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- [00:13]
A
Welcome to Ad Exchanger Talks, the podcast devoted to examining the issues and trends in advertising and marketing technology that matter most to you.
- [00:23]
B
This episode is sponsored by Basis, the leading intelligent operating system for autonomous advertising. Its enterprise AI solution transforms campaign briefs into strategies and media plans that integrate directly into omnichannel activation.
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C
I'm Allison Schiff. You're listening to Ad Exchanger Talks and my guest this week is Cleo Davis Ehrman, CEO of Barriere, a brand of wearable wellness and vitamin patches she co founded in 2020 that's recently scaled from D2C into national retail distribution. They started Scrappy, they remain pretty scrappy and that includes Clio's approach to marketing. We'll talk about how Barriere chooses where to spend its media dollars, why retail media is working out for them, getting smart about AI search, how to educate consumers in a newish market, and lots more. But first, please save the date for programmatic IO. New York Prog I O is taking place on September 28th and 29th at the New York Marriott Marquee and we'll bring together all the people you want and need to hear from to explore trends in AI driven media decisioning, ctv, retail media and commerce signals. If you care about the open web, you'll be there. Podcast listeners, you get 10% off the price of your ticket when you use the promo code POD10. So whatcha waiting for? Hey Cleo, welcome to the podcast.
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A
Thank you. Excited to be here.
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C
So what is one thing about you that not a lot of other people already know?
- [01:59]
A
Well, I am customer care for Barrier. I wear a lot of hats, but that's my, my favorite hat to wear. So if you are ever emailing or asking a product question or wondering if anyone is actually receiving the inquiries or questions that you have, it is me.
- [02:23]
C
The CEO and founder is doing all the customer care.
- [02:26]
A
Sure is.
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C
When do you do things like sleep and eat and all of that jazz?
- [02:32]
A
No, I think it's at least you know, at this stage of the business it's so important and to, to be listening and we very, we're fortunate enough to have very passionate customers and discerning customers who have lots of questions and who have lots of ideas and it's informed so much of the what in the why and the how of what we do that I am slow to give it up and I'm, you know, adopting all the tools and techniques to help make it easier for me to be customer caring. It won't be forever, but I cherish this time because it really does make me A better leader every day. Yeah.
- [03:18]
C
Well, I want to explain what barrier is to our listeners who might not know. So you co founded it in March 2020. So right as the world was getting locked down. It's a modern wellness brand, pioneering transdermal vitamin patches. We'll talk about what that means. But instead of swallowing a capsule in the morning, people can literally wear their vitamins. And the patches are made with micronized ingredients. They pass through the skin barrier directly into the bloodstream. They're made in a registered facility in the UK, basically registered by the UK's FDA. And the patches kind of look like little wearable works of art. And we'll talk about that too, because I think that fact isn't. Ah, there we go. There is one. I'll bring it up to the screen.
- [04:06]
A
I'm wearing a seahorse for energy and a spirit star for longevity for those who can't see.
- [04:13]
C
And that. That's not incidental to the marketing strategy because the way it looks, I think is an important part of the appeal too. And the brand is growing 300% year over year, expanded from D2C into major retailers, Ulta Target. So that, that's a lot. And we'll unpack a bunch of it. But where did it all start? Start for you? I know it was born from a personal experience, so take me back to that moment and explain how it led to you founding a business. Because I have lots of personal experiences, but I've never founded a business based on them.
