If a brand is the sum of all conversations about it, then traditional push advertising is akin to standing in Starbucks with a megaphone. Some of today's hottest brands are instead choosing personal interactions with their consumers - witness fashion retailer Aritzia's handwritten notes from sales staff to their high-value customers, or bicycle manufacturer Cervélo's cycling tours with pro athletes and preference for documentaries over product-centred ads. It's a surefire way to turn consumers into fans - and it's getting the Canadian brands seen on the international stage.

The hottest new teen fashion retail brand in the U.S. right now is...Canadian

Sally Parrott has no room in her marketing budget for advertising. The senior marketing director for Vancouver-based women's fashion retailer Aritzia prefers to put her money where her customers are: in her stores.

"What we do is bring the aspiration of a boutique to an accessible place for a young woman," says Parrott. "We create the most compelling and engaging environment possible and then we let people come to us."

Those people are 15- to 35-year-old females, and they are coming in droves. They don't watch TV like they used to, and even de rigeur fashion mag advertising doesn't pack the punch it once did.

So Parrott pulls the girls - she calls the 95% female-staffed company a "chick fest" - into the 42 North American locations using avant-garde window displays, hot new music, designer furniture and finishings and oh yeah, clothes: about 80% of store stock is made up of "brands exclusive to Aritzia" like the younger-skewing lifestyle brand TNA and the older-skewing fashion brand Wilfred, sustainable label Community and Park Life, a VANOC-licensed product line for the 2010 Olympic Games. (When Bachelorette star Gillian wore a Park Life hoodie on the show, Aritzia sold 600 on special order in 10 days.) The other 20% is made up of $200 jeans and of-the-moment brands like Charlotte Ronson, Cheap Monday and Obey.

Aritzia sales staff - for whom personal style is part of a professional skill set - are trained to develop long-term, one-on-one relationships with VIP customers, sending handwritten thank you notes or hefty gift cards to recognize frequent or big purchases.

"We develop those relations, and then we enable them to have the word of mouth and the loyalty without pushing it on anyone, so it happens more organically," says Parrott. "We don't invest any dollars in trying to bring people in the door who aren't already shopping with us; we don't invest huge amounts of money in people who one-off-shop with us. We look at people who have been loyal to us and we're loyal to them."

Whether they know it or not, loyal customers also influence the merchandising mix; a store on Bloor Street in Toronto will have a different offering than one on Queen Street, with 30 to 40% variation. "We are very sales responsive, so we'll put product in store and then if something's selling we'll continue to reinforce it; if it's not selling we move it out fairly quickly. So those influencers, by virtue of that, do have impact."