When it comes to building brand loyalty, are you doing enough to turn your brand story into real-life, customer-driven experiences?
Today, we’re joined by Dawn Fichot, the Head of Marketing for North America at Brompton Bicycle. Brompton is renowned for its iconic folding bikes, but the brand’s impact goes far beyond the product. With a focus on building loyal communities, creating meaningful partnerships, and delivering exceptional customer experiences, Brompton has become a global leader in cycling culture. Dawn is here to share how Brompton engages its diverse community, innovates through “storydoing,” and creates immersive brand experiences across its retail and digital channels.
About Dawn Fichot
Dawn Fichot is the Head of Marketing, NA for Brompton Bicycles. Dawn joined Brompton last spring to rapidly grow awareness of the brand and fulfill Brompton’s long-term vision to transform how people live and get around in cities. Before joining Brompton, Dawn was the Founder & CEO of Racked Stretch, NYC’s first boutique stretching studio. Prior to that, she was the Global Head of Campaign Management for HSBC out of London and had started her career in the Sports & Sponsorship team at Edelman.
Resources
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Transcript
Note: This was AI-generated and only lightly edited.
Greg Kihlstrom:
When it comes to building brand loyalty, are you doing enough to turn your brand story into real-life, customer-driven experiences? Today, we’re joined by Dawn Fichot, the head of marketing for North America at Brompton Bicycle. Brompton is renowned for its iconic folding bikes, but the brand’s impact goes far beyond the product. With a focus on building loyal communities, creating meaningful partnerships, and delivering exceptional customer experiences, Brompton has become a global leader in cycling culture. Dawn is here to share how Brompton engages its diverse community, innovates through story doing, and creates immersive brand experiences across its retail and digital channels. Welcome to the show, Dawn.
Dawn Fichot: Oh, thank you, Greg. That was such a nice and thoughtful introduction. I appreciate it.
Greg Kihlstrom: Yeah, of course. Yeah, I’m looking forward to talking more about this with you. Before we dive in, though, why don’t we start with you telling us a little bit about yourself and your role at Brompton?
Dawn Fichot: Sure. Um, so like you said, I’m the head of marketing for North America and I’ve been with the brand just under two years now. So I feel like I’ve got a full calendar year under my belt and know a little bit more about what to expect in the cycling world, but really was brought on to help grow brand awareness across Canada and the U S in particular, but also starting to head into South America as well. To help really figure out our growth strategy over the next five or so years and How do we take this culty, beloved brand and make it something that, you know, retains the thing that makes it so special and gives it that very unique love that cult brands have, but really expand and grow the audience and make it something that becomes more of a household name than it already is?
Greg Kihlstrom: Yeah, love it. Well, yeah, that’s a great segue to open things up here. And so I want to start by talking about that, you know, building that engaged community that Brompton surely has. So, you know, there’s a deeply loyal and engaged community of riders already. What are some of the key strategies that you’ve employed so far to maintain this connection over the years?
Dawn Fichot: Yeah, so I was very lucky I inherited this community. I think the product itself really lends itself to this IRL experience and IRL connections. So when you look at a Bronson bike, it’s very recognizable. The design itself is so distinguished. It’s also a little bit quirky. Funny, silly, lots of adjectives, stylish, beautiful, depending on your perspective, but it is unique and it is a conversation starter. So if I’m riding my Brompton through the streets of DC, literally any city, I get stopped. five to 10 times, people ask me about the bike, wanting to tell me about their friend who has a Brompton, wanting to see the fold, wanting to talk about the colors. So the product itself, again, just drives this conversation. I also think that Brompton has really positioned itself well. So when, when you were doing the intro, you talked about cycling culture and the culture of cycling. And I actually think while we are a bicycle brand and we promote cycling, We’re slightly outside of that typical cycling culture where it’s people dressed in Lycra and they’re speeding by you and they’re, you know, tracking all their miles and how much protein they eat and all of that. Like that is not us. We are how do you bring bicycling and this mode of transportation into your daily life versus having to change your daily life to incorporate this habit or hobby. So I think that that also helps as well when you think about building community, because we’re not asking you to go out of your way to do something. We’re actually just enabling the things you already love and the things you already do. And I think that really helps as well.
