Revolve Group Inc. made waves in the once nascent world of digital marketing. It’s now digging further into tech with artificial intelligence.
The fashion company’s co-founders and co-CEOs spoke to AI’s role in the company’s business earlier this week on a quarterly earnings call with analysts. The comments follow Revolve’s buzzy AI-generated billboard campaign produced for its 20th anniversary just ahead of festival season.
It’s clear the company thinks of the technology as more than a digital marketing play.
Co-founder and co-CEO Michael Mente told analysts AI can be applied to every aspect of the business.
“We think that there’s possibilities in some departments for a strong needle mover within the next 12 months for sure, but also anticipate continued acceleration across the board,” Mente said.
Revolve’s in the “early stages” of using AI for fashion design. It has also applied AI and machine learning to operations, customer experience, fraud detection, search functionality and product recommendations.
“It’s an exciting time,” Mente said of the use of AI. “I think [co-founder and co-CEO] Mike [Karanikolas] and I are really reminded of 20, 25 years ago, the early internet days….”
Mente and Karanikolas are credited with defining influencer marketing in building Revolve. They tapped individuals with highly engaged social media audiences to help grow their retail business, which also includes multiple in-house brands and the luxury site FWRD.
The Campaign
Revolve in April launched what it said is the first AI-generated billboard campaign, which it called “Best Trip.”
The campaign, created by AI studio Maison.Meta, celebrated 20 years in business by positioning billboards in clear view of travelers as they made the trek to the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival, Revolve Festival and Stagecoach.
AI was also used to create a capsule collection around the campaign.
“Over time, we believe AI design presents an exciting opportunity to create a more powerful, innovative and streamlined design process,” Karanikolas said.
That was seen further as the company helped launch the first AI fashion week, also in April.
A contest in conjunction with AI fashion week will see winning submissions turned into real life capsules sold on Revolve.
“As a company, it’s very important for us to stay at the cutting edge of technology development, testing and learning how to leverage these new technologies, which is ingrained in our cultural DNA,” Karanikolas said.
Financial Update
The insights on Revolve’s thinking around artificial intelligence also came with the company’s quarterly results for the period ended March 31.
Net income shrunk, down 37 percent to $14.2 million in Revolve’s fiscal first quarter. Meanwhile, net sales for the quarter were off 1 percent to $279.6 million.
The Revolve brand is the company’s largest source of revenue, with its namesake generating net sales of $231.7 million, which reflected a 3 percent decline from the year-ago period.
The company’s luxury-focused business FWRD, meanwhile, saw its quarterly net sales rise 5 percent to $48 million.
Continued headwinds in the broader economy and a slowdown in consumer spending caused the company to see further declines as it entered the current quarter. Revolve informed investors net sales in April slipped 7 percent compared to a year ago, citing increased macroeconomic uncertainty and inflation for the decrease.
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