In Spring 2022 after several challenges with COVID and logistics issues, Bonobos ran into an issue with delivering packages at their usual speed. Given how important our customers were to us, I was asked to find a way to apologize and ensure we retained the impacted customers on tight timeline and budget. Given we were still having issues at our warehouse we needed to do something that did not require shipping Bonobos product.

From the get go I knew we wanted to do something physical and personalized, a challenge with more than 50,000 customers impacted. Working with my Director of Brand and Director of Production, we searched gifting platforms for something that felt on brand but not in our competitive space, and cost effective. We quickly stumbled about hot sauce which felt like a great fit, and with some witty copy, landed on the message "Sorry we were a hot mess". We ended up producing and sending the apology boxes ourselves, rather than through a platform so we could ensure quality execution. Each box included a personalized note, a small bottle of Truff Hot Sauce and a 30% off promotion code for their next order.

Despite the impact of the promotion code on margin and cost of sending the apology boxes, the campaign generated over $1m in incremental revenue, and reactivated over 80% of impacted customers. Bonobos also received a lot of love across social media for the campaign.