Dawn Fichot: On a very specific level, if you want to, you know, get into it, we, um, Just about a year ago, it’s been almost a year, we launched an official community leader platform. So essentially we had some super fans of Brompton all around the world who are already leading rides for us and, you know, talking about their bikes to all of their friends and family and, and work. Um, and we, we needed official essentially. So we recruited some of these super fans to be official Brompton ride leaders. We do a very robust training program with them about the brand about safety and about what we want to put into the world. And we’ve really empowered them to lead official Brompton rides and make it easy for them to do so. So, so these people were doing the work already. We wanted to recognize them for it. We wanted to give them the tools that they needed to be successful and a framework to work within. And then they do get perks and things from us throughout the year as well.
Greg Kihlstrom: Nice, nice.
Dawn Fichot: That’s one example.
Greg Kihlstrom: Yeah, definitely. So yeah, and let’s talk a little bit more about the the growth in the in the US, you know, as as the demographics and evolve as well. You know, how do you how do you look at ensuring engagement strategies remain effective and inclusive of the shifting demographics?
Dawn Fichot: Yeah, it’s a great question. And when we think about shifting demographics, we, we actually often think about shifting younger. So we’re trying to appeal to Gen Z, Gen Alpha, um, as a brand. And that’s, that’s important. And we actually need to be cultivating the brand awareness and brand loves with those audiences. So I’m absolutely not suggesting that we ignore them and that they’re not part of our strategy. But when, when I think about shifting audiences for Brompton, for Cycling, for active lifestyles in general, it’s actually looking older. So people are retiring in their 60s, 70s. And they are hopefully but on the whole more healthy and active than they ever have been before. So really figuring out how do we Maybe bring back cycling to people who bicycled as a kid and then haven’t experienced that joy for decades. How can we reintroduce that to them? You know, people are getting in their boats, their RVs and traveling around the country and having this very sustainable way to explore where you are. when you get somewhere, that’s, that’s great. And, you know, even if you don’t travel with your Brompton, just having it in your local community and being able to cycle to the store to, you know, go, go meet your friends for coffee on your bicycle. Like it really unlocks a very healthy lifestyle without trying. So, you know, you get your movement in, you get your mental clarity in without having to carve out hours and hours. It’s just, again, becomes part of your daily life.
Greg Kihlstrom: Yeah. Yeah. And so, you know, as, as you mentioned, the, the bike itself is distinctive. So, you know, it’s something where, you know, if you see it in, in, in real life, you know, lots of people, as you mentioned, stopping, you don’t want to talk about it and, and stuff like that. So, you know, events is, you know, that’s something where I would imagine, you know, the in-person events are, are, you know, take on a different component than a digital event, but events in general seem to be a pretty big focus of the community and strategy. Can you talk a little bit about how do you incorporate both the in-person and the digital events?
