Coco Kind founder Priscilla Tsai explains that her brand stopped spending on traditional influencer marketing because she believes in ultra-transparency and deep customer relationships over mass appeal. She replaced influencer trips with customer brand trips, bringing eight superfans instead of eight creators, to build genuine community. Tsai emphasizes that brands should prioritize having a thousand obsessed customers over a million casual followers, as this creates products the world truly needs. Her approach involves publicly breaking down product costs, explaining reformulation decisions, and maintaining consistent transparency about business practices, which has helped Coco Kind achieve sustainable growth over 11 years.
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Why This Beauty Founder Stopped Spending On Influencers with Priscilla TsaiAjouté :
We've created such a machine of marketing.
>> More brands are getting in on influencer marketing and they're spending more and Coco Kind is going the other direction >> just generally not doing like shallow efforts in anything like anything we're doing. It's like deep relationships. Our particular statement is that our customers matter so much to us. I would rather have a thousand people who are absolutely obsessed with us than a million people who kind of like us or kind of know us. If you can get somebody to like truly love and appreciate and need your product or your brand, you're likely creating something that the world actually wants and needs. I think that the industry does not really support that true transparency. And why should I hold back the answer? Like, >> so in the last episode, we had on Camille Moore. She is the president and found co-founder of Thirdeye Insights, which is an agency out of Toronto that helps brands with marketing and positioning.
>> Oh, cool. and she came on to talk about just the marketing landscape in the beauty space right now. So, we talked about world building and urgency marketing tactics and like gosh, we covered everything and we talked about a different a lot of different case studies of brands who are doing it right, brands who are hitting the mark, but it's one thing to analyze the marketing landscape and it's another to actually talk to a brand founder of a brand who is in that ecosystem totally >> building a brand right now. And so I knew after we had I had the conversation with Camille, I was like we have to have on Priscilla Sai from founder of Coco Kind.
>> Thank you.
>> Because I feel like out of all the brands that are out there, you are doing something >> I mean I don't know if I want to use the word radical, but it feels that way sometimes like you're really going against the grain and doing something I feel like is smart, innovative, thoughtful. So I'm so happy to have you here.
>> Thank you for having me. I mean I am so honored to be here and it's on a subject that I feel really passionate about too.
So very happy to be here.
>> Okay. So for people who know Coco Kind but maybe don't know you talk to the listeners about where you were when you started and where you are with the brand now in 20126.
>> Yeah. So we launched in 2015 and it's been 11 years of Cocoind. I have truly grown up with this brand and people talk about, oh, you worked in finance before and I'm like, I only worked for four years before starting my company. So, I was really, really young. And I feel like I've had like four careers with Cocoine alone. So, for me, my background, I grew up in Michigan. I went to school in Philly. Always wanted to do business because my mom loved small business. She she ran a small business for many, many years. And so I went to business school um and then I ended up going to New York and working in finance and always knew that I wanted to start my business and with Coco Kine I felt really passionate about de development of skincare and having that whole process be way more transparent for consumers because whether it's ingredients and just caring about what ingredients you're using and wanting to learn about that what works for your skin whether it's pricing packaging all these things I felt like wow I have no idea about this and I'm spending so much money on all my beauty products and I wanted to really create a brand that was able to bring people behind the scenes.
So for very much like an accessible skincare brand not only in terms of like the product value but also in terms of like our education, right? So everything we put out there, it's not like here's a shining object and that's it. It's like here's a shiny object, but like let me tell you each and every decision we made to get this product to life and allowing people to further understand like what they're actually paying for, what they're really using in their skincare products. And so, yeah, I think it's been such an incredible 11 years. I I'd say I started off I've found her in the industry that's probably started off with the least amount of experience, but have grown so much. And I think because of that, like we just have a really I feel so fortunate to have the growth story that we've had, but it's been because we consistently have pushed ourselves to grow and learn and really passionately do so that has allowed us to be in this position. But absolutely did not start off with enough experience that I needed to. So I had to earn that over time.
>> It reminds me of this quote that says change before you have to. And I feel like when I as I've watched you and your brand on your trajectory, I feel like you're always a few paces above the curve in terms of change. So tell me just even looking at the last 3 to 5 years, the beauty landscape.
>> What have you seen change and how have you evolved the brand in the last 3 to 5 years? Yeah, I mean I think in the last 3 to 5 years we've had such an explosion of brand also brand content, brand marketing. Oh my gosh, like beauty and marketing is at like an all-time high.
There's nothing that is like novel.
There's nothing that's new. Everything is the same, right? Like everybody's trying to do something that is just like kind of oneupping each other. And I feel like the whole landscape has gotten so competitive because of social media really, right? Like five years ago, we weren't here talking, well, I guess five years ago, we were talking about Tik Tok, but like seven years ago, we weren't talking about Tik Tok. And certainly in the past 5 years, it's completely exploded in terms of its relevancy in our true day-to-day, right?
And so with all of that, it's created this like just a machine of marketing in beauty. And so I think that has forced every brand to kind of like define your path, right? Or you're just one and the same and that becomes really hard to stick around for so many years. So I think it's just become so much more competitive and as a brand you do have to be smart. You do have to listen and change and grow otherwise like I don't think you would last 3 to 5 years.
>> Definitely. So like social media, I mean we saw a bunch of M&As happen like kind of before Tik Tok exploded. We had the Drunk Elephants, there was the IT Cosmetics. And I think >> a lot of people saw that and thought, "Oh, there's real opportunity and money here." And it wasn't just I want to go and create a brand and, you know, make change. Like I feel like part of your story is that you struggled with your skin and wanted to create from a place of purpose. And so I think in the last 3 to 5 years, seven years, we're seeing people create brands with more of a monetary incentive.
>> Totally. And I think I've always been really unique in that way. Like I said, my mom, she ran her business for 30 years. I grew up going to her business.
I was like stuffing flyers. This is as a I was like a very little kid. And I always like love the idea of just creating something. I'm very much like a maker. Like I love building things. I like making things. Like I like the idea of like creating things and I'm just very actionoriented. So just the idea of like just truly building anything is really exciting for me. And and the other one of the other reasons I started Coco Kind was I believe that business can be a really powerful tool for impact and change. And that was something that I was really struck by when I was actually in finance and I was learning about all these new like food companies that were doing their businesses and they're creating their supply chains in a really different and responsible way.
And so I really believe that business is not the enemy of like impact and actually can be really powerful and using our platform for whatever reasons you want, right? But to have impact for us is really powerful. So yeah, it's so much more than just kind of like the idea of like a monetary gain for me like this is such a purpose for me. This is like a a true like passion, you know? I have a passion not only for our products but also for our business, also for building like it's like everything, you know? It's really like what I feel like I mean it feels really cheesy to say but it feels like a life's work for me where I really believe in what I'm doing and I wouldn't do anything else.
>> I think that comes through. I mean it resonates so much from me as someone who sees a lot of different beauty brands.
The way you guys present yourselves and are communitydriven the ultra transparency. I mean you guys I can't think of any other brands that lean into ultransparency in the way that you guys do. Like I remember, correct me if it was a few years ago, but you guys started doing a breakdown on social media of like this is how much we spend on marketing, this is how much we spend on packaging, like breaking down the cost of the product and how much of that goes to wear.
