In this episode, Ian Jindal talks with Raine Peake, Group Digital Director at Crew Clothing Company, about how a portfolio of British heritage brands is adapting to a fast-changing digital and retail environment. The discussion covers what needs to be unlearned about discounting, channels, content and customer value, and what a more modern, test-and-learn approach looks like in practice.
Raine Peake is Group Digital Director at Crew Clothing Company, responsible for digital strategy, e-commerce trading, digital marketing and optimisation across Crew Clothing, Ben Sherman, Saltrock and Pringle of Scotland. Her experience spans Farfetch (through to IPO), New Look, Mint Velvet and Jigsaw, grounded in an early merchandising career in bricks-and-mortar retail.
Listen here
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Chapters / Topics
00:00 – Introductions, Role and Brand Portfolio
Raine, who outlines her role as Group Digital Director and the brands in the portfolio:
- Crew Clothing: a heritage British coastal lifestyle brand with over 100 UK stores and an online presence.
- Saltrock: surfing heritage brand with around 70 stores, mainly in the South West.
- Ben Sherman: long-established British menswear brand rooted in shirt-making and youth culture.
- Pringle of Scotland: Scottish knitwear brand with over 200 years of history, known for cashmere and argyle.
Raine explains how each brand maintains its own identity while benefiting from shared learnings and capabilities at the group level.
02:40 – Career Path and Farfetch Influence
Raine talks through her route to Crew: New Look, Mint Velvet, Jigsaw and especially Farfetch through IPO, plus her beginnings in merchandising with pen-and-ledger retail. This mix of commercial and tech-led environment informs her approach to digital and marketing today, with a bias to experimentation and analytics.
04:45 – Heritage Brands in a Modern Age
The conversation turns to what it means to work with genuine heritage brands versus “fake heritage”, and why heritage alone isn’t enough. Crew and the group have shifted from assuming customers know their story to explicitly telling it: focusing on origins in Salcombe, coastal and sporting roots, and material and construction details of core products.
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Brand Storytelling and Authenticity (Approx. 09:10)
Raine describes how the portfolio has moved to much more explicit brand storytelling online. That includes:
- Highlighting core categories (men’s half-zips, polos, women’s knitwear) and explaining why their version is worth choosing.
- Using consistent, always-on brand-led content, on the basis that new customers are seeing it for the first time.
- Connecting digital communications with sponsorships (LTA, Henley, England Rugby’s Red Roses) and Crew’s coastal/sport positioning.
With Pringle of Scotland, the group is at an earlier stage, exploring how to retell a long heritage story and link Scottish manufacturing and historic prestige with contemporary relevance and accessibility.
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Testing and Channels
05:55 – Testing by Region: Meta, TikTok, YouTube
Raine explains splitting the UK into four regions with broadly similar population and digital revenue to test different mid- and upper-funnel strategies with Nest Commerce across Meta, TikTok and YouTube. All areas with additional top-of-funnel spend outperformed a control, validating the approach.
08:10 – Content Volume and “Greedy” Platforms
To support this, the team had to roughly double content output, from basic sales assets to influencer-led and brand storytelling videos. Raine notes that platforms are “greedy”, and having more creative variants in play generally increases performance opportunities.
09:45 – YouTube and Connected TV Discovery
The tests showed YouTube delivering the clearest uplift, with statistically significant gains over other channels. A key insight was that their mainly 35+ audience overindexed on watching YouTube on Connected TV rather than on laptops or mobile devices, aligning with broader shifts in TV-screen video consumption and shoppable CTV.
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Managing Multiple Heritage Brands (Approx. 11:20–13:00)
Raine explains how the group keeps Crew, Saltrock, Ben Sherman and Pringle distinct:
- Separate teams and locations (e.g. Ben Sherman marketing in Kingston and product in Leeds; Saltrock centred in the South West surf community).
- Expectation that teams “live” the brand (Saltrock staff surf; Crew leans into coastal and sporting lifestyles).
- Avoiding visual and tonal “bleed” between brands while sharing what works operationally or strategically.
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Gamification and Operations (Approx. 17:00)
Raine draws on her time at Jigsaw to describe how to gamify ship-from-store fulfilment. Features include:
- Speed-to-fulfil metrics and leaderboards.