Dawn Fichot: Great question. So we, we used a lot of digital tools to unlock those IRL events for us. So, I mean, this is a physical product and you use it, you know, in the world. We do use a lot of digital tools though, to enable us to communicate and bring those events to life. I was looking, actually, I just wanted to double check that I had the numbers right. I was looking by the end of our fiscal year, we will have done close to 250 events across North America this year, which sounds like a lot, and it is a lot, and that’s thousands of people who come out and ride the bus across those events. I would say a lot of it, a lot of those events are run by those community leaders that I mentioned, so I actually don’t have to do very much now that we have that platform in place and we’ve done the training, so I think Creating those community leaders and empowering them takes a lot of the, you know, effort of a more simple event off of the central team from a planning perspective. So that was really, really amazing when we were able to establish that platform. We also rely on our wholesalers. So we have, we have our two stores that I think we’ll probably talk about. So we’ve got Brompton owned junctions, we call them in New York City in BC. And we use those as lobster activities. But we also work with many dealers across the country. So we have, yeah, You know, probably 150 in total. Some are more engaged than others, but they are also empowered to go out and lead events on our behalf. Uh, we always encourage loaner bikes. So if you don’t have a Brompton, you can ride any bike. You could show up on, you know, literally any bike, or if you don’t have a bike, we always have loaners available. So we make it as easy as possible for people to participate and also for them to share their joy with their friends. So I might own a Brompton you don’t. It doesn’t matter. I’m going to bring you to the event. You’re going to get on the bike and go out and have the best day.
Greg Kihlstrom: So yeah, let’s talk a little bit more about, I mean, the physical activity and, you know, there’s a concept of Brompton moving from storytelling to story doing. And I want to talk about this a little bit and, you know, I’ll let you answer the question, of course, but like basically turning brand values into actionable experiences. So can you, yeah, talk a little bit about what this means and how this, you know, how the strategy has been brought to life.
Dawn Fichot: Yeah, I think, um, I think most marketers will probably understand what we mean by this change from storytelling to story doing, but I think historically, you know, people think, oh, marketing is advertising. It’s like a poster, a picture and a headline, or it’s a nice brand video or, you know, a storytelling moment. Yeah. We definitely still do some of that, but we try and put the effort and the focus into putting our values into action, like you said. So a really good example of this is we opened our store in Georgetown, Washington, D.C. last April. And shortly following that launch, we did a program, we worked with the city, the district of Georgetown and the city of DC to implement what we called joy crossings. So there was a study that found that this type of sidewalk art, so essentially overnight, we painted the largest busiest intersection in Georgetown on Wisconsin and M right outside of our store. We painted all the crosswalks with a beautiful, colorful, bright mural that integrated Bromson’s vice into the art, of course. But it was all based off of one insight that essentially said that when this type of street art went up, traffic fatalities and accidents dropped. So by putting this destructive moment and this beauty into a place you don’t expect it, people paid more attention, they were more aware of their surroundings, and we were trying to bring awareness to that. So it was, it was a really successful program that we ran in the city of D.C. Lockdown for actually going to keep going with it. They were so, so inspired by it. But that is really what we mean by story doing. So of course, we, you know, did the beautiful film and we, you know, watch the artist’s work and put it up overnight and we did some, you know, videos around it. But it was about that, that moment and creating something that people could experience and that would maybe shake them out of their usual day to day.
Greg Kihlstrom: Yeah, yeah, I love that. So how do you look at this in relationship to creating greater loyalty and even brand perception? I mean, certainly lots of positives in what you just said, but how do you look at things like that in terms of creating greater loyalty?
Dawn Fichot: So again, I’m so spoiled and I feel bad for all the marketers who don’t have products like Brompton that they’re trying to convince people to buy. The product is amazing. And you know, when we think about loyalty, we think about from a Brompton perspective, we don’t expect people to buy multiple bikes. We have, we have many, many customers who own, you know, a dozen or more bikes.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
Dawn Fichot: which is a lot, but these products are at a high price point. You really don’t need more than one bicycle. So if you have more than one, it’s a desire. It’s not a necessity. So when we think about loyalty, we don’t expect that you’re going to be buying a new bike or replacing your bike every year. We think about loyalty is, who are you talking about this? How are you posting about us? Are you coming to the events? Are you taking care of your bike? Are you actually maintaining and riding your bike? Because if it’s just sitting in your apartment or your garage or the boot of your car, So it’s not doing you any good. It’s not doing Bronson any good. So we really, really think about that. Like, how do we re-engage with people maybe who haven’t been using it as much? So all of these strategies are how we think about loyalty and questions we ask ourselves.