>> Yeah, we will do that. And that's like one example out of a thousand, you know, like the other day someone's asking me what's why can't we do or can we do this refill of our vitalizing eye cream because they love it so much. They know that the cooling metal tip has got to be expensive. And I'll just like immediately record something just breaks down like why we actually can't do that.
And it's for me it's just about there's so many questions that we get and why should I hold back the answer? Like I genuinely want to teach people why we do the things we do or sometimes like it might be like a negative question like people will be like well why did you reformulate this or why did you do this right? And I think that's like I totally understand that question. And sometimes people will assume things. They'll be like you reformulated because you wanted to cheap you you wanted to make more money, right? Like that's like a lot of times the mass assumption for any company. It's like you reformulated to basically make it cheaper. And I will come on our channels and be like that's actually like we have never ever touched and changed a product after it's been in market and had the cost go down. It's always been the cost has increased after we touched it because of some reason or another. Maybe we had an issue with every single time this consistency of a batch because there was some issue in production that that forced us to actually narrow the specs and therefore have to make a tweak to the formula.
That's always been a more expensive change. We've never had a change to a product be cheaper. And those are things where I'm like I'm so passionate about my business and I'm like well I want to explain that to people. And I believe that when you explain that to people, they're like, "Oh my god, I'm learning something. I appreciate that value. I appreciate that relationship this brand is like building with me, right? And this like really transparent discussion." I don't think that's a bad thing. And for us, we're not this like 60 $80 brand that's like just like very prestige and we want to everything needs to be perfect and aspirational. That's very much not who we are. So it works for us. It's like it works for me as my that's my personality, but it also works for our brand. And I guess that makes sense because I created the brand, but it's a reflection of like how I want to show up in this world and the brand that we're creating. And ultimately like it shows up in our products too and the discussion that we have around the products and I'm very happy to have that transparency with our customers. When I think about that ultransparency, I'm curious about on the back end and internally with your team, what does the discussion look like around, hey, this is ultra transparency to serve the customer. This is ultra transparency for performance. Uh this is ultransparency.
How do we create some guard guard rails around it for brand safety? Talk me through those three points.
>> You know, people you would think that we think a lot more about it than we do.
the business and the company that I've built and the team that I've built.
They're used to I mean they will see things on TikTok the same time a lot of times the same time as everybody else and they're like, "Oh, he's talking about what she's talking about on Tik Tok." Like I record my content and I post it, right? Like it's not going through checks and balances like, "Is this okay to say? Is this okay to say?"
Of course, like if there's something really big that I'm saying, I will absolutely run it through my team and everything. But they know that that's going to happen. They know that's part of the brand, then they use it and they're like they see it and they're like, "Wow, I learned something." Like the other day, our um social media manager, she was like, "I learn stuff when you when I listen to your TikToks that are already posted." And of course, because she's not on the product development team, so of course you should be learning things, right? like I I shouldn't expect someone in working in social media to know all the intricacies that I'm explaining in product development that I'm ultimately posting on TikTok. So actually it's there's not a lot of like process around it. But what it is is she'll watch that and then she'll be like I'm going to then turn this into a post, a carousel. I can actually talk about this too in a different way or bring it into a different platform, a different format.
And so it's actually like very much just like in our DNA. It's not like we have to try so hard. And that's where everybody on my team is bought into it.
Maybe they're surprised, maybe they're learning something, but they're never like, "Oh my god, that's not our brand or anything because I mean at this point it's just so much about who we are." And they know to expect it and they're also here for it, right? Like this is the team and the brand that we're building.
So people I think really appreciate it too. I think sometimes where I'm like if I'm like leaking a product, I've tried to get better about stuff like that because they're like, "Okay, like for instance, our Lollipop launch, that was one where like they really didn't want me to leak." Yes. That it was a big launch and they worked so hard on it, so I'm not going to like screw things up and be like, "Hey guys, we're working on this for 9 months." Right. So, I do try to like make sure that the things that they really want me to not talk about, I don't leak it ahead of time to ruin a moment. But otherwise, when it comes to like product development and transparency there, like it's like I'll talk about it and I'll post it and then they'll learn about it and they'll ask me questions and they'll post in a different way and I love that. Like it just it's really in our DNA to be like that.
>> Why do you think historically brands have not come from this place of ultra transparency and do you feel like you are one of the first to lead this movement and that other brands will follow suit with the years to come?
>> I think that there's been such a focus.
Beauty is a very aspirational industry.
We all know that, right? Like that's just how it is. Beauty is always sold by being aspirational. It's like you have to be pretty, you have to be perfect, you have to be richer, and whatever.
Everything is has to be like perfect, right? And yeah, that's just the way that the industry works. And and so I think alongside that, if you're going to be like an aspirational brand, it doesn't really work for there to be like honestly a founder coming on TikTok, no makeup or makeup, but just like sometimes very sloppy and just being like, "Okay, I got this question. Let me explain what the situation is." That doesn't really work, right? So it's I think that the aspirational nature of the industry does not really support that true transparency of decision-m and actually educating customers. What it does support is like here's this product here are the hero ingredients here you know here's the beautiful maybe there's beautiful production images and videos but it's not like oh let me tell you about this issue that we had and how we corrected it or how we did this or let me you told me this and I'm going to fix it right like it's very much like everything needs to be perfect right at the onset >> what about for mid-tier mass brands >> yeah even mass brands mass brands don't I feel like mass brands actually don't have as much communication actually with their customers. Mass brands, we're a mass brand, right? We don't typically mass brands don't have as big of marketing budgets as prestige brands. So, not to say this is everyone, but it just means that like you're not participating in marketing in the same way as like big budget brands are that are constantly doing new campaigns and, you know, new marketing efforts that are just trying to reach people all the time. Like, we don't have that those type of budgets. So, I think sometimes with mass brands, it's actually about the fact that they just maybe aren't as close to the customer and like having as much of that like day-to-day communication or that marketing effort regularly. I think it's kind of like you're in stores, you're selling, you know, with a mass customer. You have a effective price point and, you know, you're just kind of selling in stores basically. Um, so I I think that in some ways like to be a mass brand that has as like prolific of marketing efforts and communication as we do is is also quite unique. One thing I think is quite fascinating that you guys started to um a tactic you started to employ the past year was you moved away from influencer marketing. Now in a time where you know there were stats that came out that in 2025 you know the influencer marketing spend has ballooned to 32 billion and in 2025 80% of brands increase their influencer marketing spend in 2025 and 47% of those that increase increased it by 11%. So, we're seeing the trend. More brands are getting in on influencer marketing and they're spending more and Coco Kind is going the other direction. So, talk to me about the thought behind that. So, I wouldn't necessarily say that we've moved away from influencer marketing.
I'd say that we've brought consumer marketing to the same level as our influencer marketing. So, it's not necessarily like the dollars in media spend have necessarily gone down when it comes to influencer, although it probably has a little bit. It's that there's some things like for instance like the PR mailers and things like that that maybe we've made a little bit more simple to save more dollars and to use those dollars on more customer marketing efforts. And so I think overall when we look at our marketing, we look at overall community marketing and creators are really really really important part of that. It's just that customers typically are not really involved in marketing. When you think about like resources and time where a brand spends, it's not really there. And that's what we've really like leveled up to that same level which makes it feel so different in the industry. But it's actually not that like our creator efforts have gone down. We've always said like creators are so important to what we do. So many of our creators, they're like passionate about like accessible skincare, accessible beauty.
And so it's making sure that we are really supporting our entire community.