- [04:47]
A
Sure. Well, I think for me personally it was, you know, the, the height of the pandemic and everybody was, you know, trying to be more proactive about their health and wellness. And as part of that, I had a standard blood panel done and the results of that were really alarming because they revealed that I was dangerously deficient in iron, B12 and vitamin D, despite having taken a capsule supplement with those ingredients for over a decade, pretty much as instructed. I'm not someone who identifies still to this day, and certainly not been as a wellness person. I thought I was doing the bare minimum by taking a supplement every, every day. And to. To find out that it just wasn't registering and my body wasn't absorbing. It was alarming and opened up a lot of information and, and really curiosity about the supplement space in general and to. To get my levels up. I was going to the hospital every week for injections and transfusions. And once my levels were up, my doctor suggested that I tried transdermal patches as an alternative to capsules and you know, so that I wouldn't have to go into the hospital for treatment regularly. And I had only known about transdermal patches through like nicotine patches or estrogen patches, birth control patches even, but never, you know, something that I considered for, for daily use with something like a vitamin. And my doctor explained that for a lot of people, too much of the ingredients in a supplement get lost in your digestive tract when they are taken orally. And there are so many factors at play. Your metabolic rate, what did you eat that day, did you use them exactly as instructive? And so there are a lot of variables, but with a transdermal delivery, it really is when made properly, going directly into the bloodstream through the skin, bypassing digestion entirely, making it a really great option for people like myself who were having the biological issues with the existing supplements on the market. And the issue with the product was that they gave me was it was a true medical device and it was bulky, it was uncomfortable, it resembled a bandage. And it really prompted the question like, what's wrong with you? Or did something happen? And it made me self conscious. So even though the product itself was doing the job to be done, it was not a solution that I saw myself wearing long term. And ultimately that was really what, what sparked the idea for Barrier was can we take all of the positives of this proven delivery method and reimagine it to make it not just addressing the biological issues with, with supplementation, but also the behavioral meaning, how do you get somebody to build and maintain a routine and how can you make it something that they don't feel like they have to do, but they want to do? And my background was in, in fashion and marketing, so I think that that helped inform what the product looks like. But ultimately really the goal was to, to make it easy and effective to take control of, of your health and wellness with a product that didn't make life more complicated than it had to be and that didn't require more rules to work. Because ultimately that's where you see drop off. And the key to wellness is consistency, as we all know.
- [08:38]
C
And I think that is also a marketing problem, adherence when you think about it, because you have to not just convince people that something is for them, but you have to become an important problem part of their routine. And by the same token, you have to convince people that already have a routine that they need to switch their routine. Because I, and I have no idea if it's working or not, but I take hair, nail and skin gummies every morning. Before I drink my coffee, are they doing anything? I really, I truly don't know, but it's part of my routine and I feel weird when I don't take them. And yeah, I mean, you, you have to address this in your messaging. You're not only educating, but then you also have to convince people to change their behavior potentially.
- [09:22]
A
Potentially. And I think one of the, the refreshing things for me was we didn't have to come. Our go to market strategy was not to take down pills or gummies. This was to be another tool in your wellness toolkit. And there is a product for every age and stage. Wherever you are in your journey, if you've got a routine that's working for you, great, stick with it. But maybe there's a product in here that you don't already have covered. Or maybe our product can support you when you're traveling and on the go and won't. Don't want to have to bring lots of pills or, you know, maybe there's, there's a reason for you to come to us in addition to what you're already doing. And I think that for me, coming from a fashion background in particular, there's a lot of us versus them in marketing specific specifically. And so we, we didn't go to market to say this is better. Then we wanted to find the people who maybe have never been able to get into a wellness routine already because they just know that they don't like swallowing pills or they found it intimidating or there were too many rules for it to work or something as simple as I don't like eating breakfast and I get nauseous if I take my supplements in the morning, but it says I have to take them in the morning and I have to take them with breakfast. And so for us, it was really about how do we attract people who have never been able to build and maintain a routine. And can we offer a reason for people who have an existing routine that works? Maybe we're offering them something new and maybe we will convert them. But I was very intentional from the beginning at not making this us versus them because I think wellness is so personal and it's. And self care has the word self in it and no two bodies are the same and individual results vary. And this is supposed to be another tool in the toolkit. And for a lot of people it has replaced other things in their routine. But for people where this has just, you know, become something that they've added, we value those customers just as much. It's, it's just about Giving you more solutions that are wearable.
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C
I'm going to take a quick sip of my self care, which is coffee. One second.
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A
Yeah, you and me.
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C
So go to market at the beginning, back in the, the day when you first started the company, you also not only were customer support, but you personally were go to market because you essentially had no paid budget. And in a way it was a good thing because you did this very direct and human kind of marketing. You would haunt locker rooms at SoulCycle. You'd hang out in grocery store aisles and doctor offices. Like not in a creepy way, just you know, like, hey, anywhere, anywhere someone's thinking about their health. And you would talk to people about the product and what it could do for them. So one, do you ever have any weird experiences doing that? And two, like how do you maintain that kind of scrappy, zero budget vibe now that you're doing more paid media? Which we'll talk about.