Greg Kihlstrom: Yeah, yeah. So let’s talk a little bit more about the stores. You mentioned the Georgetown store. I’m right across the river here outside D.C., so I’ll have to stop by there. You have another retail store in New York City as well. Yes. And as you mentioned, they’re not just retail stores, they’re also community hubs. Can you talk a little bit more about that? You know, what what other what other you know, how are they used as ways to kind of foster greater engagement?
Dawn Fichot: So the New York store has been open five or six years, so very established part of the neighborhood. The DC store opened this past April, so we have not even been open for a year, but it was a really great sort of test case for us. So when we went into DC, we saw obviously additional sales from the retail location, but we saw sales at our dealers go up and we saw our e-com sales go up in the region. So I think when you have this physical retail space, brand awareness is just built in. Obviously you have to work at it, but having that presence that people walk by day in and day out is very important. And we’re very conscious that we’re not cannibalizing from those other channels. So Brompton is a small branch. There’s more than enough to go around. We’re not like fighting over, you know, do you buy online or do you buy in store? Do you buy the dealer? Like we’re not big enough to have to worry about that. So we’re really, really focused on supporting the entire ecosystem and allowing our customers the purchase experience that works best for them. The way we use our stores with the Hubs, we do host most of our rides from the stores. We also have our mechanics in the shops. So anytime you need to get something fixed or just want to come in and ask some questions, that’s always available to you. We also host non-bike events in the stores. So, you know, I think I mentioned earlier, there’s a bit of like cycling for your mental health. It’s, it’s very important. And so we’ve hosted some mental health related events in our store. We’ve done a sound bath, we’ve done yoga. And so you don’t even need a bike. We just do really fun meetups. So we have our annual customer appreciation party we had on Thursday. And we did it at our junctions and a bunch of dealers also participated in our annual mingle jingle, where it’s literally just get together and have fun and decorate bikes and have some contests. But we really use it as that hub. We also use it for affinity groups. So if you want to get a bunch of podcasters together and, and do a team building or like a networking program, you could contact us and take out 10 bikes for your group and just go out and ride. And we’ll set you up with a route and we’ll set you up with the bikes. Uh, but we, we really try and be as open and accessible as possible.
Greg Kihlstrom: Nice, nice. And so in addition to that, you’ve also got collaborations and partnerships with others as well. So, you know, kind of adding to the community, so to speak. So there’s partnerships with Liberty London, Barber, Kenzo, others. How do you look at collaborations in terms of, you know, both the community, building the community, but also just brand values and other aspects?
Dawn Fichot: I think, um, I think brand values is a good, is a good way to put it. So when you look at some of those brands that you listed, like Liberty, Barber, they’re so British and there is that heritage aspect. So all of our advice are handmade in England. We launched in England. That, that’s very important to us, but we don’t want to be limited by it either. So we have international appeals. So sometimes we do lean into that heritage aspect. So with a brand like Barber, you know, it’s all about quality. It’s all about performance and we share those values. We recently launched, and this was a North American exclusive bike, with an artist named Chantal Martin. He’s amazing. If you’re not familiar with their work, I would check it out instantly. It’s the first time we’ve done the bike specifically for North America. She is British, but she has lived in the U.S. for about 20 years now. We’ve been working with her for at least five years and some smaller projects and this has just grown and grown. And she actually did a New York City takeover. So she was, we launched our bike with her. First time we used a new printing process on the bikes too. So her artwork is actually on the bike.
Greg Kihlstrom: Nice. Nice.
Dawn Fichot: And then she had installations in both Times Square and Rockefeller Center at the same time. So it was a multi-faceted takeover of New York City. Her audience is niche compared to like a Barber or a Palace or some of the other brands we’ve merged with. but highly engaged, and they care about the things we care about. So they care about design, they care about culture, they care about community. So the value that we saw, even though when you look at her social media following, when you look at how many people are aware of her, much, much smaller than some of the bigger brands, but did just as well because the people who care about her really care about her.
