Aimè Leon Dore and The Art of the Retail Experience

Lessons in Scarcity and Customer Service

I have wanted to write this one for nearly as long as I have had this Substack, which is coming up to a year now, but I never found the right angle. After a trip to NYC last month, I got the inspiration needed, so here goes.

We’ve all heard of Aimé Leon Dore by this point. It’s one of the brands that understands every step of the experience. Much has been said, written and videos created about how, under the leadership of Teddy Santis, they are now cited as the masterclass in cultural desirability through consistency, community and world-building. There is a ton to unpack in terms of the creative they put out into the world, but since so much has already been said, I’m going to put one video here and that’s all you get, as the real reason for writing about ALD is two things: performance marketing and retail experience.

So, as above, two things which are worth looking at.

Performance marketing.
Meta and Google ads. They don’t do any. None. On going through Facebook Ads Manager, you don’t find anything from them. This is something I find really interesting, as for many brands it seems to be the number one drug of choice on the street because, once you start, it’s quite nice. You get some good return versus what you put in, and you think to yourself, this is a way to scale. Before you know it, they’ve got you, and now you’re spending a decent amount of your marketing budget on ads trying to find new customers or banging people over the head trying to get them to buy another item from you. Even brands who have a real aura right now, like Satisfy, are playing the game with the Silicon Valley behemoths. The challenge with that is the economics have got dramatically worse over the last five years and, well, they have you in handcuffs. Wanna give up the drug? Say goodbye to a decent amount of revenue.

ALD never did this. So it’s a bit like your friend who doesn’t drink but still goes to the party, has a great time and watches everyone else in the usual routine of: go to the party, get excited, get drunk, get blurry, start falling over, throw up in someone’s garden, regret everything. Meanwhile, your friend is there probably chatting to the cute girl and not pre-empting a kebab run to avoid a hangover the next day. There is a science about that. Must be.

So there is where point one goes into point two.

They take that percentage of marketing spend they would have paid to Facebook and Meta and spend that on brick-and-mortar retail.

Retail experience, customer service and scarcity.

So yes, they are building out physical retail. New York on Mulberry Street, which includes Café Leon Dore with an amazing outdoor space on the street in Nolita, London in Soho and, most recently, LA on Melrose with a beautiful café to go with it.

So you’re thinking, how do three physical stores outweigh the eyes you can get from ads online?

This is where my trip to NYC comes in. What they are doing is creating a must-see experience when in each city. Almost like a folklore-style moment. The whole thing is beautifully managed from end to end and something so many brands can learn from, but so many are obsessed with measurable ROI on digital they won’t get this far. But for this, I’ll walk you through my own experience at the store. Caveat before we begin: I’m British and slightly squeamish at high-priced products sometimes, so this definitely isn’t my swim lane. Here goes.

So we’re in New York, had an amazing week launching our own pop-up and, on the last day, our Art Director William and I go for a wander through the streets of New York checking out the brands and their flagships. Between Braindead, Stussy, Noah, Supreme and more, we end up at ALD. We go to enter. A cool AF security guy gives you a look up and down. Where do they find these guys?

“We’re full, you’ll have to scan this and book to come back later.”

Now this is a shift. They used to just make people line up, but I guess it got insane with the traffic on the sidewalk. But the good old look up and down remains, which, whilst in the beginning feels indignant, also means when they say sign up, you think, “damn, I must have dressed ok today.” Note this is the first time that voice in my head shows up.

So we sign up, go for a walk around and 45 mins later we get a text: “we have space for you now.” So we drop everything and head there like we have been summoned to meet our date for prom night. We get welcomed in, doors fling open and inside… serenity. Beautifully curated, wonderfully thought out, with a vintage Porsche in the entrance. And considering the “we’re full” from earlier, only a handful of people in there. There’s probably two people for each member of staff.

I start looking around. The caps, the golf stuff and, before you know it, a nice denim chambray shirt. As I pick it up, probably the coolest-looking 50-year-old with a silvering beard is folding clothes.

“Oh those are beautiful, the handfeel is amazing.”

Of course my brain chimes in: “you DO have good taste after all if this guy is down.”

So I search for a price. Of course there isn’t one. By this point another guy comes along, younger and very handsome, and asks if I need a size.

“Yeah, XL and L.”

So off he goes and we meet at the changing room where he has reserved me a cabin.

I’m really feeling at home here now. Who knew this was my calling?

So he brings the two shirts along, gets me set up and I try them on. Then I start asking for his opinion like we’re old friends. XL is too boxy. He feels it doesn’t accentuate my body shape. Is he complimenting this 46-year-old? I go back in, try on the large.

“Yeah, that’s perfect for you.”

Ok, now I am going to blush.

So the cool young guy says this shirt is the one for me. I still don’t know a price, but for some reason I walk over to the cash register and the older guy is there.

“Oh great choice.”

Validation.

He rings me up. Wraps up the shirt beautifully, carefully places it into a good-looking bag for my walk around town. We get to the price.

“How much?” my brain screams.

But by this point everyone thinks this piece makes me look great. Who am I to say no to them?

I swallow all the memories of my British upbringing and pay the most I ever paid for a shirt, mourn for my credit card getting beaten up and say my goodbyes to my newfound stylist friends, give the cool AF security guard the obligatory “thanks mate” and off I go with an ALD bag around New York.

What this whole experience really taught me is the power of retail, the power of scarcity, that you can’t just walk in and buy anything like a pint of milk. It HAS to be an experience. And this experience is so well curated it’s like going to Disney World. Everyone knows the character. The customer service is second to none. For many, they think customer service is what happens after you buy and something goes wrong. The brands getting it right are those who know it starts before you even start trying to shop.

It also reinforces the notion of word-of-mouth marketing. Since that trip I have probably told 10 people. How many times have you told 10 people about the latest Instagram ad you got?

What this also does, in terms of scarcity, is it makes the brand hard to get. It means by the time you get in there, try the thing on, you are almost obliged to buy something. The conversion rate of shoppers entering the space must be unbelievable.

This is why I wanted to write about what ALD is doing. As I say, culturally they have the creative and the content all on lock, which is something so few brands are doing to this level.

However, what I love about what Aimé Leon Dore is doing is that they are going against the grain. They have a completely different model. They aren’t trying to compete on the same metrics as many others. They are owning their distribution and, importantly, owning their own marketing without the traditional digital gatekeepers.

Imagine this. If they do a theoretical number of 50m, let’s say, and they spend 10% on marketing, for many brands half of that might go to the digital channels, so 2.5m roughly. With them not spending that each year, they can invest that into physical retail. You can start building a few stores in some high-profile places to continue driving awareness and continue to spread that folklore of the brand.

Now to do that you need to ensure the very best experience for each and every person, as one wrong salesperson and the wheel can stop spinning. But for now, they have got this playbook dialled and it’s one of the very best to learn from.

Damn, I loved writing this one. Thanks for reading.