- [12:33]
A
Yeah. So good. All I will say that we would not be where we were, where we are today if we hadn't done all of that. And that isn't just because it was good exposure. It was, it generated word of mouth. It did, it informed our product strategy, it informed packaging. I mean, I can't tell you how many times I was scribbling on my notebook or in my, my iPhone notes real time feedback and immediately syncing with Alexa, my, my partner and making changes to the packaging in real time because I got asked the same question too many times. I, I knew that every opportunity to be in front of people meant it was another opportunity to, to improve upon the product. And there's really nothing that, that anyone can tell you in a marketing playbook or in business school that is more powerful than an honest question that someone asks because they genuinely need clarification or a piece of feedback that someone has about the product when they're wearing it in a, in real time. I learned more about adhesion. You know, putting patches on before the, before customers entered soul cycle. We learned so much about how this product would perform in real life. So all of that to say you never get too big for that because at every stage in our business that will remain a piece. And whether it's me or the team that we're building out, it's really important to have that face to face interaction with real people and real consumers to stay relevant and to stay, you know, in tune with what customer needs are. Our overall strategy hasn't changed so much as we've grown. It's just we're trying to, we're spending more time trying to replicate that in person. Magic. In a digital first world, that means, you know, balancing the education with the excitement and the inspiration, making things really clear visually but also exciting visually. So that encourages people to lean in, to stop the scroll, to want to educate themselves more about this product and all of that. To say, you know, with a product like this it's really got to be 360. There isn't like one marketing technique or tactic that can sustain the business. It really needs to be a combination of things.
- [15:45]
C
Well, let's talk about the channel mix. You got real with paid media toward the end of 2024, you started spending more.
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B
Yeah.
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C
What did you test, what worked, what didn't? Any surprises and you know, where, where are you spending the most today?
- [16:03]
A
Yeah, so we tested a lot but essentially paid. We didn't start, you know, until 2024 and we started with Meta.
- [16:23]
C
Of course. Of course.
- [16:25]
A
And it's so interesting because I think we might have over indexed the education piece and not, not spent enough time on creative. That was really about the self expression piece. The visual nature of this product. I think I knew it was a part of the strategy in terms of like top of funnel marketing and it can spark conversation in real life. People are like, oh, what's that? Did you get a tattoo? And so our customers can kind of become ambassadors for the brand and that happens more in real life. But I think I underestimated the ability of the visual component in digital life and I kind of assumed that people really would need the, the full, you know, breakdown of how this product works and what it does. And there was almost too much information out the gate. And when we pulled back and really let like specifically with TikTok, but both TikTok and Meta, we let the product and the people speak for itself. That's when we started to see results. And so we really do lean into the visual nature of the product. And sometimes all it takes is something to stop the scroll. Like a really cute design on a hand or for example, we launched this week our UV sensor stickers that tell you when you need to reapply sunscreen. And there's just a video of, of the patch changing from clear to reveal the design under UV exposure. And it's already gotten like, it's one of our most viral pieces of content and there's no context but it has driven tremendous sales because people are like, oh, what's that? And then they click and then they learn more. So I think for us it was in the beginning we were really being strict about the, the science backed messaging and, and really putting our, our medical advisors first and the, the science first that remains to be accessible and is part of specific flows. But for Instagram and, and TikTok specifically like we really are leaning into the self expression piece and, and encouraging people to then learn more if the product, you know, excites them. We have since also, you know, we have Google and that's been great for us. And then we started testing Reddit which has been really interesting and for specific SKUs like our NAD and our dear Dairy Lactose relief product. They're incredibly passionate communities about those skus, those kinds of support. And so those have been really successful channels for us as well to support launches on more niche products like Dear Dairy and our NAD youth repair product.
- [19:23]
C
I guess there are only so many, there's only so many times you can use the word transdermal in marketing before it gets to be a bit much. We're going to take a quick break, but when we're back, we're going to talk about retail and retail media. I have some questions about AI. Of course we could nerd out on measurement if you're game a little bit. So stick with us.
- [19:56]
B
I'm Sarah Sluice, editorial director at Ad Exchanger, and I'm with Katie McAdams, the chief marketing and Commercial officer at Basis. Welcome, Katie.
- [20:05]
D
Thanks for having me.