What I will say is what we don't do as much is like where we'll kind of just like put out um I think a lot of brands will do this where they want like a big awareness effort. So they'll find somebody who like maybe has not really talked about your brand before has like mentioned it once and been like hey let me pay you and then you talk about a product like that's not really what we're doing. We're just generally not doing like shallow efforts in anything like anything we're doing it's like deep relationships. So it's like the creators who are really like so passionate about us like their followers know us. They've really helped to like bring a product of ours with to awareness like a larger effort a larger scale of awareness that we could have brought ourselves. Those are the creators that we're going to be you know doing a contract with. We're going to be bringing out to a master class like things like that. So it's definitely still something that we put a lot of time and effort and dollars into.
Um equally we do that with customers.
So, we have our customer brand trips. We have our free PR mailers. We're also cultivating there's a whole world of people who are actually aspiring content creators, too. But maybe they have like 200 followers, but they just like love beauty and maybe they're not actually trying to be creators, but they're trying to find community within people who are doing UG UGC or whatever it is.
And so, there's there's kind of like a whole ecosystem. And I think we're just looking at different ways to bring everybody in the ecosystem to more of like a parody and make sure that the customer doesn't get left behind.
>> Totally. I mean, I think 3 five years ago, brands were looking at it as, hey, if we if we grab attention, then that leads to conversion. But I mean, they h it does it doesn't work like that anymore. It's about being much more intentional and going deeper. And so >> what I see from Coco Kind is that the what what you guys are leaning into is community in terms of going deeper. And so talk to us about these customer trips that you guys have started doing.
>> Yeah, it's been so fun. So we actually I just got back from our fourth one >> that we did last weekend. We took a >> to the Super Bowl. Yes.
>> Incredible.
>> And it was really incredible. like telling them that we they didn't know when they got to Napa or Sonoma, they did not know we were going to the Super Bowl. So, we actually like told them there on the trip and it was truly one of the best moments. But we've done four of these trips now and wow, they've been so amazing and really I do feel like it's helped to build a world around us and like kind of like unify our ecosystem of of of super fans of people who are here for us and who are loving our products and building a community with each other too. So, one of the things that we came off of the prior year is like we tried to do a little bit more um this is like going back to like two years ago. We tried to do a little bit more of like this like yeah like just broader awareness efforts and that meant like influencer contract that maybe someone who didn't really talk about us before but we were trying to get their attention and we we gave them a contract and then we really learned quickly that it wasn't that effective for us and we were looking at our dollars at the end of that year and being like this doesn't make sense for our brand either, right? Like we are a brand that's like so deep. We're we're not a shallow brand and we have this like really passionate customer base.
So, let's actually bring them along with our marketing program, spend and build resources around customer campaigns and have that be the anchor of our brand. I don't think customer brand trips work for most brands. Like I I would always be honest about that.
>> Absolutely not the aspirational brands.
>> Absolutely not the aspirational brands.
If you're trying to be aspirational, it doesn't work. And the thing is, it's like, we're not bringing influencers who have millions of followers. Like, we don't expect them to post. We don't need them to post at all. Some of them may have literally zero followers or maybe 4,000 followers, but the point is it's not like millions of followers. It's not like millions of views from this content at all. And so, the whole KPIs around the trip are not the same as like an influencer trip. And I I always get questions about that, like, how does this compare to influencer trips? And it's like, it's not even the same at all. Like I view customer trips as like a brand thing, you know? It's like it's like a billboard, right, for us of just like it's like whatever statement you're trying to make. And our particular statement is that our customers matter so much to us and we want to make sure that they feel this whole community feels like they're very important.
They're like the most important thing to us, right? And so that's a statement we're doing. And of course, we're posting a ton, right? Like our brand trips, it's like our content is very important. like we're going into those trips with like, you know, a hundred ideas like fully flushed out, ready to go. Like we're, you know, we're just like machines, right? When we're there, we're really thinking about that. So, we care a lot about our content as if it was like a normal content campaign, but it's not about like the views that the people on the trip generate at all.
Like, it's just not about that. The other thing is like the eight customers we bring, we really try to select a group. I mean it's really difficult because thousands of people apply to these things but we try to select a group that like everybody else in our community feels seen and represented by right so it's like even though like in a year we done four trips so that's 32 customers like it's 32 out of hundreds of thousands right like it's it's a very small number but I know that that message of what we created and the experiences that we gave to those 32 people means everything to all the rest of the people who are seeing our content and that matters to me, right? Because it's not just about like actual experiences, but it's about like the content you see feeling like seen and feeling represented by these people and just feeling good, right? And that's I think been so effective for us.
>> What have you seen on the back end in terms of results from shifting into this direction? Yeah, I think there's I think for us like we've just it's not just brand trips just overall like our products have been really like such hits over the past you know call it year and a half or so and we've put we put everything into our product right and but alongside that we've also really created this like unique brand and I mean that's been 11 years in the making but I think that the customer brand trips have been such a big part of that of like that spotlight light on this like what makes us as a brand so unique alongside all the other things that we do, right? The transparency, the content on an everyday basis, the product development content, um our product value being on shelf, right? And just having it be like a clearly great product at a great product value. So, it's kind of like all those things, but like we're doing great, right? Like the results for us as a brand right now is like we're really seeing like a reason for why we exist. And that's ultimately really important for any beauty brand is I always talk about like it's so important for us to develop and create this brand that like I would rather have a thousand people who are absolutely obsessed with us like absolutely obsessed than a million people who kind of like us or kind of know us. And it's not because I'm like okay I think I can build a brand with a thousand customers.
It's not that at all. But I know that like if you can get somebody to like truly love and appreciate and need your product or your brand, you're likely creating something that the world actually wants and needs versus something that is just like another. And that's like the strategy I think that I've led my team to think about is just like everything has to have like true value. You know, whether it's the marketing or the product or the supply chain, everything like we have to make sure it's truly adding value. And it's challenging. It's like there's so many ways where you can kind of like skip that in some decisions that you make, but that's the overall like northstar for us every day is just like have that consistently great like experience around the product and the brand so that people are like obsessed with us and we're just really developing this deep relationship and yeah, it's working. I mean, what you're talking about is you're building a brand that 30, 40 years from now will still be here versus other brands that are chasing that fast hype and buzz and want a shortened lifespan because they're just looking to, >> you know, sell at some point.
>> Yes, totally. I mean, longevity of a brand is important to me. I, like I said, Coke kind feel like is like my life's work. And so, yeah, I just I'm very very passionate about it. I mean, I know every founder is passionate about it, but it's just um I I I don't know. I just love what I do. I >> feel like brand equity compounds over time. And like the past couple of years, I feel like I've seen you guys grow grow grow exponentially and then the past couple of years, it's like you really hit your stride of like, okay, this is who we are.
