Upper funnel marketing works, says Kristen D’Arcy, Chief Marketing Officer at True Religion. And she has the results to prove it.
D’Arcy began at the apparel brand in 2023 as the brand’s first CMO. She drove several initiatives to increase brand awareness, including deepening the brand’s cultural ties by tapping into sports and music influencers and increase its sales among women shoppers.
She had the green light: The brand’s CEO Michael Buckley and its board are supportive of marketing, D’Arcy said, as she ramped up these large investments. When D’Arcy started, the brand spent roughly 3% of total sales on marketing. Today, that’s increased to 10% of sales. And the investments have paid off.
“We have actually doubled the size of the business in about three and a half years,” D’Arcy said. “So our total sales will be just under $500 million this year.”
That means a 10% of total revenue marketing budget today is a much larger number than it was a few years ago.
D’Arcy outlined the brand’s marketing strategy for Chief Marketer, including its bullishness on upper funnel marketing, targeting women, its recently launched 2025 holiday campaign and future marketing investments.
‘Wrapped in True’ for the 2025 Holiday Season
The apparel brand debuted its 2025 holiday season campaign in mid-October with the tagline “Wrapped in True” with singer Ciara as the star of the campaign, along with five other influencer women. The aim is a celebration of confidence, individuality and unapologetic self-expression, while embracing the multidimensional identity of today’s woman, D’Arcy said.
“Ciara embodies our core values of authenticity, confidence and reinvention,” she said. “She’s not just a performer, she’s a business woman, a philanthropist. She’s a mother, which perfectly mirrors the multihyphenate women that this campaign celebrates.”
The retailer typically launches its holiday campaign slightly before Halloween, as web search data indicates consumers are browsing for holiday gifts in October. And consumers have responded to the campaign already, she said.
“This playbook has worked over the last couple of years,” she said. “We’ve seen upwards of a 40-50% increase in traffic to our ecommerce website year over year. So those increases are huge. We’ve seen double digit growth with regard to (holiday season) sales.”
True Religion Grows in Uncertain Times
These results have even translated to the mall, with foot traffic at its owned mall stores up 11% compared with its own stores last year. This is especially significant because that same report indicated mall traffic in September and October was down year over year, meaning True Religion is bucking these trends.
“We believe it’s because we are creating these right marketing moments at the right time to drive interest and footsteps and clicks, which helps give a lot of wind in our sails as we go into the critical moments of the holiday season, like Black Friday and Cyber Monday,” D’Arcy said.
Even though headlines warn holiday sales might be soft with consumers tightening their purchases, True Religion is cautiously optimistic about the season ahead. D’Arcy points to the 50% year over year increase in traffic to its website and double-digit increase in sales in the few weeks since launching its campaign as proof.
“Hopefully the bets that we’ve made from a product perspective and a marketing perspective will pay off,” she said.
True Religion Aims for Women Shoppers
Beyond Ciara, True Religion also is collaborating with model Nicole Anderson, former professional tennis player Ayan Broomfield, rapper Kash Doll, entrepreneur Mahogany Jones, and activewear brand founder Alisah Washington, for the “Wrapped In True” holiday campaign.
The female-powered lineup is intentional as the brand works to appeal to women shoppers. Women represent 80% of the household purchasing decisions, according to IMD, and True Religion wants to appeal more to them, as they will buy not only for themselves, but their kids and spouses, and across categories including shoes, eyewear and fragrance.
When D’Arcy started at the brand sales were split 60% men, 40% women. Today, it’s roughly half and half, with the goal of getting it to 60% women, 40% men, she said.
Beyond the holiday season, True Religion has routinely tapped into celebrities and influencers to amplify its brand through its “Team True” platform. The group consists of 200 artists, athletes and taste makers who receive True Religion products and post about it on their social media accounts, and the brand uses them in their ads. The influencer’s engaged followings see them wearing the brand and that moves the needle, D’Arcy said.
Invest in the Upper Funnel
This all helps to build its brand. Another initiative is investing in brand building in the upper funnel with paid media, such as YouTube masthead takeovers and audio ads.
“We have seen that upper funnel works in terms of not only driving brand awareness and consideration, but actually making the lower funnel marketing perform, like paid search or Buy Now ads across Meta, for example,” D’Arcy said. “It makes those much more efficient.”
Looking ahead to 2026, D’Arcy said that the brand is looking for “different ways to create and distribute episodic content” in another upper-funnel brand play.
“We’re very bullish on that and owning audiences rather than only buying them through paid media. So stay tuned for more of that in Q1,” she said.