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B
So Basis has found that media teams today are juggling an average of nine different platforms to run a standard digital campaign. Which makes my head spin because I know when I like switch browser tabs or switch products, I'm like, wait, what was I here for again? So how does this impact their ability to be successful as an advertiser?
- [20:28]
D
Sure. So it's a great question. What we find in our research is that our industry is losing anywhere from 80 to $100 billion annually in value leakage from errors, inefficiency and siloed campaigns sitting in all of those different platforms that you're talking about. And advertising is just becoming more and more fragmented, whether it's across teams, channels, tools, finance systems, and now different AI solutions. So that's a lot of context switching for one team in one day.
- [20:57]
B
Wow. So what would a connected advertising system look like as an alternative to those nine platforms?
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D
What we find in talking to agencies and brands is that that journey really needs to start with consolidation. And by consolidation, I mean getting all of your media contracts, your campaign plans, your invoices and your client communications into one place so that you have a single source of truth. And once you have that foundation in place, then something important really starts to happen. You actually have data that is clean and reliable so that your AI can function with it more meaningfully and more predictably. So the brands and agencies that get to this state fastest are not going to be the ones who are bolting on the most AI tools. They're going to be the ones who are able to build that operational foundation first.
- [21:42]
B
I like this point that centralization isn't just about me as the media planner, but also about having more unified data that will then help me with AI, which I'm glad you brought up AI. So tell us a little bit more about how AI is being added onto this connected advertising system.
- [22:01]
D
Sure. So this is where having that solid foundation in place is going to actually help AI become more of a multiplier for your organization and your teams. As an example, Basis has Compass, which is our agentic AI planning tool. It lives right inside our platform and it solves the problem of media teams spending hours and even sometimes days synthesizing media briefs, building frameworks, building media plans, and then creating client ready presentations before a campaign even launches. So Compass actually takes that brief and generates a complete omnichannel strategy across programmatic search, social and Direct in minutes instead of weeks. That strategy then becomes connected and pushed into their media plan, which can then be activated on through the Basis platform across programmatic search, social and direct media buys. And what we find is that agencies and brands who are using Basis overall are seeing 30 to 40% operational efficiency gains when they operationalize all of those workflows into one place. And that really creates an expansion of capabilities with teams being able to gain back time to focus on strategy, creativity and growth.
- [23:08]
B
So we have more efficiency through centralization, which then enables more use of AI, which is even more efficient. So really interesting to talk to you Katie and thank you to Basis for supporting our podcast.
- [23:20]
D
Thank you.
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C
All right, welcome back. I want to start with AI and content creation because Barrier is a science backed brand. I know a lot of your content now goes into different directions and isn't as focused on the education, but you do have to consider how you're showing up in LLMs and what you create so that you show up in the way that you want to show up. And people are going to have a lot of questions once, once they get to that point, once they're chatting with an AI search bot and they want to do comparisons and they want to know why this is good for them or whatever. I'm sure. They have numerous questions so how do you make sure. And it's really more art than science now despite all the vendors that claim to have cracked geo. But what do you do to make sure that you're doing all you can do with what we know now?
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B
Yeah.
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A
So SEO is, is important to us and we actually we did our entire website with an SEO AI friendly approach, meaning we're putting as much information, even if it's not being displayed on the front end of the website, into the back end. And we have consistently been feeding LLMs over the last year on transdermal. So now our results look very different like than they did six months ago. It's really about making sure that you
- [24:57]
D
are
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A
putting in the terms that you want associated with your brand and, and keeping it up and training the models. So we, we are doing, we're navigating it the same way everyone else is. But Shopify now has an integration that makes it a little bit easier. And the, the one thing about you know, our market is it, you know there aren't that many players. So when someone is looking for a transdermal patch, you know, it's not the same as looking for just vitamins or supplements in general. So that was a bit of a category advantage if I'm being perfectly honest. But we, everything that we do to generate awareness and like our marketing strategy in general has AI in in mind. So we participate in studies, we fund studies, we do clinical trials and all of these things that then get cited that helps feed things, our PR helps feed things. So it all sort of works cohesively. But we have really, we have our developer and someone who's working specifically on AI friendly copy on the, on our website who, who are paying close attention to all of this. We are also on the front end side experimenting with AI as sort of a wellness guide to the website. Making recommendations and using all of the information that's pre approved that we've loaded in that has been provided by our medical advisors or just you know, information resources that could be helpful around the ingredients or the products formulas. And that testing will walk you through the shopping experience in a way that feels like I am taking you through an in person activation of the sort.
