Scott Burger, president of the Americas for Pandora, spoke to JCK in June at the company’s elaborate booth at JCK Las Vegas. Burger, a former grocery executive, discussed the brand’s current marketing and retail distribution plans.
 

JCK: Tell us about Pandora’s new marketing campaign. 

Burger: We are launching a new global campaign, “Unique As We Are,” built on the success of [2015’s] “The Art of You.” A lot of the focus that came through in “The Art of You” you will see carried through in “Unique As We Are,” which really celebrates women and jewelry’s role in how they personalize themselves. We are excited about the floating-locket concept launching later this year. It will be full 360, launched in every market around the world.

 

JCK: Many of your independent jeweler accounts are “white” and “silver,” referring to unbranded accounts. You have dropped a lot of those accounts in recent years. What is their future?

Burger: What we have said, and continue to say, is we believe an important part of the Pandora growth story over the last decade has been the growing importance of brands in jewelry. We think we are well positioned there, and we think that concept has been an important part of the growth over the last few years. We are very proud of the fact that, if you look at our gold [level accounts] or shop-in-shops and even our franchisees, most of them started out as white partners at some point in time. We have a huge amount of people who have been on this journey with us—some who have decided it’s not what they want to do. At some point we may have a decision where we have a relationship and we seem to be going in different directions, and it’s time to part ways.

 

JCK: Would you consider yourself the biggest brand in the jewelry industry? 

Burger: If you look at revenue, we are second behind Tiffany & Co. We are very proud of that. Tiffany has a 100-year heritage. We have been in North America for 13 years. If you look globally, the amount of balance and success we have had around the world is unparalleled. I can’t think of another brand in jewelry that has the balanced success across the three regions that we have.