some new features in the next few weeks and a couple other iterations. You know, we just announced our first collection with Vera Wang Bride. We actually launched that today. And so, you know, the new bridal and bridesmaids collection is now live. And as a part of that, we're actually launching a Vera Wang Bride ex Pearl Planner version as well. Really geared more towards a luxury bride and, and a more designer price point for are planning their weddings or even working with wedding planners to plan their weddings, they can still utilize Pro Planner together to really create, you know, the best experience possible. But you know, going back to what you were saying, what we've seen from early adoption is they're spending more time on Pearl Planner than we've seen in traditional app spaces. Which tells us that she's really getting, it's providing a real resource for her which is really exciting for us. We didn't want this to just be another version of A Google spreadsheet or, you know, another version of, you know, a platform that just basically collates all the information that you already have. It was really important for us that this truly focused on tackling the pain points and the stress around planning your wedding. Planning your wedding should be fun. It should be celebratory. It shouldn't be stressful. But typically, when a bride gets engaged, the first emotion she feels is excitement. The second emotion she feels is stress. You know, and she's stressed for the next 12 to 18 months. And we really don't want that to be the case. We want her to be excited and really be looking forward to every aspect. And the other thing too, is that typically the person that's planning the wedding, they compartmentalize so much and they really kind of look at things in a milestone perspective. But when we broke down those milestones, we really found out that on average, there's 300 tasks to planning a wedding. So when you think about something like, you know, an engagement photo shoot, for instance, you're not just saying, okay, we're gonna go take pictures. It's what am I wearing? What is my partner wearing? Am I getting hair and makeup done? What, you know, where are we shooting? Do we need to rent a space? Who is the photographer? You know, are we using these for our invitations? Are we using these for a save the date? Right. So there's all these different things. And so what we're really seeing too is that brides are so excited to really see all of the tasks truly laid out in front of them to make sure that they're not forgetting anything. Right. Again, reducing that stress of the burden of oops, I forgot to put this on my to do list because Pearl has it right here. Pearl is also a gentic. So, you know, you can go ahead and talk to Pearl. We want her to feel like a second maid of honor in a way for you. And you can tell her, hey, my florist unfortunately canceled. And Pearl's gonna say, no problem. Here's four other florists that we can reach out to within your budget, in your vicinity. And here's how, you know, here's the next steps that we should tackle. Pearl can help you. And actually, what we're seeing is brides are talking to her about the feelings that they have for their wedding. And so they're really looking to her to say, hey, my mother in law wants to invite 10 more people. How do I approach this topic? Right? So we're continuously teaching Pearl how to handle and navigate some of These more emotional conversations because it's more than just the tactile parts of a wedding, right? The, the stuffing the envelopes and, and booking the vendors. There's a lot of other kind of mental and emotional tasks that also fall on her. So, you know, we're really excited to see how Pearl continues to really be that sidekick. Whether you're planning your own wedding, whether you're using a planner, it doesn't matter. I think there's, there's benefits to using Pearl in general. And, you know, I always like to talk about AI for good. Perl, to me, is a prime example of AI for good. Right. So it's really about providing such a unique resource that I think is really needed and is actually helping you think better, not just, again, you know, collating information for you.
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B
So if you guys are not putting a huge marketing budget behind Pearl, how. I'm curious how people are finding this tool. What has kind of been your funnel into Pearl?
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C
Yeah, so, you know, we, we did have some light marketing when Pearl first started. You know, we did do, you know, a press release and things like that. But where we've really, I think our team has been so strategic is integrating Pearl into our overall shopping journey. So, you know, when you are going in store and purchasing a wedding gown and you're booking an appointment, you know, as a part of our life cycle journey, we're also introducing you to Pearl as a part of that. And so we're really seeing great adoption from folks that are purchasing online and really great adoption from, you know, our brides that are booking an appointment and coming in store. You know, part of some of the new features that we've been kind of slowly rolling out within Pearl 2 is again back to reducing those pain points. And it helps to bring more folks into the funnel are things like our bridesmaids collaboration tool. So we're actually allowing you to connect with your bridesmaids, share three or four different types of bridesmaids dresses or colors, and allow them to upvote or downvote the ones that they like. And again, it's helping to try to take as much pressure off the bride as we can. And so I think that our team has been pretty genius in how they've connected Pearl into other parts of our life cycle journey.
