The New Normal for Party City

Julie Roehm, Chief Marketing and Experience Officer at Party City has made some vast changes at the organization in just a few months. Her marketing techniques are unique and she has played an important role in guiding the company through the pandemic.

Julie Roehm was recently featured in Vivaldi’s Interaction Field Series – a conversation with the founder of Vivaldi, Erich Joachimsthaler. Julie and Erich delved into how she navigated her way through the pandemic, from the perspective of a marketer.

You can read the third part of their conversation below, or watch the video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-yBpcex6Y8

“We wanted to lean in heavily and we chose to thrive in the pandemic, instead of just survive. When the stores were closed, we knew that we needed to figure out a way to deliver the goods. All other big distribution centers were slightly slower. Getting the goods to people by the traditional shipping methodology was not optimal. Curbside pickup and same day delivery were essential to get us there. Now, they are here to stay. We are leaning into that and adding even more technology to make it easier. When we introduced them, it was a very big transformation that our associates had to quickly adapt to. We had never done this before.

“I have told this story before, but I have a lot of automotive experience with Chrysler and still have a strong network in the automotive industry. We connected with Hertz and I reached out to them and said ‘You guys need to rent out your cars and create work for your employees, and we have party goods to deliver! You have mini vans which is great for balloons.’ We worked with Hertz and from the first phone call I made to them, to the first delivery, was just eight days. It all happened so fast. Our goal was just to get it done as fast as possible because it’s what our customers wanted. We jumped in and made do – we learnt a lot very quickly. Now we have curb side pickup in every store and same day delivery for a vast majority of them.”

Read part 1 of their conversation here.

Read part 2 of their conversation here.