Greg Kihlstrom: Yeah, yeah, definitely. Yeah. So I mean, you know, it sounds like just in general, just tapping into the things that your community is passionate about, right? You know, sometimes it’s, it might be niche, but it’s also, you know, it’s, it’s very passionate.
Dawn Fichot: So Brompton is a niche brand, so sometimes niche is very good, and it means that we can be really hyper-focused on that overlap in the things that our audiences care about. But on the flip side, we did a program with Palace, which is much bigger reach. So it’s a British skate brand that’s incredibly popular with Gen Z, younger millennials in particular, although they do also have a bit of a Gen X following from when they launched. But that was much more about mass awareness and introducing the brand to, um, a different culture that maybe has never been exposed to Brompton before. So it works both ways. And you, I think as a marketer, you really just need to figure out why, why am I doing this specific partnership? And is it just putting my logo on something or is there something underlying that ties it all together and makes it feel authentic and special and gets people excited about it?
Greg Kihlstrom: Yeah, yeah, makes sense. So as Brompton continues to grow in North America, what are you most excited about, you know, in terms of, well, I’ll leave it open ended, but you know, we talked about community engagement, partnerships, retail, all of the above, you know, what are you most excited about?
Dawn Fichot: So we have something very exciting coming up. We are launching our first new bike. So 2025 is going to be a huge year for Brompton and Brompton in the US. So the bike is called the G-Line and it is our first larger wheel bike. So all of our bikes at state have been 16 inches. This is a 20-inch wheel, and it means it’s much more capable. So, the bikes that we have now, they’re wonderful. They’re the perfect bike for cities. You can maneuver in and out of traffic. You can dart around things. They’re super light, so you can take them on the subway. You can carry it on top of your flight walk-up. Like, perfect, perfect, perfect for cities. If you take them on gravel roads or dirt roads or trails, it’s not the most comfortable. It’s not really what the bikes were designed for. So this new G-Line opens up an entirely new audience for us. It opens up new geographies. So it’s perfect for like a, you know, like a boulder where it’s trails and mountains and, you know, you’re much more active outdoorsy lifestyle. So just as one example, and so new geographies, new audiences, and really sharing this product and the brands with people who. probably didn’t have the right use case for it before. So that’s one thing. And then the other thing that’s so exciting is that we’re coming up on our 50th anniversary. So we were founded in 1975 and there will be a ton of celebrations, but we’re actually. positioning in a way to look forward. So we’ve been around for 50 years. We’ve had a meaningful impact in sustainability and community and product and design, but what comes next? So what do the next 50 years look like? How do we keep pushing that forward? So those two things have me very, very excited about the future and just getting to work on some really cool projects because of it.
Greg Kihlstrom: Yeah, yeah. Well, that sounds like two pretty exciting things. So yeah, that’s amazing. And yeah, we’ll have to have you back and talk about the new launch and the anniversary. So that’ll be great. Well, Dawn, thanks so much for joining. One last question before we go, I’d like to ask everybody, what do you do to stay agile in your role and how do you find a way to do it consistently?
Dawn Fichot: So I, I love to talk to people who are outside of marketing and I love to talk to people who are much older or much younger than I am. So I think just being incredibly curious and always asking questions and, and, um, you know, trying to figure out why someone thinks that they think, because it’s not, it’s not normally that they actually disagree with you. They just have a different perspective and, and a different set of information that they’re starting with. So I. I just randomly schedule a meeting with the person who runs our factory. I have no need to talk to him. I find it so fascinating and interesting, and I learn so much every time we have that conversation. or, you know, have someone on my team who’s a completely different generation than I am. And she will keep me humble and tell me when I’m doing things that are not cool or, you know, tell me there’s a better way. So really, yeah, listening across functions and across generations.