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B
All right, let's take a quick break to hear this message from our sponsor, foreign.
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This episode is sponsored by Warner Brothers Discovery Advertising. You know those moments in entertainment when you're not just watching, you're feeling it. That's what Warner Brothers Discovery delivers to audiences every day. From the roar of live sports arenas to the clash of dragon ruled kingdoms. From the front lines of breaking news to the heartbeat of busy kitchens. WBD Advertising combines this incredible IP with modern ad tech and a partner first mindset to turn this cultural attention into real connection and measurable conversion. Visit adsales.wbd.com to learn more.
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B
Welcome back to the Marketers Brief podcast. I'm speaking with Lisa Horton, Chief Communications and Creative Officer at David's Bridal. Okay, we've talked a lot about the AI side of things and I'm not going to say that we're, we're moving totally away from that. But I want to bring in the, the retail aspect of this and I want to talk about diamonds and pearls. So folks who don't know this is a more maybe upscale version I'm going to say of a David's Bridal. And these stores have the a touch screen if I'm not mistaken, where brides can shop. So I this is a really specific bet. It feels like right it's a smaller footprint, it's higher end, but it seems more tech forward. Why test these or like what problem does this solve that maybe a regular David's Bridal store doesn't quite meet?
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C
Yeah, we really, this was a blend, a marriage one might say of technology and hospitality. That's really, you know, kind of where this all started from. And diamonds and pearls, you know, as you said, is our boutique retail concept. And so it's where you'll find some of our exclusive designers and exclusive designs from those designers like Marchesa, Viola Chan Couture, Ole Cassini. You'll also see some exclusive pieces from the Vera Wang bride collection in that store. It has some of our higher price points as well, but it really, it was where we can provide our customer with a more hospitality first approach. So when you walk in you're welcomed with a glass of champagne and the decor is really stunning and it feels more akin to a boutique like setting. It's also about a third of, you know, the square footage of a traditional David's Bridal and therefore has about a third of the amount of SKUs in that store compared to a traditional David's Bridal. So it's a much more curated experience. And so we wanted to make sure that while we're providing that curated experience, one of the beautiful parts of David's Bridal is our entire ecosystem. And we didn't want to hinder that that customer experience. And so that's where we brought in what we like to call our endless aisle technology. So these are, you know, full scale. I'm talking like taller than I am. I think they're about 5ft tall, these screens. And they are, you know, fully touchscreen, fully interactive. You can shop everything on our website. You can order it directly there in the store. You can, you know, if you're in with your friends and you're looking at bridesmaids dresses, going and taking a look and seeing, you know, what other styles that come in that material or what colors come in that style. And so it's really helping to bridge the gap. I think, you know, one of the big differentiators for David's bridal is the fact that we are omnichannel. And so we really wanted to figure out a way to bridge that gap. And this endless aisle technology has really done that for us. And what we've seen too is that it's really brought in more of that Gen Z shopper, you know, she really wants that inspiration experience when she comes in in store. She wants it to feel highly personalized. She's excited about technology. And so, you know, that is what we were able to provide in this Diamonds and Pearls location and concept.
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B
I'm curious if the new concept was more informed by customer behavior or like digital data that you guys were seeing.
