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Score 74 - Account in Jeopardy: Blue Nile hires CMO amid focus on technology, personalization

Online diamond and fine jeweler retailer started a year ago and has not yet announced next steps. We are still confirming Wheeler's email and will update as we learn more.

Blue Nile also rounded out their executive team with CFO Bill Koefoed, who started in March; CEO Jason Goldberger, who started in the summer of 2017; chief product officer Dave Fleischman, who started last October; and chief merchandising officer Katie Zimmerman, who started in March.

Lower level marketing hires include former manager of product marketing & advertising at UNIQLO, Kevin Branscum, as manager of content marketing & strategy (November); former growth manager at FCR, Taryn Fredricks, as email marketing specialist (October); former industry marketing manager at Amazon Web Services, Kate Bodden, as senior data analyst (October); and former marketing communications coordinator at Pulp Design Studios, Shyanne Coppock, as social media specialist (October).

The new executive team has boosted Blue Nile's revenue growth, which had declined in the early 2010s, and is thinking of taking Blue Nile public once again. (Blue Nile was public, but then went private when they were according to Koefoed, but 2020 is definitely a possibility if they can keep their growth momentum strong.

In order to maintain that growth, they wish to continue forming direct (and tighter) relationships with manufacturers and really bolster their use of technology. For instance, right now, a customer can log onto Blue Nile's site and visualize diamonds by zooming in and out and rotating them. Koefoed says he wants to project the diamond onto a customer's hand. They're also interested in upgrading the tech they have at their malls are dying.

In addition, in an interview with JCK, Koefoed said they want to form tighter relationships with customers. Thus, I would also expect personalized marketing to become more prominent in their spend. Most of their dollars go to social media and digital, which shouldn't change if they focus on personalization.

Agency & martech readers -- since the new executives are changing up strategy, they may decide to change up agency relationships, too. Therefore, those of you with jewelry experience should reach out with pitches focused on assisting Blue Nile with their aforementioned plans. Competition will include media AOR since 2014 Spark Foundry. Winmo states creative is handled in-house.

Sellers -- spend went up as a result of the increased profitability and will likely do so further once the new strategies are implemented. Basically, make sure you're keeping top of mind, as well. Blue Nile primarily targets millennials. Spend typically spikes during Q2 and Q4.

iSpot reports Blue Nile began running through national TV in mid-October of last year with three spots that continued airing until June of this year. They totaled $5.8 million ($854,114 in 2017 and $4.9 million in 2018) and played on a diverse array of programming (see targeting right). More TV spots are likely in the pipeline, but expect a lower investment since "the ROI wasn't what [they] had hoped for."

Pathmatics reports a YTD digital display spend of $515,600, an increase from the $419,000 spent in the same timeframe of 2017, a full 2017 spend of $449,100 and a 2016 spend of $101,700. This year ads are placed primarily direct (97%) onto sites like youtube.com, kohls.com, yahoo.com, accuweather.com and military.com. Last year ad placement was split between direct (58%), CJ Affiliate by Conversant (35%) and Google AdSense (7%) and top ad destinations were theonion.com, countryliving.com, lifehacker.com, goodhousekeeping.com and delish.com.

They ran through print in 2016 ($462,036) and in 2017 ($192,040), but nothing has been allocated to the medium so far this year, according to Kantar.