As Chief Sales Officer, Kate Callahan oversees all of jewelry brand BaubleBar’s retail and brand partnerships. That includes managing 7,500 points of distribution in 28 countries and continuing to build the brand’s offline distribution strategy. It also involves identifying new brand collaborators with strong fan bases and even stronger intellectual property (IP).
These tasks connect in one crucial way: they create new opportunities to grow the business and reach new (and more) potential customers without diluting the brand, which has grown and evolved significantly since it was co-founded by Amy Jain and Daniella Yacobovsky in 2011.
Callahan launched BaubleBar’s entertainment and sports licensing divisions in 2020 and 2021, respectively. Within a short time, she helped forge partnerships with Disney, Pixar, the NFL, MLB and NBA to create co-branded jewelry and accessories. Revenue has grown 100% year over year in this division, while the company has opened 3,000 new points of distribution.
BaubleBar has an extensive research methodology that helps the brand evaluate new opportunities effectively. Market research and social media tracking are at the core of this process, but the team also spends a lot of time on retailer websites and chatting directly with friends of the brand and other retail industry players.
This approach has been especially valuable as the brand has ventured into the very large and very nuanced world of sports. BaubleBar has official collections with the NBA, NFL and MLB, which is a relatively new assortment developed in a very close partnership with Fanatics. In some cases, BaubleBar works directly with the teams, mainly their marketing functions, to find new ways to reach their female fanbase.
“Surveys are great, but you’re only looking at a small subset of the population,” Callahan said in an interview with Retail TouchPoints. “And what’s interesting about the sports businesses in particular is that it is so nuanced regionally. What the Cowboys fan wants is so different from what the Packers fan wants. We are [trying to be] slow and methodical in our approach to make sure that we are keeping inventory really tight, but also servicing the fan in the right way.”
Riding the Disney Wave
BaubleBar’s sports collections have been a clear win for the brand, but arguably, its most influential and profitable collaborator is a mouse. Mickey Mouse, that is.
The Disney partnership started in a small, organic way, according to Callahan. BaubleBar initially made inroads through the Owned & Operated team. The partnership launched in 2019 with Minnie ear designs and art and evolved into exclusive collections within Disney-owned and -operated locations in its parks and retail destinations like Disney Springs. “That was a great way for us to start to understand how to interpret IP packets and artwork and get our design team familiar with how to work with a licensing company because it’s really nuanced and a very different process,” Callahan explained. “Even understanding the calendar differences and how things needed to be approved were all new for us.”
Then, during the height of COVID, Callahan began chatting with the Consumer Goods team and forged a licensing agreement that has evolved to include various collections and new product lines. Most recently, Callahan helped drive the launch of BaubleBar’s exclusive line of Disney Ear Headbands, the latest in a long line of Disney x BaubleBar collaboration pieces that include jewelry, kids’ accessories, bag charms, blankets and storage solutions. However, the launch was significant for another reason: the ears collection is available on BaubleBar.com, making it part of an exclusive group of brands authorized to offer Disney Ear Headbands for sale online.
“They’ve had a lot in the accessory space; and while it has not been completely same, it has been similar,” Callahan said. “We do a lot of novelty jewelry that feels like it could be fresh and new to this customer and we can provide a new approach. We have had a phenomenal response, and we have been pushing ourselves constantly since then.”
Now that the team knows how to interpret IP properly, there is seemingly no limit to the Disney opportunity. Beyond Disney’s core characters (Micky, Minnie, Daisy, Donald and Goofy), BaubleBar has created collections for Lilo & Stitch and found the right approach to tapping an IP portfolio that “is so immense it can be overwhelming,” according to Callahan.
“We finally came up with the right formula to make sure that we’re keeping the fan engaged and interested with new properties but also pushing her with new category launches and constantly trying to innovate within the categories that we’ve been going after for a while,” she said. “We spend so much time engaging with the super fan, but there are some people that only take one Disney trip in their lifetime, or they go once every five years with their family. We spend a lot of time trying to make sure we can address that fan as well. We want to make sure we can do our part in making that trip special for them too.”
