This post was created in partnership with Zappi
To keep up with today’s consumers, brands need abundant data and a willingness to adapt.
During a Brandweek 2026 fireside chat co-hosted with Zappi, Rebecca Stewart, brand editor of ADWEEK, sat down with Aubrie Corey, global VP of brand marketing at Carter’s, and Nataly Kelly, CMO of Zappi, to discuss how a heritage brand can stay fresh and relevant.
Balancing consistency and adaptability
Over its 161 years, Carter’s has learned the importance of connecting with successive generations of customers. That’s the impulse behind its recent brand evolution—a reintroduction to today’s parents.
“Gen Z isn’t necessarily picking brands because they were their parents’ brands, but because they’re choosing those brands,” Corey explained. “With each generation, you have to ensure that the way you’re expressing yourself really resonates.”
The strategy is rooted in data showing that parenting itself has transformed. Whereas millennials adopted a “mini me” approach to styling their children, as Corey put it, Gen Z parents are more interested in brands that encourage their kids’ self-expression.
“Children come into this world with a light entirely their own,” Corey said. “They come in with such a unique individuality, and it’s not for us to create that uniqueness. It’s for us to recognize that and to protect and encourage it.”
It’s exactly why brands need a steady stream of customer data. “Striking that balance between consistency and adaptability—and evolving to where the consumer is headed—really requires a constant pulse of consumer insights to feed how you evolve the brand,” Kelly observed.
The business of memory making
Sometimes, this generational connection is less about modernizing the brand than harkening back to the good old days. When consumer insights and conversations revealed a strong interest in vintage clothing, Carter’s brand OshKosh B’gosh launched the OshKosh Reissued Collection, reviving customer favorites from the 1980s and 1990s.
“It’s print-for-print some of our vintage products that are so resonant with someone who’s a Gen X or millennial, who remembers when they were wearing that product,” Corey said. “But it also feels new and fresh for this generation as well.”