- Order acceptance/decline race dynamics.
- Clear timelines to match rising delivery expectations.
She emphasises that gamification must be paired with tangible rewards such as store bonuses; otherwise, it risks being perceived as added pressure rather than engagement.
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Promotions, Black Friday and “Fake Friday”
20:30–21:30 – “Fake Friday” and Black Friday Setup
Raine explains how “Fake Friday” (the Friday before Black Friday, when traffic spikes) acts as a natural live test. Crew leaned into this with lower-level discounts and archive sale emails, gaining insight into messaging and customer responsiveness ahead of the main event.
21:30 – Black Friday: Removing the Numbers
In Black Friday week, a complex mix of 30%/40% discounts underperformed due to heavy competition, noisy messaging, and customer confusion. The team then:
- Removed percentage figures from subject lines and selected ads.
- Switched to more verbal phrasing, such as “Best sale ever” and “half price” rather than “50% off”.
- Built on earlier “no percentage” archive sale tests from Fake Friday.
This change improved engagement and delivered a strong Black Friday performance, illustrating that messaging clarity and distinctiveness can outperform marginally higher or more explicit discounts in a crowded market.
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Customer Value and Segmentation (Approx. 24:20–25:10)
Raine outlines a shift from pure monetary VIP segmentation towards frequency-based tiers. Key points:
- A customer spending £100 across four orders is treated as a higher priority than a single £100-order customer, because frequency is a better signal of engagement and upgrade potential.
- Segments such as “high-high” and “high-medium” are targeted with nuance, focusing on moving engaged customers upwards rather than relying heavily on discounting low-frequency buyers.
- VIPs are prioritised for early offers, but the team is careful not to repeat discounts on key items to avoid eroding perceived value and frustrating loyal customers.
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Stores as Growth and Brand Engines
27:10 – Stores, Omnichannel Customers and Media
With over 100 Crew stores and 70 Saltrock locations, physical retail is treated as the primary marketing channel. Raine notes:
- Customers who shop in both stores and online are markedly more valuable.
- Stores provide tactile experience and human interaction that digital alone cannot match.
- The group uses Meta and Google tools to bid directly for store traffic, backed by footfall counters and store-visit measurement.
29:20 – Coherent Brand Story in Physical Space
Raine links store locations (market towns, coastal regions) with Crew’s heritage, and uses sponsorships—LTA, Henley, England Rugby’s Red Roses—to reinforce an “English coastal countryside” territory rather than opportunistic partnerships.
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New Categories and Communities (Approx. 31:30)
The launch of Crew Sport is positioned around realistic, community-led activity (parkrun, yoga, “parkrun and a coffee”, watching rugby) rather than elite performance. This shapes product design and marketing tone for a customer whose life is active but not defined by high-performance sport.
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TikTok and Multi-Generational Reach
32:30–33:20 – Ageing with the Customer
The conversation touches on how brands can age with their customers—from playing to watching rugby—and the need to stay relevant to multiple generations simultaneously.
33:20 – TikTok: Parents, Teens and Preppy Style
Raine then breaks down how TikTok became a major channel for Crew:
- Preppy styling trends align with Crew’s existing look, making the brand feel current on the platform.
- The team works with creators chosen by the paid agency, including tattooed male influencers who would not traditionally be associated with the brand but deliver strong performance.
- TikTok consistently delivers a higher return on ad spend than other channels during peak periods.
This represents another unlearning: not writing off TikTok because of age or heritage assumptions, and trusting younger, platform-native team members to select appropriate creators.
35:10 – Trust, Risk and Testing
Raine reflects on the decision to test TikTok seriously, giving the paid team freedom and focusing on measured outcomes rather than preconceived notions. Her view: test widely, keep what works, and accept that some tests will fail without over-dramatising them.
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Replatforming and Future Focus (Approx. 37:20–38:20)
Raine looks ahead to the group-wide move to Shopify: Pringle and Saltrock are already live, with Crew and Ben Sherman to follow. The goals include:
- Standardising platforms across brands.
- Increasing speed of experimentation and on-site changes.
- Gaining operational efficiencies and reducing technical complexity for the digital teams.