>> Yes. Exactly. I think there was like this the beginning years of just like I mean, I had no idea what I was doing, right? there's so much learning involved and so much like but we actually were like successful as like a new startup um but we had so much to learn I had so much to learn as a founder as a CEO like I had so much to learn um but I tked myself to do that right and it was really hard and and really challenging and it still is but it's something that like I love like I ultimately I love entrepreneurship I think there's like an athleticism that's necessary and I like all the challenges I feel like make me stronger and I'm like I'm just kind of like built for it Like I absolutely love what I do. And so yeah, I just think that we've pushed ourselves to get to this position. Like I said to my team the other day, like every like percent of growth that we have, nothing is random. It's not because of viral video, it's not because we just like had this product that randomly hit. Like it's like we've literally like learned from our mistakes. We've learned from our successes. We work so hard. We're focused. we know what we're doing and we're doing it. So, every percent is truly earned and it does because of that it compounds over time. It doesn't just like hit and then next year is declining and because it you know it's like our growth compounds. I think in beauty actually like it's very hard to be a brand with longevity. We've seen this with so many brands, right? Like completely huge successes and then the following years like you know, who knows what happens. And it's because beauty is very trendbased and it's so heavy on marketing and it honestly is like if you're a product developer, if you're a marketer in this industry, it's a grind.
Like there's such a difficult industry, right? Like if I always say this about like um yeah team people really in in all the all the teams it's just you should you're constantly working on the next and the next best and the getting better and better and better and especially if you work for a founderdriven brand where there's just going to be that constant drive to like do better and to learn and to push like it's an exhaust it can be really exhausting and so you understand why some founders are like okay I want to do this and I want to succeed and at a certain point I need to exit and like as they should and if they if that's the ambition like as they should because it is exhausting and if you can create something that people actually love as measured by sales right that's the way you you measure a brand's demand like then yeah I get that because it's totally exhausting right to participate in this industry so you have to really love it and ultimately like I I never blame anybody for like wanting to to pursue that path because it makes a lot of sense. So if you're actually a brand that is trying to have longevity, it's like there's a stamina that's needed.
You have to like work every day to figure out as a founder, you know, how do I create that stamina for myself? And you know, sometimes I'm very depleted, very very depleted. And you know, I'm just trying to think about like how do I get back to that level? But I'm like a very I've learned over the years like I'm just like a very resilient person.
And so like I wake up the next day and pretend like nothing happened, you know?
Like I'm just kind of like every day I'm like, "Okay, it's a new day, you know?"
So I think it's like a little bit of that I don't know, maybe it's like a Taiwanese work ethic or something that my parents ingrain in me, but I just I just I'm kind of like, you know, just a workhorse, I think, at the end of the day.
>> And someone who loves learning and growing and testing out new things. I mean, you guys did do traditional influencer brand trips or campaigns with very top tier influencers.
>> You went one once, right? Yeah.
>> No, but I remember you did the the fashion show and you had Katie Fang, you had the H sisters there >> and so I mean I've seen you guys try different things and figure out like, hey, what is our voice and where do we fit? But this these customer trips I feel like have really been the unlock because I don't see anyone else doing them. So what was the inspiration behind the customer trips?
>> We had done these mailers. This is in 2024. So the year is 2024 and we had done these mailers that were um you know the you would look at them as a creator and you'd be like this is not anything special. like it was just like a box and it had, you know, the holders and the nice deco, but it's not like it had like any whatever crazy gifts in there or anything, but I had seen the cost for them and I was like, "Oh my god, like if we send out, you know, x many mailers and we're spending this many dollars, like what else could we do with this?"
Like, not first of all, like creators are getting so many packages a week that even doing something like this is not you're not even standing out. Like this is like a normal like boring package.
It's not exciting. it seems exciting for us and it's really beautiful doesn't actually add any value to their experience at all because they're literally getting like 50 or 100 of these a week if not more. So I was like these are dollars we need to reallocate in marketing and how do we align our marketing to and our dollars and our time to something that actually works for our brand. And so then I don't even remember exactly what the conversation was with but I was chatting with my chief marketing officer Maria who is amazing and and we were like let's just try this thing where it's like let's bring along customers. Let's put them at the forefront of what we did. So we decided to do our first one. It was like almost a year and a half ago. And um yeah it was just like let's it just felt it feels like you said it feels so right. Like it's so nice to have that clarity as a brand and it's really I'm just so grateful that it's working for us because it like this is what I want to do. So I'm glad that we don't have to do something else that I don't want to do. Like it feels good. So good, right?
It feels really good to open up a room and have like a room full of stuff that people can take of cocoa and them being like, "Oh my god, like I like just genuinely so happy and that like we're gifting them these products instead of it being like just another experience or I don't really use this brand but I'm coming. I'm here anyways." Like it's just, you know, it's just it's we want it to be a real experience. And that goes for our creators as well. Like it's, you know, the creators that come.
be people who really genuinely have a relationship with us as a brand and care about our products, love our products.
So, you know, it's just it's just a little bit I think it all goes down to like authenticity and like deep deepness of relationships that is really working for us.
>> Walk me through the tactics though. So, you had these PR boxes and you decided, hey, this is not going to break through the noise if we send these to, you know, 50 100 influencers. So, let's figure out an idea to send these to the customers.
So, was it a giveaway? Did you just, you know, go through your customer list and pick out the top 50 or 100 or what was the thinking behind it?
>> Yeah, the first time we did it, we are basically like, okay, let's stop putting these dollars into wasteful PR, so let's just send PR in brown boxes. Brown boxes like we'll have a cute message and we'll have like a nice like card describing the product, but like let's keep it really simple and like also let's make the box easy to break down because creators have so many boxes to break down. So like let's not make it like really annoying. So, let's just have a really simple box. All those extra dollars, let's put in this like community effort starting with a brand trip that we did. And um our first one was January 2025. And the first one we did, we said, "Hey, drop a video, submit a video by this time." And we're basically going to take like eight of our most passionate community members on a trip. That was a little bit of a mistake cuz I will say like for like a week I like didn't sleep because I was had to watch so many videos and like in the middle of the night I'm like crying but I'm like next like you know it was it was like crazy to have to watch so many it was like so heartwarming and I was just like just playing.
>> I'm amazed that you're the one watching all these videos.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah. Like my team too of course but like it was of course I'm watching every single one. Um and then I was like, "Okay, this is difficult in terms of like we also just had a short amount of time to pick people." So it was like a really intense week. So the following trip, which we decided to do in June was Miami and we um had people like just post about it or like express their love in different ways. So sometimes it's not people posting, sometimes they're writing us a note just in our email or it's like a customer that has ordered from us like a bajillion times, you know, they're just writing reviews or they're always in our comments or something like that. So it doesn't necessarily be post, but we were just like, okay, let's have it just be like just like put it out there in the ecosystem so that like and we clearly know who's involved in our brand and who's not like, you know, people people don't realize it, but there's a lot of times people think they're interacting with a brand. It's like, oh my god, who's behind the brand? It's like who's behind the brand? It's just the people that you see, right? It's a It's going to be me. It's going to be Maria, my chief marketing officer. It's going to be Kathy on our social media team. It's going to be Payton on our brand team.
Like, it's going to be people that like are clearly there and visible. It's not that many of us. So, yeah, people who you see, it's like the people who are interacting and DMing. So, Jourer, who it helps to manage our community communication, like it's, you know, it's we're all in there. So people who are very visibly like passionate community members like we see and know their names on a daily basis.
>> Okay. So you're going through all of these videos and then where did you take everyone on the first trip?
>> We took them to Napa.
>> Napa.
>> Yeah. So we took them to Napa. Um >> and it was set up like an influencer. So totally swag in the rooms dinners >> all that. Yeah. And it was at the salage which is beautiful. And we had this whole like amazing spa experience because the Salage is a um this amazing hotel in Kalisoga in Napa and it has like all these like electrolyte pools like a magnesium pool and this and that and we are launching our electrolyte water cream.
