Experiential Retail as a Loyalty Driver at a Heritage Brand With Tecovas CEO David Lafitte

In this episode of Adspeak by ADWEEK, senior media reporter Mark Stenberg speaks with David Lafitte, president and CEO at Western wear retailer Tecovas, about scaling a heritage brand without losing authenticity. 

David explains how the brand expands into new markets while staying rooted in Western storytelling, invests in experiential retail to build loyalty, and balances performance marketing with long-term brand building. 

He highlights the importance of using cultural trends as tailwinds, not as a core strategy, while maintaining craft quality as a core differentiator. The conversation also explores AI’s role in operations, not creativity, and how an omnichannel approach, including digital, retail, and wholesale, drives sustainable growth for modern DTC brands.

What you’ll learn:

• How to thread the authenticity needle when expanding into non-traditional markets
• Why full-funnel marketing outperforms lower-funnel strategies for premium products 
• The radical hospitality framework for creating defensible retail experiences
• How to leverage cultural momentum without chasing trends
• Why AI should enhance operations, not replace authentic creative content
• The omnichannel growth playbook for DTC brands

David Lafitte is the President and CEO of Tecovas, a leading and heritage Westernwear retailer. David is recognised for his expertise in scaling authentic heritage brands while maintaining cultural integrity in competitive markets.

With a background in brand strategy and retail expansion, he has successfully transformed Tecovas from a digitally native direct-to-consumer company into an omnichannel powerhouse with 56 locations across 24 states, wholesale partnerships, and a distinctive retail experience centered on “radical hospitality.”

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Episode Highlights: 

[01:08] Use Culture as Tailwind, Not Strategy — David stresses that Tecovas benefits from the cowboy culture surge but doesn’t build its strategy around it. Instead, the brand stays anchored to its mission: honor the West and craft its future. By maintaining strict authenticity guardrails, Tecovas avoids pandering to trends. Even in new markets like New York, it preserves Western storytelling, ensuring growth doesn’t erode credibility with core customers.

[03:15] Scale Channels Without Diluting Voice — David explains how Tecovas nearly lost its identity by drifting toward generic retail messaging. The fix: maintain a consistent brand voice across all channels, retail, digital, and social, while adapting only to physical environments. Stores may reflect local context, but the narrative stays rooted in Western heritage. This disciplined consistency allows geographic and channel expansion without creative dilution or loss of brand distinctiveness.

[07:49] Win Retail Through Radical Hospitality — Tecovas builds a competitive moat through “radical hospitality,” pairing premium products with memorable in-store experiences. Commission-free, highly trained staff focus on education, while services like customization and shoeshines deepen engagement. This approach drives emotional loyalty and higher spend, 25% of transactions include customization. Unlike discounts or product features, this experience-led strategy is difficult for competitors to replicate at scale.

[11:03] Invest in Brand to Lift Performance — Tecovas moved beyond lower-funnel performance marketing after realizing it limited growth. Lafitte highlights the power of brand-building creative to educate customers and create an emotional connection, critical for premium products. Campaigns like cinematic storytelling ads elevated baseline awareness that persisted beyond spend. The lesson: investing in upper-funnel marketing builds lasting equity, making lower-funnel efforts more efficient over time.

[13:44] Use AI for Ops, Not Creativity — Lafitte takes a selective approach to AI, embracing it for supply chain planning, inventory allocation, and demand forecasting, while avoiding it in creative work. AI improves efficiency behind the scenes, but using it for storytelling risks diluting Tecovas’ authentic voice. The takeaway: apply AI where it enhances operations, but protect the human creativity that defines brand identity.