The Tamesis
You mentioned the shopping experience. What innovations are you investing in?
In September, we launched Ask Ralph in the U.S., our AI-driven style guide that, through LLM (Language Learning Model), allows Ralph Lauren to help you choose an outfit for a specific event or situation. For example, “I’m going to my friend’s baby shower. This is what it’s like. The weather is terrible. It’s going to be cold. Do you have any suggestions?” Correct? When we think about agent artificial intelligence, you can actually see the future of this platform. So it started as a styling tool, but I can see it growing to provide other quotes like “Where is my package?” or “Is the store open now?” or “Is my sales associate available? I plan to go next week,” so we’re thinking about that. I think this will make a very meaningful difference to the retail industry.
We recently reported on the changing menswear influencer landscape , and one of the key findings was that menswear consumers are turning to creators online or on forums like Reddit for styling advice. It feels like Ask Ralph can fill this gap as well.
It’s funny you say that because I’m at NRF [conference] at the beginning of this week. We built Ask Ralph with Microsoft. “This is the first time my husband has bought me an outfit through Ask Ralph and I don’t have to return it,” said Microsoft’s Shirley. NRF CEO Matt Shea organizes his outfits via Ask Ralph. So that helps! We will continue to understand the changing situation and develop our retail business in Asia. Especially in China, we have the Douyin platform, which we created seriously for women’s polo. Now we’re going to activate it on the men’s polo shirt. We’ve also just started activating on TikTok Shop. So these are also new spaces where we can interact with consumers. We can be very data-based and really meet their needs as much as possible. As a company, we are innovating a lot in retail.
Of course, Ralph Lauren is about to outfit Team USA at the Winter Olympics. From tennis to golf, the brand has long been embedded in sports. Are you considering a new sport?
We receive offers all the time. So the challenge has been selective because if you look at Ralph’s philosophy and lifestyle, you see it’s all over the place. Can we attend a cricket match? We have a cricket sweater, so yes, our styles are related. Can we play rugby? Well, we have a brand called Rugby, which is closely related to our college life. We have nothing to announce today, but we keep asking ourselves, where are we? [show up]? That’s why we’re in the games industry now, we’ve never been in the games industry before, that’s our perspective, consumers want to interact with brands like ours, so how to make sure that we exist, how to make sure that we exist in a way that’s authentic, how to make sure that we exist in a way that’s not just a one-off, but builds credibility over time.
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