At the 2026 Meltwater Summit, Lisa Zlotnick, Head of U.S. Brand PR at SHEIN, revealed to PRNEWS's Managing Editor, Nicole Schuman, how a surprising consumer insight led to one of the brand's most successful experiential campaigns of the year and what it taught her team about reaching today's most discerning shoppers.
Hint: it starts with listening, and it ends with broken-down silos and a very specific price point.
SHEIN's spring campaign started with a survey of 18,000 app users, revealing that nearly 70% of customers shop for festival looks three to four weeks out—with strict price expectations. That data shaped "Festival House," a pop-up in Los Angeles that opened first to influencers and celebrities, then to the public for a long weekend.
Watch the full interview to hear how SHEIN is rethinking what it means to build with Gen Z, not just market at them.
Nicole Schuman is Managing Editor at PRNEWS.
Transcript:
Nicole Schuman: We're here with Lisa Zlotnick, head of US brand PR at SHEIN. Welcome.
Lisa Zlotnick: Hi. Thank you. Thank you for having me.
Schuman: Um, we know right now that it's harder to connect with customers than ever. There's just so many different opportunities for them. There's so many platforms. But you guys recently had some success around, you know, the opening of festival season um with a cool experiential PR kind of thing that you did in LA. Um it was called Festival House. You're going to be talking about it here at the Meltwater Summit. Just curious you could tell us a little bit more about it and how the idea came to be.
Zlotnick: Yeah, absolutely. So festival season is kind of synonymous with Sheen and what we really wanted to do this year was understand how our customer was buying for festival season. So we issued a survey. We have a very active fan base on our app which we love and we had about 18,000 respondents kind of tell us how they were dressing for music festivals this year. We found almost like 70% were shopping for festival season about three to four weeks in advance. Um, and they basically were buying multiple outfits per day, like two to three outfits per day. And they were very specific on how much they wanted to spend. So for tops and shorts, they wanted to spend no more than $25. For accessories like hats or sunglasses, no more than $10. So, it's a very considered purchase. It's no longer an impulse buy for our customer base. So, learning that, we really wanted to build something that kind of spoke to the pre-planning and spoke to kind of where they wanted from the price point uh their purchases to be. So, we built an integrated marketing campaign called Festival House where essentially it kicked off uh in a retail location on Melrose in Los Angeles. We opened it up to um media influencers, VIPs, celebrities to kind of come in and shop sheen before going to the music festivals.
Schuman: That's cool.
Zlotnick: Which is a lot of fun. Then we were like, okay, we have this beautiful space. We have these wonderful activations, these photo moments. Let's bring that VIP experience to our customers. So, we opened up the space for four days over a weekend, um, a long weekend in Los Angeles, and we had customers come through the space and be able to shop for their festival fits. Uh, and it was a really nice integrated campaign. We had our content team involved, our social media team, uh, our experiential team, everyone kind of came together. Our influencer team, uh, Jennifer Brown, who's also going to be speaking here at Melted Water with me, um, she got some incredible influencers and celebrities into the space. Uh, and it was a really great campaign overall for all of us. And seeing that people were buying intentionally before the music festivals was great for us from a timing perspective because we were able to then see the fits that people got from our festival house. They were wearing them at like the different music festivals, weekend one, weekend two. And so it was really nice to be able to see everybody wearing what they got from us from the the Festival House activation.
Schuman: It's a lot cooler than me and my old concert t-shirt. So, I'll say that much.
Zlotnick: I mean, there's a lot of brands that are at the the music festivals and sometimes it's hard to break through all the noise from a brand perspective. So, for us, kind of like jumping on before uh the music festivals is really great strategy from a brand perspective for us.
Schuman: Yeah. And definitely a good way to test out brick and mortar! Maybe at some point. No, you guys have so many clothes. I can't imagine it would be a gigantic store. Um, so this obviously, like you said, was a, you know, a team effort. Lot of different moving parts there. Um, so what are some best practices that you guys learned for bringing together, you know, PR, social, influencer, marketing teams, you know, when you're working on these brand moments?
Zlotnick: I think it's so important for teams to break down silos. oftentimes, you know, PR sits in one corner, communications is another, you've got influencer over here, social over here, and everybody's kind of doing their own thing. But it's so important when you have an idea to bring everybody to the table and say, "Okay, how can we all activate on this insight together as a fully integrated marketing team and bring everyone to the table and say, how can we from an experiential point of view have this extend from just being a PR influencer social moment to our customers to give them that VIP experience because we are an online retailer and seeing us in a physical space so people can see, touch and feel uh the quality of our products is very important for us to be able to have our customer experience. So we really need everybody to work together. Consumer insights from the very beginning all the way to the execution. So for us that's kind of how we create these fully integrated campaigns is to make sure that everyone has a seat at the table. We're all working together cohesively.
Schuman: That's awesome. Getting together right from the get-go.
Zlotnick: Right from the get-go because oftentimes, and I've heard this from other brand leaders at different companies, it's like social media will be brought in last. It's like, well, if I was just at the table at the very start, I could have helped strategize how this would show up. And that's what we want to try to do is bring everyone together at the front that we're all strategizing up front and the product is actually going to be something that people would want to see or want to be a part of, right?
Schuman: And somebody might have a good idea from a different perspective.
Zlotnick: Yes. And then, you know, you go from there. More ideas the better. I always say that. Yes, of course. For sure.
Schuman: Um, Gen Z is a very discerning commercial audience. They have their values. They they can, you know, tell when something is not authentic, things like that. So, festival season is kind of a cool way to let them in and capture their attention. You know, what are some other ideas you're looking at from a brand PR perspective to capture their attention?
Zlotnick: You're absolutely right. Gen Z is very discerning and they're very culturally smart. They've grown up with social media. They know when they're being marketed at. They know what they're very well-versed in advertising. So, you have to be very deliberate as to how you build. But you have to build something with them. They need to feel a part of a community. And that's what we've kind of recognized over time, whether it be through Festival House or any sort of marketing campaigns that we do, is the community building of Gen Z is something that they love and they want to be a part of. That I think helps separate uh a brand like SHEIN from other brands that are still trying to figure out how to best uh work with Gen Z. You can't market at them. You need to build with them.
Schuman: Community is so big. It's like the heart of PR.
Zlotnick: It absolutely is 100%.
Schuman: Yeah. So, I hope people remember that. That's a good lesson. Um, last question.
Zlotnick: Sure.
Schuman: You know, we're here at Meltwater. Any other trends that are going to capture your interest at this sum at the summit, you think? Anything you've heard so far?
Zlotnick: Well, I just heard Gwyneth Paltro's amazing keynote uh that TAM uh which was interesting and interesting concept for her uh to kind of bring forward. I think we're going to learn a lot of different things from brands and what they're seeing happening in the industry right now. from a retail perspective, you know, we're noticing a lot of different retail trends about how customers are shopping, how deliberate they are, how discerning they are with their purchases. Um, so I think it'd be interesting for um us to kind of see what else uh is is out there, what other brands are kind of experiencing, whether it be um new insights of things that are working, things that might be pain points. Um, so it's wonderful to bring together so many great communications and marketing leaders across the spectrum uh to be able to learn from each other. I always love coming to Meltwater and this is my second year as you know. Uh, so it's wonderful to learn from everybody as you're here.
Schuman: Awesome. Well, thank you Lisa for your time. Thank you for having me and thank you for joining us.