>> I love that moisturizer.
>> Yeah, I know.
>> Paul too. I gave it to amazing. Um, yeah. So, anyways, I it was like a perfect excuse and tie in to to do it there. And yeah, it was like a really special special experience. I like will always have such like fond memories especially for that group of ladies because it really helped to like kickstart this like if it wasn't for Napa and those women on that trip. I don't think we would have kept on doing them. But it was like those that group of ladies like I I had a really deep discussion with them on Saturday night at dinner like they were asking me so many questions and it was like it was just like wow they care so much about brand like really not only curious about stuff but they were also trying to make us better in different ways through such a caring lens and like I ultimately just had such an amazing time which was like I don't it I wouldn't say the results from that trip were necessarily like oh my god the results were so amazing we have to keep going but it was like the feeling and the rightness for our brand after that trip which was like >> yeah yeah yeah it felt right and it was like no we have to make these work so let's actually be serious about like what are the performance metrics we need to make these work and what are we really looking for in order to be able to spend because they're not cheap right like to spend this and make it work for our brand and so we really went into our next one being a lot more serious about like okay like let's think about what how do we make this like matter to our brand and bigger than just the people on the trip.
>> How did you think about that strategically on the back end and what KPIs are you measuring?
>> Our I would say our most significant KPIs are going to be on the engagement of our social posts. You know, like that's really what it is. Um we've had trips where we've had like millions of views on our content and we will post a ton, but it's also about like our engagement generally as a brand. And I mean it's not just the trip content.
Like we generally care a lot about engagement on our social channels. So um on Instagram it's going to be likes, comments, and shares. And it's not necessarily about like follower growth every day, but it's about like we want to be a brand that's like building a community around us. And that community we see in the numbers ultimately. Um so yeah, I would say that those are the the number that's the number one thing we look at when it comes to the trips. I mean, I can imagine coming out of these trips, you've got eight dieh hard Coco Kind stands for life who are going out into the world and being your spokespeople. And not only that, but you're showing the rest of the world out there like, "Hey, look, you don't have to just watch the influencer trips happen. This is a way to actually access that." Because the past 3 to 5 years, I think people have been really fatiguing of watching influencers go on these trips. like I'm I'm tired of going on them at some point. So there I mean there are a lot that I turn down because I'm like this is not interesting for my audience anymore. They've already seen me, you know, three, five years ago go on these trips and it's exciting. It's entertainment the first couple of times, but then after that then it becomes a little like, oh, I've already seen this, you know, give me something that adds value to my life. And isn't that interesting though because it's like like if you are a creator are saying like it's like another trip, right? And of course we know that like our creators are so grateful for these experiences.
Not that you're not grateful for them, but it's like there's so many brands that are trying to do it that it does get exhausting where you Yeah. like many years ago you'd be so excited like this is like I'm getting invited on this brand trip but today so many brands are doing these brand trips that it's actually it's it's still work at the end of the day for influencers and so like imagine being able to provide this experience to somebody who like it is truly to them they believe it's like a once in a-lifetime thing or just like it kicks off this like major belief in themselves to create more content right but it's not something that they're like, "Oh my god, this is given to me."
Or like there's so many of these like it's it's a novel experience, one that they truly will appreciate for life, right? Um that to me is like like I don't know that fits really well with our brand and I just love being able to give that experience to people >> and you give hope and joy and you lift up your community by saying, "Hey, the next trip could be you and you could become and be a part of this." totally for the brand trips for me it's like the bar is so high there has to be some educational component to it something like truly innovative that I can bring to my audience and say hey there's a reason beyond me just going on this trip to have a nice experience that you're also getting something as well through this experience because so many of them I feel like are for just that >> storytelling aspiration and we've seen it like it's kind of rinse and repeat for a lot of the brands at this point.
>> Yeah. And I will say that like last month we actually tested a master class in San Francisco for um some of our creators in our world and it's just like a totally different experience. It wasn't like I would say it nothing like our customer brand trip that we just did at this at the Super Bowl. It was like a deep dive into product development where it was like me talking about like all the little things we did around our new milky soft face and body cleanser. It's just like it's like cuz people these creators are the ones educating their audiences and you know sometimes with greater awareness than we have on our channel. So I really want to make sure they understand the products and deeper dive like true product development knowledge. So like I think that's where we would focus on with our creator experiences is like really bring in the product developers, get the product developers in the room and make sure you hear like firsthand like some of the the education around a product that allows you to like factually and confidently be able to describe something which sounds boring to some people or might be unknown to some some people and like surfactants. What does a surfactant mean? Like what's the world of surfactant? How do I speak to this? like what are the choices Coco Kai made around this product? Like it just being able to learn some of that I think is like really interesting for people. I mean we hope we the people we bring we know it's going to be interesting to them. So that's I think really what we're trying to curate for our creator world and we do that for our customers too. But it's I'm doing that every day on Tik Tok content for our customers.
So, I know our customers get that a lot on on our Tik Tok and Instagram.
>> As it relates to you moving away from influencer brand trips and leaning heavier into uplifting your community and your customers, did you feel any push back from retailers?
Because I know that a lot of retailers put a lot of emphasis and pressure on their brands like hey look you need to be doing every quarter spending this amount of dollars with influencers and driving back to our either online or in store component. I would say not really actually. I mean I think uh our retailers really appreciate our difference point of difference and they ultimately manage like so many brands and they see the strategy and the efforts of all these brands kind of doing the same. So I think that like anything that they feel like oh that's different and interesting like I actually think that that does get their buy in actually because they also are consumers of our marketing and the beauty industry marketing. So, I actually don't It helps that our numbers are good because if they weren't, then yeah, I think we'd be like they'd be like, "You should do something else. You should maybe spend on a big influencer contract, you know, like yeah, I think they would have a lot a lot of other things to say if if the numbers weren't good." But that that's what's great, right? Like we are a brand of impact, deeper relationships. There's a lot of thought about like the who the brand is that we're trying to put out in the world, making people feel enough, making people feel good, bringing people alongside this brand and community. So to have that align with our customers, make them feel good, and to align that with numbers and our retailers and all that stuff, like I couldn't ask for anything else. like this. I'm so so thankful that like it's working because I would be I think it would be really hard for me to keep going. If I had to do like what everybody else is doing, if I had to sell aspiration, if I had to do the influencer contract world of people who aren't actually invested in my brand and don't actually use our products, like that that would feel icky to me and I would I would lose so much of my purpose. So like this is my everything aligning in the way that like I couldn't ask for anything else.
>> Yeah. I mean, when everything is in alignment. Oh, that's just the best feeling.
>> Yeah, it really is. Yeah.
>> So, um on the episode with Camille Moore, we talked a lot about world building. So, she had this um exercise.
She was like, for each of the brands that she works with, she's like, "Okay, you're a hotel. Walk me through every room. What does that hotel look like, smell like, feel like for your brand?"
So, walk us through the world of Coco Kind starting with the name.
>> Oh, okay. So, our name, it's funny. I mean, it's people always ask me like where it came from, but I think the most significant part of it is the word kind.
