Like many brands that have been sold primarily through retail and wholesale channels, headphone and gaming brand Skullcandy had few opportunities to create direct connections with its customers. Recognizing how valuable customer data could be to its operations, the brand, founded in 2003, began growing its direct-to-consumer (DTC) sales approximately two years ago, but still lacked tools to encourage consumers to share their first-party data.
Skullcandy did offer a post-purchase experience that could be activated via QR codes on its packaging, but “it was fragmented for the consumer and not used well,” admitted Evin Catlett, Global VP at Skullcandy in an interview with Retail TouchPoints. A QR code on the outside of the Skullcandy box led consumers to a product sizzle video, while one inside took purchasers to the app store.
That changed this year when the brand deployed packaging featuring QR codes supported by a unified solution from Brij. The program, which maintains the Skullcandy branding throughout, kicked off in January with rolling changes to its packaging, and the first official unboxing took place in April 2025.
“We wanted to streamline our use of QR codes both inside and on the packaging and make [the post-purchase journey] much more intentional,” said Catlett. “The first thing you see when you open the package is ‘Scan me to start,’ and that launches into the Brij-powered journey.”
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The new system supports localized customer flows across the U.S. and four international markets, and has been successful in connecting product registrations to follow-up campaigns that boosted app downloads over time. “Based on where the consumer is interacting with the product, there’s a different language and landing page so that compliance is maintained,” said Brij CEO Kait Stephens in an interview with Retail TouchPoints. The customer-facing journey also differs on a product-by-product basis, allowing Brij and Skullcandy to collect purchase data on hundreds of SKUs. Now, Skullcandy has 80 different landing pages just for the U.S. market.
The results after six months have been impressive. Skullcandy has:
- Identified 60,000 offline customers;
- Had a total of 1.75 million customer engagements;
- Clocked more than 11,000 daily scans/clicks across the Brij-powered experiences;
- Achieved a 20% scan-to-registration rate (well above industry benchmarks); and
- Created measurable increases in app conversions and first-party email capture.
Skullcandy Prizes New Access to Customer Data
Noting that 85% of product registrations are now coming from purchases made through retail and marketplace channels, Catlett said that deploying the QR codes has “opened up the opportunity for Skullcandy to have a direct connection with people who are buying something outside of our owned channels. That gives us access to consumer insights and data that give us a much better understanding of these retail and marketplace customers.”
The ability to engage with consumers directly as a brand for the post-purchase journey has improved Skullcandy’s CRM capabilities and led to an “immediate uptick in loyalty program adoption,” said Catlett. “We can also pass anonymized data into our media channels, giving us the ability to have more ‘stickiness’ for customers and to be in front of them more, to keep us top of mind for future purchases.”
Previously, this data would have been unavailable to Skullcandy unless a consumer bought the product on Skullcandy.com or made a specific effort to subscribe to the brand’s offerings. “This is not data that retailers were sharing [with us], and for us it’s a huge unlock; we’re able to see much more of the marketplace/offline purchase behavior than before,” said Catlett.
The benefits also flow to Skullcandy’s customers. Catlett said the brand asked itself, “How do we do a better job of supporting the customer experience from the moment they take it out of the packaging? How do we immediately give consumers product support? How do we get them to the right app in the app store? We want to set [customers] up for success.”
Looking Ahead
Skullcandy has even bigger plans for this new wealth of data. “The next step is for us to figure out how this becomes a product feedback loop,” said Catlett, noting that the brand can now gather data on “which SKUs are registered most, and which retailers are driving the most engagement. We can also target product owners who didn’t purchase from us.
“The biggest unlock for us will be linking online and offline purchase behavior, so we get a better understanding of how physical retail influences brand loyalty,” Catlett added, noting that Skullcandy is considering how to start leveraging these customer connections for community-building via event activations. Additionally, “if we’re doing a TV spot, we’ll [encourage viewers] to scan the QR code on their TV. Even though it’s not purchase-related, it’s giving us a connection to a consumer.”
The data, and insights generated from it, will have multiple applications. Product teams will benefit from knowing more about where and how people are using the products. Additionally, Skullcandy wants to drive more data integration with its app, “so we can match product registration data with [customers’] listening habits, which could inspire product design,” said Catlett. “We also could share anonymized trend data with our retail partners to help them stock better, by knowing which product lines convert into deeper brand relationships.”
But it’s Skullcandy’s own direct relationship with customers that is the basis for all these benefits. With it, regardless of when or where that customer makes a purchase of a Skullcandy product, “when we have been able to build a relationship with them, it translates into a high likelihood that Skullcandy will also be their second, third and fourth purchase,” said Catlett.