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C
I would say a little bit of both, to be honest. Right. I think what we saw was, you know, as I mentioned, we do a lot of qualitative research. We're, we're constantly surveying not only our customers and our guests and our brides, but we're also serving those that are just in the market in general. We want to know where they're shopping, what they're excited about, what do they have an appetite for. And we definitely saw that there was an appetite for more of that boutique experience. They wanted, you know, a little bit more of that personalized experience, a bit of a more curated selection. And she also wants to be able to have that in person experience but not feel like she is missing out on something that maybe isn't available in the store. And so it was definitely informed by a little bit of both.
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B
All right, so since the aisle to algorithm strategy launched, at least I'm curious if there's anything like. This is the thing that I would point to of like, we know that it is working. Here is the metric that tells us this has been working for us.
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C
Yeah, you know, I'm not sure we, we've done a lot and I, and I don't say that lightly. I mean, it's been such a whirlwind the last 12 months and we are so excited to actually start putting some of the things that we've been talking about now into, you know, have really brought it into fruition. So we've launched Travel by David's. We're now, you know, in a complete one stop shop to do everything from booking your honeymoon to, you know, concierge travel. We've talked about Pearl Planner, but I think one of the most successful parts of our strategy has been the fact that this is all built upon an asset light business model. And so what that means is that we are really looking to expand our offerings and our solutions to our customers without necessarily having to invest at the same level that we were investing in, you know, pre bankruptcy for instance, or, you know, really kind of relying on such heavy capital. And so the way that we've been doing that is creating and establishing some incredible partnerships with really fantastic brands and allowing that to be, you know, dropship or building shop and shops inside of our David's Bridal. So I think a few examples of that is, you know, when we initially partnered with Marchesa last April and they were our first couture designer that we sold both in store in diamonds and pearls as well as online, and we are successfully selling $9,000 dresses online and you know, people were questioning, can we do that? And the answer that we always knew was going to be the case is yes, we can. Because one of the things that no matter how much technology we put forward and being, you know, having innovation at our core, we're also human first. And so for instance, we have an incredible virtual stylist team. You're speaking to real people who are experts in what they're doing. They're experts in how to measure you from home and how to get you exactly what you need. And so during that process of purchasing, you know, a couture piece like a Marchesa or you know, a Vera Wang bride dress online, you're working with that virtual stylist. So we're again, we're marrying human, you know, humanity and human expertise with technology. And we've seen tremendous success there. And we have a lot of other really exciting partnerships and collaborations coming up. I think another great example too has been our work with personalization. Mall P Mall affectionately dubbed. And they power all of our personalized gifts on our website. So now through technology, you don't have to leave our site anymore to go and purchase a personalized gift from PMall. You can go ahead and personalize it directly on our website. And we've seen such a tremendous lift in our gift category because of that. And again, it's all about removing friction for the consumer. And so allowing them to be able to do that right there on our site has been really successful.
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B
All right, to wrap it up, Lisa, so as you know, we talk to a lot of marketers on this podcast. So if you could ask a CMO or another marketing executive one question, who would you ask and what would it be?
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C
So I thought about this for a long time, and I don't know about you, but I am a Bravo fan through and through, and I, for a long time, have actually, actually followed Bozoma St. John. And I think she's so incredible. And she just was the first person that popped into my mind. And I think the work that she did, particularly at Uber, is really helped to shape the way that I think about campaigns and the way that we think about branding and culture. And so I would love to ask her, you know, how did you decide when your brand should lead culture versus follow it? And I think that's such an intriguing question. We try our best to figure out how to balance it in terms of how do you be a trendsetter and when to jump on the trend and how do you do it in a way that feels authentic. And I would love to be able to pick her brain on something like that.
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B
Okay, let's see if we can get her on.
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C
Would love it.
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B
That was Lisa Horton, chief communications and creative officer at David's Bridal, and I'm Erica Wheelas, consumer trends reporter here at Ad Age. I'd like to thank our producer, Lauren Ciardio, and invite you to subscribe to the Marketer's Brief. Wherever you get your podcasts, we promise to keep it brief or at least short enough for your morning coffee. Thanks for listening.
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A
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