I always like the word kind. I think it's like I always thought about when people describe someone as being kind versus being nice. Like nice is like a throwaway word, right? Where you're like never want to be describ I don't know, right? Like no one wants to be described as nice. But when someone says kind, like it just means a lot more. And like I said, I was really inspired by businesses or capitalism that can be more conscious and have an impact and care about the overall community and the just what the community cares about and like supporting that. And I just don't believe that consumers and companies need to be on different sides of the table. I think we can be on the same side of the table achieving things that we all want. And it's not like I don't believe that like all capitalism is evil. Like I genuinely believe that businesses can be really powerful for impact and um a platform and communicating a message or an action and that's the business that I wanted to create. So that that's kind of the the meaning behind that word.
>> Talk me through some of the tactical um decisions that you guys have employed to have a greater impact on the world through your business. Mhm. Yeah. I mean, I think it's one we are very it goes to goes back to our community like we're very community forward and we that that means that we care about a lot of things, you know, like we as a brand we care about a lot of things. It could be something that is like impacting them because of some like specific event that happened. It could be something that's happening in the world. But we've built our company. I've built our company to be able to be a company that is like no questions like shows up. It doesn't take us that much to be like, hey, we're going to like give away our profits to this or we're going to do this or we're going to say something like it's just something that I think is just part of who we are and our DNA. Again, everybody in my company is aligned with that and it's something it's very easy for us to to do. barely have to make a decision to, you know, make something happen. And so, yeah, there it's just I think it's 11 years we've done this so many times, right? Like we've showed up for our community in all these different circumstances and really put our dollars where we, you know, are what we're talking about and we've also put a lot of time and resources. So, yeah, it's just I think it's just overall like we have just created a company with a lot of um kind of substance behind us to be able to support our overall community and the impact that we want to have.
>> Definitely. There's so much depth. I mean, you guys are very vocal about where you stand politically, culturally.
>> Yeah.
>> And I mean, in the divisive divisive divisive world that we live in now, I think that a lot of brands are very hesitant about being so vocal about where they stand on those issues and the values of their brand.
>> Yeah, it's tough. I will say it's like I can understand how it's tough because it's just it is a very divisive world right now. But I think that we we don't want to be more divisive. But we also believe in using our platform and especially when it has deep meaning to me, my team and therefore our commun and and our community too. like we're usually all aligned like all the stakeholders of the business are super aligned that that makes it really easy for us you know so I don't know you know it's it's definitely a choice but and it's not to say I'm not nervous sometimes like there have been times where we've posted something and lost 3,000 followers like you know there there's definitely times where there's like I can't go into the comment section because I know there's like a bunch of like mini fights happening and stuff like >> oh my god I like I can't go to comments like I used to and I miss it. I miss being able to go in there, but it's gotten so intense at times.
>> Yeah, it's it can be tough sometimes, but you know, I I know there's an overwhelming amount of support for what we are choosing to do. So, I also am like okay with it, but yeah, it's definitely a choice.
>> Going back to what you said about the difference between being nice or being kind, there was this Trevor Noah quote that I saw that oh, it hit home so much.
He was saying that being nice is saying, "Oh, you know, good to see you today.
Oh, how are you?" Like pleasantry. But being kind is doing the hard thing. It's saying, "Oh, you have spinach between your teeth. Go remove that." That's the kind thing.
>> Totally. Yeah. Absolutely. It's harder.
>> It is.
>> Yeah.
>> And so I feel like that's kind of the positioning of the brand. Like we're going to show up, do the hard thing that we believe in >> and the customers that are aligned with us, you know?
>> Yeah. Because ultimately, like I said, I'm trying to build a brand that like deeply resonates with our customers. And so, I'm also okay I'm okay being like I'm not going to be like this is a moisturizer that's for everyone, right?
Like if it's a really thick moisturizer like our resurrection polyeptide cream, I will say like if you have oily skin or you're sensitive to how something feels like you don't want that cushion, like this is not for you. And I think it's okay to like define who your customer is as a brand or for a product and not try to be like everything to everyone because I think that's also just kind of being nothing to anyone, right? So I I I think there's a little bit of power and just kind of like owning what you're trying to do.
>> Did anything surprise you in terms of the response for from your customers and how they showed up after you started doing these customer trips? Hm.
I don't think so. Not yet. I will say that I have I do get a lot of anxiety around the disappointment for a lot of the other people who apply but don't get chosen. So, like that does make me really anxious and I genuinely don't know if one day our community will be like like I don't know. I'm tired of seeing this and I like I don't know do something else for more of us or something like that. Not that that's like an easy thing to do and we do do things like we give out 100 PR meers every month, right? Like or more than that. Um we do a lot for our community beyond the trips of course but like yeah there's part of me that's like it's not been a it's not a surprise but there's like questions I guess in my head still about like how what's the longevity of this? is it people are still going to love the fact that we do this like a year from now should we keep doing it like it's not something that I'm like can confidently say like four years from now 3 years from now 2 years from now we're even going to do this like I it has to be something that like I we have to look at our engagement we have to look at our comments like are people still loving this and if people are starting to get upset about something then like no we're not going to continue to do it you know so um no no big surprises yet but I also think there's like a it's not like a defined future I would say in the in the but but so far it's like definitely something that's been overwhelmingly positive.
>> So you've nailed how to go deep and you've shown that in multiple ways but now how do you how do you spread out and scale?
>> Yeah. Um, I think it's comes down to product at the end of the day and well, it's it's product is like first and foremost like for however much I show up on social and marketing and people see me on TikTok and whatever, whatever.
>> Yeah, you're so active. I'm always like, "God, Priscilla's amazing."
>> Yeah. But you know what? Like those videos don't take me long at all. And I spend most of my time every week. The team that I spend the most time with every single week is a product development team. Like be by far. Like I don't I like it's like one hour with like social marketing team a week versus like five with my product development team. Like we're a very very frequently touchbasing team. It's significant how deep I am in there because I feel like product is the the the answer for everything. And if you don't have a good product, like marketing can't fix anything, right? Um, but yeah, so in terms of scale, I think it's like as long as we continue to have a unique brand and products that are amazing and year after year they're getting better and more thoughtful, more added value into for the customer and they're creating this like innovation in terms of like added value to customers lives.
Like I think that that is how we scale and so far it's it's worked. How do you think about that tension between like where the responsibility lies in terms of overconumption? Is it with the consumer? Is it with the brand?
>> I think it's with mostly with brands, but I do think that customers for sure have like some sort of responsibility too. But I I think it ultim I think most of the responsibility generally of things lies with businesses actually. And I think for us like that's where it's really important for us to not do just another like generally in what we do. So we try to answer like if if this is really something different and that might like require us to think about okay is this like a limited edition product is this like a one-time thing or is this a forever product? And we'll take in all this like just these decisions to basically try to be as conscious as possible in how we're promoting or not promoting like over consumption. Um it's t it's tricky. I mean we are a products business. You know we're launching new products. So I I just can never say that we're not like we're feeding into the machine. Like that's just the end of day. That's the that's the thing, you know, like >> and I don't I don't I don't think it's like realistic to I don't know. I think I would be lying if I said that like that's not something that like I don't feel guilty about sometimes because like it is something that like our business is contributing to you know um I know our customers are like really responsible mo for the most part like they care a like our type of customer is like very much cares about like impact and so we of course like will do so much in our supply chain to care about impact too and our overall impact. I mean, we put our carbon footprint on the side of every box, but yeah, I mean, I think it's it's definitely like in the best case scenario, you're arguing that you as a business have a more responsible impact than the alternatives. In the worst case scenario, you're just putting out more products just like everybody else, you know, and you know, it's just like somewhere in the middle is probably the truth. And you know, yeah, that there's a little bit of the internal debate that I have with that. How do you think about new launches with that in mind?