Creating Curated Assortments for Retail Partners
BaubleBar’s licensing business is taking up more and more of Callahan’s time, but she still oversees where and how the brand ventures into brick-and-mortar. Currently, the brand has a presence in Nordstrom, Anthropologie and Bloomingdale’s, among others. It even has an exclusive line, SUGARFIX, for Target and is exploring new, even unexpected, ways for the brand to show up.
“For example, we know that our customer on BaubleBar.com is a sports fan,” Callahan said. “So why wouldn’t she walk into Gillette Stadium and buy earrings that she can wear to support her team? It feels like an incremental way for her to buy and we’re also finding many new customers through that. It’s expanding distribution but not flooding the market with the same products. It’s a really hard thing to do, but I think that’s how we’ve been able to grow and be successful.”
Callahan helped shape what that business-to-business (B2B) model looked like, including processes required to scale.
“When I joined, we were known as a direct-to-consumer resource for fashion jewelry. It was great because it was new and exciting at the time,” Callahan explained. “We had just begun to dip our feet into the B2B business, but we didn’t really have a lot of conventional retail hires, so I was one of the first.”
Lacking traditional retail expertise as your brand ventures into wholesale expansion may seem like a glaring talent gap. Still, Callahan noted that because BaubleBar has taken such an unconventional approach to expansion, traditional talent hasn’t necessarily been needed. “Our approach to new points of distribution was so unconventional because we didn’t have the same guardrails that a lot of brands have,” she explained. “We know who our customer is, but we don’t impose guardrails around product in the same way. We look at our customer through a larger journey, which has allowed us to venture into new doors and new categories.”
BaubleBar uses its branded ecommerce site to test new categories and if they perform well, they are rolled out to the “right” retail channels. Some best-sellers will resonate in all types of retailers, but BaubleBar creates curated assortments based on each retailer’s core consumer needs, pricing thresholds, trend adoption curves and more.
“You don’t walk into Nordstrom and see the same thing that you would see at Target,” Callahan explained. “It’s not like our retailers can each request an exclusive line, but we’re thoughtful enough to know what to develop that’s right at each price point, at each trend point for each retailer. And we know what’s going to work in certain retail environments and what’s not.”
Taking this curated, test-and-learn approach has allowed BaubleBar to expand into new (and possibly unexpected) categories as a jewelry brand, such as hair accessories, blankets, tech accessories and small leather goods.
“We’re launching many more, and we do it in really smart, strategic ways,” Callahan added. “And that category expansion has allowed us to enter new points of retail distribution in a really methodical way, where we don’t flood the market with the same product, and we can really tailor our assortments based on our retailers’ needs.”
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The Core of Brand Growth: Unique Product Design and Customization
Although BaubleBar’s licensing strategy is blossoming, Callahan emphasized that the main brand and its unique product assortment remain the team’s top priority — mainly because those two worlds are so intrinsically linked.
“Companies [like Disney and the NFL] come to us because we’re so trend-focused, so we can’t ever lose sight of that. That needs to be our number one priority,” Callahan explained. “We always want to be seen as an industry leader in trend accessories. Knowing how to make a 3D, fully encrusted bag charm is helpful when bag charms become a trend — regardless of IP. We have a really incredible toolkit at our disposal to go after the trends as they emerge.”
Callahan sees BaubleBar’s customization business, in particular, as a significant growth opportunity. The brand has optimized its product development process and supply chain to become a true destination for custom lifestyle products and gifting.
“We’ve become a real destination for gifting; you can go on our website and find something for so many people in your life, whether it be a custom bracelet or Christmas tree ornament,” she said. “That’s been a huge point of pride, and we spent so much time focused on innovating within our custom assortment and setting up a really smart process there, so my goal is to bring that to life through various in-store environments.”
For example, Bergdorf Goodman and Neiman Marcus have partnered with BaubleBar on private events and activations featuring holiday ornaments and customization services. This physical embodiment of the brand’s product development process is “super important,” according to Callahan and, in turn, will be central at the back half of 2024 and early 2025.
Whether she’s focusing on building new licensing partnerships, scaling operations or bringing BaubleBar products to more retail stores, Callahan and the broader team remain focused on one thing: seeing the end consumer happy. “I think in the age of social media, you can do that very easily,” she said. “When we launch a new product, or with a new retailer, or we go after a new licensing property that our fans haven’t seen before, that’s what really makes us feel the best inside. Those are the fruits of our labor.”