Samantha Hardman was Senior Manager, Marketing Online and Digital at ANZ up until last year, when she threw in her corporate career to start her own fashion label, Bento.

Leaving corporate

“For me I took the role in senior management about a week before my 26th birthday and it occurred to me that at 26 I’d achieved everything that I really wanted to achieve in marketing,” says Hardman. “It got to the point where I was having the same conversations with the same kinds of people, about the same stuff, over and over and over. I didn’t feel that was adding any value anymore and I wasn’t in an environment where I could achieve what I wanted to. I took a look back and decided what I really wanted to do with my life. My dream was to run a fashion label so I decided there’s no time like the present c’est la vie, all that kind of stuff, so I started Bento.”

Social media

Hardman feels she landed the role at ANZ because of her social media experience. “You’d have to ask the guy that interviewed me, but I think that the only reason I got the job was because of my experience in social media. For a lot of people social media is a technology that they have seen develop in their lifetime, whereas in a lot of ways online and the internet, whilst being older than me, are something that have kind of grown up whilst I’ve grown up. I was in a unique position where I was born into an online world and it meant that I was really able to understand it and harness it, from a corporate perspective.” Hardman managed ANZ affiliate social saving platform Smarty Pig’s Facebook, and provided responses to social media related enquiries directed to bank executives.

When it came to starting social media for Bento, Hardman says, “I didn’t have an intentional approach, insofar as the day that I resigned from the bank, I started my blog and the blog has stayed with us the whole time. It’s been in various incarnations but all the history from day one is still there. Also I have been on Twitter, since I think it’s April 2007 and so that was kind of just a natural part of it.” The Bento blog is now frequented by consumers and industry alike, and communicates an honest, journal-like story of the brand and Hardman’s journey.

Selling online

Considering her background, Hardman has a traditional approach to fashion commerce. “I know from experience that as soon as people touch a Bento product, they want it. The quality speaks volumes. You can see everything, from the fabric to the stitch – the seams are amazing (and I can say that because I don’t make it myself). I think in that respect, building a new brand and actually experiencing it for yourself is really important in person. That said, I think you can develop a brand as a concept online quite well, that’s the reason that people still advertise things like fragrances on TV. There is nothing about that fragrance that you could possibly appreciate on TV, but it’s about it as a concept and I think that a lot of that can be done online.

“I personally believe we are seeing the second dot com movement at the moment. The best way to get in touch, the best response rates you will get for any person under 20, is to send them old fashioned mail, because they don’t get any.”

Whilst many bemoan e-commerce as strangling bricks and mortar retail, Hardman thinks consumers will return to stores. “I think once people get over this, people will want to go back to stores. They’ll want to touch things, they’ll want to go shopping with their friends on Saturday when the sun’s out. They’ll want that connection.”

Hardman highlights that an improvement retail service in Australia would contribute to this shift, recalling her experience at Christine on Flinders Lane. “It’s underground, you go down this set of carpeted stairs and there’s actually a security guy standing at the bottom of the stairs. It’s like this Aladdin’s cave of handbags and jewels and accessories and shoes and you could spend hours in there, just going through this wonderland. It even smells beautiful in there. You’re not going to get that online.”

Bento: www.thisisbento.com

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Twitter role:

Featured: Samantha Hardman, Bento: @thisisbento

Article by: Lou Pardi: @loupardi, @smkapac