- [27:08]
C
So the shopping experience that is such a perfect segue. Thank you. To talking about retail and I guess it's nerdier cousin retail media. So getting into Target and Ulta, I mean that's a massive milestone and it's a really meaningful expansion because you're moving from not away from direct to consumer you do that still, but away from, I guess only specialty wellness channels into mass retail. And that's not, not us, not, not necessarily a different customer, but it's a very different marketing context. So how does it impact your marketing strategy and are you working with any of the retail media networks associated with your retail partners like Roundel and Ulta? Beauty has an RMN too because basically everyone has a retail media network now.
- [27:57]
A
Y so we are working with Roundel and with Ulta's platform.
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D
It is,
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A
you know, for a brand our size there isn't much strategy there. It's product sponsored ads at this stage of the business and that is great because we get a ton of visibility. I would say Target is best in class with the marketing data that they give us and the sales data that is provided. It really allows us to get into the specifics of like SKUs per door online, what, you know, the geographic we can really get into into the specifics and that just helps us with our strategy overall, not just specifically for Target. The other thing with Target that we did through Round Dial is in store sampling and in some ways that has helped boost sales even more than the digital component, which I think goes to say that both really have to happen together, especially for a new brand that's launching. With Ulta we do a little bit more of, you know, branded content which I think for that customer makes sense. So it's partnering with them on co opt storytelling, you know, more influencer content and we've seen incredible performance metrics from those efforts as well as opportunities to be like on the main homepage and things like that that have helped with performance. But Roundel and Target, in terms of the opportunities available to us with product sponsored ads and in store sampling have I think made it a successful launch. I mean we could not have launched in that store without that kind of support. We didn't have a big enough customer base yet to, you know, we're in for 2,000 stores. We couldn't have supported that externally on our own. However, our efforts of our existing marketing strategies combined with the specific retailer initiatives have made it possible for us to support these launches because so much of the work had already been done to, to sort of generate awareness at the brand level. And if you start to see things, you know, in a few different places and then you see it in the aisle at Target, you're more inclined to give it a try. So we really spent, you know, 10 months leading up to the launch on building the foundation without any ability to advertise or market within the world of Target so that once we were live we could support with Roundel. But we had already built that foundation and started like hyper local seating to local influencers in, in stores that we knew we would, in regions where we knew we'd have Target stores. Just trying to plant that seed early on to the best of our ability so that there were enough encounters with our product ahead of ending up on the shelves. And I do think that all of that work leading up to it, plus the Roundel specific campaigns in person and digitally, we're very pleased with the launch. And I think as a new brand and a small brand with limited resources, Target was pretty pleased as well.
- [31:58]
C
The reinforcement strategy makes a ton of sense and works both ways. Because someone sees something online, then they see it in the store, cool. But if they see something, something in the store and they're like, what's that? I don't know, maybe they stop, maybe they don't, but then they see it on Instagram or whatever, then that makes it a thumb stopping moment for them when it might not have been otherwise.
- [32:17]
A
And then you know, once, once you're live, I mean, that's when the work starts. Right? So like we have to support this hopefully for a very long time. And so that's when we layer in some, some more Target specific creative, whether it's working with creative creators, highlighting, you know, the product that they found at Target or how they're using the product. And that is something that can be Target specific content or it can be general brand content pr. You know, the HCM team secures great press that lets people know, hey, this product is at Target. So maybe there are existing customers who now know that they can get it at the same time that they're, they're getting their favorite Target finds. All of that works together. And one of the things that I'm most excited about is actually a new tool that we've been using to be able to track loyalty across all retail touch points so that we can continue to keep in touch with our customer and understand how they're finding us, what they're buying at these different stores and really where our direct to consumer fits into the customer journey.
- [33:35]
C
And you have the two retail partnerships now, they both happen to have retail media networks. You don't have to have distribution necessarily in a store to also do off site amplification. Working with an rmn, of course you can only work with so many, you're already doing so many things. I'm sure the team is lean, but would you want to Expand your RMN strategy. How are you thinking about expanding it? Possibly?