>> Well, I would say like we generally launch much less than most people. Like we are very like um you know we're talking about like three big launches a year or something like that. You know where as you know in the beauty industry it can be like you know like three a quarter right from some people. So um like we are very very deep in our product development. we are like I mean we're we're just kind of like crazy about you know just like thinking about what we're doing and the intention behind it every little thing and I feel like I've only gotten more crazy about that over the past couple years and um and so yeah like we we just if we are putting out a product it's really we really feel like it's like we're we really feel like it's got to work right like this is like a deep impact product for us it's really important for our customers it's really going to work for them versus like we're not the product that is or we're not the brand that is like achieving scale with like all these products. Like we care more about like the actual productivity of each product versus you know anything else. And actually if you look at our like footprint in stores versus a lot of our peers like you'll see we actually don't have as many product like we don't have that much on the shelf. SKS do you have total? I think at Target right now we're probably going to have like 10 skincare SKs and then our lippies and then at Ulta we probably have like 13 or 14 or something. I mean that's tight, you know, and like and so yeah, like our productivity is strong and that's the way I want to build is actually just like increasing productivity by having products that are really amazing versus constantly launching like you know 10 new products a year just to comp the last year. So yeah, like we're definitely going to be thoughtful about that. Like we're we're just trying to do more with less number of products.
>> Yeah. Cuz I've seen in the past when you guys have done a few new launches, there were times you actually called back >> other products.
>> Oh yeah. Yeah. That's something we'll do for sure too, right? Like and that's not that's that's for overall impact, but that's also for like my team management too. Like it's tough to do that because we have had products where we've discontinued and you know I feel that that sucks and I feel like we're disappointing some of our customers who are like really in love with the product but usually if we discontin I mean always if we discontinue a product it's because like the the larger demand wasn't there and it became really hard to manage at a small scale and our retailers like force us to take it out and it's just hard like I don't think people realize like how much work it takes to run one production like it just really takes so much effort and so like my job I feel like my job as CEO of the company is to manage resources like it's just to make sure that we're spending our time and our dollars in the right places for everybody on my team. So it's like I just can't have like you know something that is like taking so much resource but touching not as many people on the customer side you know it just it's not the right you know resource planning. So sometimes we have to make tough calls like that but yeah our portfolio isn't getting like net larger necessarily every year because we do make those decisions to just make it a little bit more efficient cut down a little bit of the overall like resource impact um that we have and and just try to be mindful about our growth. What's one thing that you would tell a brand founder um in terms of dealing with that tension that exists between wanting to garner awareness >> but yet deepen trust because there are many times where they're opposing. You know, we see this new tactic that brands are employing of rage baiting where yes, that gets you a lot of awareness really fast, cuts through the noise, but you know, what's the cost ultimately when it comes to your brand trust?
>> Yeah. I mean, I feel like rage baiting is so dumb, you know, and I just like I feel like that's like not like a viable like marketing strategy at all for any brand that is like I don't know, legitimate. Um, I think that but but I hear you though. It it definitely is a tension. I still will always tell people, especially these days, if you're talking about skincare and you're not or beauty and you're not like creating like a truly like neverbeforeseen type of product, which let's be honest, most of us are not creating something that's like never before seen in the format or the whatever that we're creating. Um I still always genuinely will believe in like brand uniqueness matters you know more than anything because it's like if you can if you it just you have to stand out somehow and um and I just think that like so many brands try to be the same of something or follow similar paths and I just don't know if that works these days. So I would always say like find what is what's unique about your brand and what I would say like focus on your product and one marketing channel. Like I had a call the other day with a founder and of a new brand and it's like we all did this like oh we're going to do digital marketing Facebook meta ads and then we're going to do PR and then we're going to do this and that and this but like in every one of those buckets it's like a little thing because you don't have that many dollars right and I'm like just don't do that. Like choose one of those things like are you going to gift to influencers? Are you going to like and do your organic content maybe and like that's your one strategy or are you going to just go in him on your organic content? Are you going to just be like extremely like creative forward band like spend more on production like photos and you know videos are you going to do the like if you're going to be PR like is it like are you like a does that match with your brand right like to have that like does it like if you had a Vogue mention could you use that is that help build your brand world is that super important to you um you know or meta ads like it does that specifically work for your product but anyways I always say like just you have to everybody has to choose like a marketing channel that you're exceptionally good at you know And um and I don't really think that like it's realistic to have everything working at like expert level.
So I think you as a company have to like know how to be like exceptionally good at something.
>> I mean that's another touch point an example of you going deep going deep with how you market going deep with your customer base and community.
>> Yeah.
>> And deep with your products.
>> Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we are exceptionally good at developing a relationship with our customer, of course, with our products, but also behind the products, too, right? Like, that's what we're exceptionally good at.
>> So, now we're entering a world where, you know, we're seeing other markets bring their products to the US, especially Korea. We have Olive Young that's going to be shopping shop at Seph at 650 Sephoras coming soon. And I mean, I see a lot of brands starting to put on their labels made in Korea, >> you know, or they're going into the labs there and they're trying to figure out, hey, what's the latest innovation coming out there? And Korea is very much of the mind burn and churn. Like there's an incredibly short lifespan of brands.
They have no problem with launching something, seeing how it does, maximizing profit, and then getting rid of it. Then the parent company is like, "Okay, we'll just start up a new brand."
Mhm.
>> And so I'm seeing a few examples of where we're heading in that direction here in the US. What are your thoughts on that?
>> Yeah, it's really interesting because I I feel like I have a little bit of like a controversial opinion here because I think like I went to Seoul last year in October and like I wouldn't say I left with like inspiration. I would say yeah.
like I go there and I'm a little bit like like depressed at like the state of affairs because it's like it's just like you know it's just like an insanely tough like beauty standards I mean all of Asia right like it's just tough from a beauty standards point of view um and it's tough from a sheer number of products point of view and it is hard to like cut through the noise a little bit and so you just it's just to know what's real and what's not.
And so for me, I'm not like a like I'm not somebody who has like 200 beauty products in my bathroom. Like I'm not like a beauty traditionally like beauty obsessed type of consumer. And so I'm like very overwhelmed and I'm like I don't even like there's so many things and I just like it does feel a little bit like I just it's just a lot. And now, yeah, seeing that come to the US, like I mean, it's tough because I'm also like Asian and I also love like the I love the love for Asian cultures right now. like that makes me happy and I'm like that's great to feel that like celebration of so many Asian cultures but I'm also like well you know we don't need to put like PDR in and everything you know like also it's like what is what type of PDR in like you know it's just like it's just like a label I know I know it's a label claim for so many brands right now that it's feeling really annoying actually and like the thing about like K beauty is like I feel like it's like a lot about textures and and hydration and barrier support like hydration and barrier support I can get down with and textures I can too to a certain extent but when you start developing for textures so much of why that's become a thing is because you're developing for the phone and that annoys me as a product developer and we've even had a couple of instances like two years ago where we're talking about like a cleanser and like how do we make it like really cool looking whatever and we ultimately didn't do it but And I'm so glad we didn't because it's just like it's getting annoying virality.
>> You're chasing virality for the phone.
And as any product developer or chemist will tell you, it's like when you have to do that, you're spending a lot of your dollars and your resources of that formula into those ingredients that are causing that texture versus like the ingredients that are doing something.
