Winning Brand Expression Across Platforms: COS and Every Man Jack on Cohesion, Consistency, and Channel Strategy

At ShopTalk Fall, Lauren Price, SVP of Ecommerce & Digital Marketing, North America at COS, and Nicklaus Hasselberg, VP of Performance Marketing & Ecommerce at Every Man Jack, joined Sam Tomlinson of Warschawski to explore how brands can stand out in an era where consumers encounter them across a dozen different channels from TikTok to Reddit to the store shelf.

Every Man Jack: From multiple personalities to a unified identity

When Hasselberg joined Every Man Jack, consumer research revealed a problem: the brand had what he called “multiple personality disorder.” Some saw it as rugged and outdoorsy, others as urban athleisure, still others as eco-conscious.

The solution wasn’t to pick one identity, but to knit these into a cohesive brand proposition anchored in clean formulations, an adventurous spirit, and inclusive masculinity. “We had to socialize that within our team,” he explained. “It’s not that every single piece of creative needs to be scrutinized, but everyone needs to know what the brand stands for.”

This clarity has since guided storytelling, ambassador programs, and channel-specific activations, from TikTok testimonials to outdoor sports partnerships, ensuring that content feels authentic without fragmenting the brand.

COS: Channel differentiation as a strength

For COS, the challenge was different: how to avoid diluting a premium fashion brand while engaging across wildly different platforms. Price described their strategy as “embracing channel differentiation, not resisting it.”

She pointed to COS’s recent Fashion Week show as an example. The event itself was brand-led, but the storytelling splintered by platform:

• On YouTube, a full-length show video.

• On Instagram, behind-the-scenes styling details.

• On TikTok, looser, creator-driven moments.

Each execution was different in format and tone, but together they painted a consistent picture of COS as a design-driven brand with cultural edge.

Creative meets performance

Both leaders spoke about the shift inside their organizations toward tighter integration of creative and performance marketing. Hasselberg noted how his performance team now feeds creative with real-time insights, while creative teams have learned to “speak the language of metrics,” thinking not just about aesthetics but about open rates, conversions, and cost of acquisition.

“The evolution,” Price added, “is starting from the channel itself, saying here’s what this platform demands, and then creating brand-specific content that works in that context.”

Testing, learning, and measuring impact

In a fragmented media world, measurement is far from solved. Hasselberg admitted: “There isn’t a single metric that tells me everything I’m doing is making sense across all channels.” Instead, Every Man Jack relies on layered approaches, from sales lifts and geo tests to brand equity studies and engagement metrics, while keeping flexibility to evolve strategy when assumptions prove wrong.

Price echoed the importance of defining the job to be done for each channel: some content is for awareness, others for conversion. The key is to avoid holding every platform to the same KPI, while maintaining consistency in voice and design.

Lessons from the founders’ playbooks

Asked for closing advice, Hasselberg urged marketers to trust instinct alongside data:

Price’s advice: align stakeholders on both short- and long-term goals when testing campaigns, so no one mistakes near-term noise for failure.

Takeaway: Whether it’s a grooming brand reconciling multiple identities or a fashion house tailoring content per platform, the lesson was clear: bold brand expression doesn’t mean uniformity everywhere. It means clarity of purpose, consistency of voice, and creativity adapted to context.

Independently Created. Not affiliated with Shoptalk.

Unofficially Shoptalk is a ClickZ Media publication in the Events division