And so if you're just at hydration barrier support, I you can get hydration and barrier support from like a lot of effective ingredients that are wellstudied, not something that's like super sexy like PDRN, but like you can probably get better results from and a lot cheaper, too. So there's part of it that like I'm definitely like a little bit skeptical on these days and just like the immediate adoption of all these things and the the crazy textures where people are like going like that, you know, and it's like the weirder it looks, the more interested people are.
>> But this is not something new. I mean, if we think back to when Instagram came out, and I remember Summer Fridays and Mariana in interview saying that when her and Lauren were testing out packaging, logo, all of that, they it was social first in mind. How is this going to look in an Instagram post? And I feel like they were one of the first brands to really think about that social component. And now it's just evolved.
>> I know.
>> And so it's for video and it's the texture and the crazy colors and what's going to stop the scroll.
>> Yeah. I think every product developer knows like you have a dollar amount you're trying to hit a cost target and it's as simple as like if your cost target is $5. Let's say if you spend $3 on this and $2 on something else and you decide to spend and flip it around and you spend $4 on this and $1, you're sacrificing something. The pool doesn't just get larger and larger most of the time, right? Like it's the number at the end of the day is going to be $5. So the more you spend on packaging, the more you spend on, you know, these different emulsifiers, these different thickeners to create this texture or whatever, like the the less you're spending on other things, like that's just facts. So yeah, the beauty industry has always like that's always been the situation. And some brands you'll you but you I feel like you kind of know like you're paying for the packaging more or like you're paying for the brand or marketing or whatever. And then with formulas, like I think it's just sometimes right now I think people are confusing like the uniqueness of a texture with some like the skin efficacy. And that's where I just feel like it's not as clear like what people are paying for. But at the end of the day, that's fine. It works for like most brands. Like for us, for Coco Kind, it's like that doesn't work for us because it's just like not how we invest our dollars and and so you know, it's just it's just not how we're going to choose to formulate. But like yeah, I get it. It's just how the industry has always been. Um, what I do think is annoying though is just the the kind of like putting different ingredients like exoomes and PRN on like every product right now that is just like, you know, it's it's like you can tell them, you know, it's just it's it's a little exhausting and it's like people are doing it way too quickly and it's feeling a little bit like uh marketing, right, versus like real and customers are just paying for it, you know? So anyways, that's all the more that's that's more opportunity for coco honestly just to like cut through the noise and like we we will say like we don't chase trends like that. Like we just don't not to say we'll never use an ingredient like that but it's certainly not going to be when it's early you know and and one year into or two years into something being like new is still early.
So, um, so yeah, like it's just we're we're going to be a little bit more boring with our ingredient choices or maybe even our textures, but make sure it feels really nice, you know? So, like it's just we're not caring as much about like what the phone feels like versus like what it actually feels like. Or maybe it looks good on the phone, but it feels even better in real life. You know what I mean? Um, not to say that we don't care about like the aesthetic nature of our products. like of course we have to care about that because packaging does sell. Um but I don't know it's it's definitely something that we we are pretty intentional about and um we're trying we tried to balance that with like what is the real value like inside the bottle.
>> Definitely. And I mean another trend that I'm seeing I talked a bit about with Camille is that with consumers being incredibly literate and knowledgeable about ingredients and efficacy and really pushing for more science. You know, we're now seeing brands that were typically more like fruit and bright colors and all of that with their messaging being more science focused, clinical studies, before and afters. They're incorporating those elements because they're seeing that it's they're the consumers are demanding it. So, how are you thinking about that trend?
>> Yeah, I love that. You know, like I think that is great and it has pushed us to be better at what we do. it's pushed us to be more forward with how we communicate different ingredient usage.
Um, and I think that's like a trend in the beauty industry that is like for good and actually like just like making a difference. So something like that like absolutely I'm going to see that is happening years ago like learn about that and make sure we're adopting it.
make sure we are, you know, getting behind that and and really like, you know, showing up as a brand and and with our products in that way. Um, so yeah, like that's a good example of something where it's like I would have seen that a couple years ago and be like, wait, that's like legit and we really need to get on that and we need to get better at being more forward with our ingredient explanations or our kind of showing the before and afters and making it feel really real to customers. So something like that, like it's absolutely that's that's something I could totally get behind. You know, I think about as a content creator like early days, you know, there's all these Tik Tok trends and like I would just try to jump on every single trend and do each one and and now I'm very thoughtful about what my own personal branding is. And so I see the trends come, but then I just have to be selective of which ones feel right for me to do. And so it sounds like I mean it's the the same thing except in brand terms.
>> Totally. Yeah. I think it's Yeah.
Exactly. Like there's some things we're going to be good at, some things we're not going to be good at. And like and I think generally you would look at Kokine and you kind of know where we put our effort into you know if you're like in our world at all like you just kind of it's it's very clear.
>> So next you know one to three years from now where do you see the beauty industry where do you see coco fitting into that landscape?
>> Um I think that I'm really proud of the impact that we have in the beauty industry. I think we show up in a lot of ways that are unique and different and actually push the industry forward. I think like we have such an impact beyond I know that like I'll always get messages of like people being like oh like I shared your post and like your post has been going around on our Slack channels and this and that and like I think that that makes me really happy because I think I the more that our brands that kind of get behind what we're doing it means we're doing something right and you know we're making impacting some change across the board. But I mean, beauty industry, I think in the next like couple years, it's just going to be more prolific. I think there's going to be an insane amount of products and like I mean, just think about the the all that's coming into the US from international markets at this point. So, you know, it's just going to get more noisy honestly. You know, that's products and that's also marketing. And all the brands that are coming in, they're launching with fervor, with a lot of dollars, too. And they're like, it's not just I mean people who never talked about K beauty before are going to these like insane K beauty event, you know, brands that are hosting these amazing events. Yeah.
>> Which are subsidized by the Korean government.
>> Oh my god. Yeah. They're there. Oh, it's going to be in it's going to be like incredible like the amount of like just kind of activation.
Um so yeah, I kind of see it like just continuing and and just being even more.
Is there anything about that that makes you nervous or >> Yeah, I mean I think Oh, for us, no. I think it's if anything it just it it allows us to double down on what we do.
It's like allows us to continue to have a point of differentiation and continues like it it all of that serves like the purpose of why we do what we do because we're not just the brand that's doing like all these like insane activations and marketing spend and this and that.
like we we're we're not doing that and we still are very clear about our need to create product value and have that be very clear to the customer too. So if anything I just feel like it's like just very um we can just like triple down in what we're doing and we'll still be doing really well.
>> Well Priscilla, thank you so much for being here.
>> Thank you for having me.
>> It's always good to see you.
>> So good seeing you.
>> And tell the listeners where they can find you, where they can find Kokind.
So, we are at Coco Kind on Instagram and Tik Tok. I'm Priscilla.
On Instagram, and our products are sold at every Ulta and Target in the country.
>> Sounds great. Well, thanks for being here.
>> Thank you. This is Mirror, Mirror with Amy Chang. If you want more conversations like this, you can find the full episode on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts, YouTube, and be sure to follow Mirror, Mirror with Amy on Instagram for weekly reflections and double takes. Please don't forget to rate, review, follow, and subscribe to Mirror Mirror wherever you get your podcast so you never miss an episode. Thanks for examining the world of beauty with me, your host, Amy Trang.
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