- [34:02]
A
Yeah, I mean, we're, we are always thinking about, you know, ways to expand and to test new things. You know, we've just started doing affiliate and like, we're, we're really like, we're not trying to do too many things at one time, but we, we are seeing the success of some of those efforts and are trying to find the best moments and platforms and partners to be able to maintain the momentum without spreading ourselves too thin.
- [34:41]
C
And now that you're testing more things and putting money behind it, doing more paid media, we have to talk about measurement. You have to know whether what you're testing is working, otherwise you're not going to spend more on it or you just, you won't have the proof. You need to feel confident. I'm sure you spend an inordinate amount of time looking at dashboards, lots of different metrics that are available to you. But what would you say are the top two or three numbers that matter to you most? The ones that if they move in the wrong direction, you're like, oh my God, I need to do something now.
- [35:18]
A
So overall, CAC is very important. We talk about CAC a lot and ROAS is important, we talk about that a lot. But in terms of our own site retention, excellence is something that we talk about all the time. That to me is almost the most important. But yeah, CAC and, and ROAS are, are things that we spend a lot of time on because we, we want to grow but in a healthy way. And profitability is very important to us. And so especially as a business that didn't even have paid advertising like two years ago, we want to make sure that what we're investing in is working. We want to make sure that if we are putting the money in, paid like the money is coming from somewhere else, right? So there's not just this infinite bucket. And really for us it's finding the right opportunities and making sure that we're not over indexing or spending too much. And I think the metrics might change in the future, but right now we want to see growth, but not at the cost of healthy profitability or a path to profitability.
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C
And what about word of mouth and measuring word of mouth, which is deucedly difficult, really, really hard to do. But word of mouth is massive for you guys because like you were saying, someone sees a patch and they say, hey, did you get a tattoo? And then, no, I'm using it for this reason. And then they tell a friend they tell a friend. They tell a friend. It's very hard to measure that. But you do know it's happening.
- [37:09]
A
We know it's happening and we are trying to. So, you know, measuring impact in general is nuanced because there isn't one perfect attribution model just in general. And so we try and look at a combination of things, but because we knew that there was such, this was a word of mouth, heavy acquisition process, we wanted to find a way to understand that better track it as best as we can, but also reward the people who are spreading the news. So we've got a few different things that we do. So I mentioned Bubble House, which is how we track direct relationships with shoppers across all retailers and our own. But it also is a tiered loyalty rewards program and you can actually get rewards for spreading the news or sharing links and that we're just kicking it off, but it's been really fun to see how many of our customers are customers across multiple retail channels. We also have Tyb, which allows us to see loyalty, but also when customers are sharing, that's trackable. And then we've got, you know, affiliate links and whatnot, custom utms and things. But it's not perfect. And what we're just more excited about
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B
is
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A
like the increase in our social media followers, the increase to our subscriber list, the increase of customers more than focused on a perfect attribution model for things like word of mouth, because it will never be perfect. But as long as we're acknowledging that it's happening and making space for it and investing in it and investing in the tools and loyalty rewards for our customers so that they do feel incentivized and supported and celebrated.
- [39:19]
C
Anyone looking for perfect measurement and attribution will be sorely disappointed in their life because it doesn't exist. You just need to know what direction
- [39:28]
A
to row in exactly. And sometimes the tide changes and you got to row in a different, in a different direction. But, but I think that I'm less focused and maybe this is because I have an untraditional background for this, this role in particular. But, you know, I'm more focused on proving, I'm less focused on proving that one specific thing drove a specific sale and more focused on understanding, you know, what are the programs that are creating and sustaining growth across all sales channels and for the community. And when you layer all the things together, you know, do you get, do you get a view that can inform how you can shape a strategy and continue to learn and engage your customers beyond initial purchase. And I think right now we've got enough, enough tools and resources to, to get as good of a picture as we can have for this place in time and just do our best to shape strategies around what's working and continue to invest in, in all the things that will help make us, you know, more sophisticated and more able to, to react and respond.
- [40:55]
C
The penultimate question, you alluded to this during the first half, but the portfolio has expanded beyond vitamins. So there is something for lactose intolerance, there's something for nausea, morning sickness, motion sickness. And then there's the product that you mentioned, the UV sensor sticker that changes color with sun exposure and reveals like hidden artwork when it's time to reapply sunscreen. I don't think you named it by name. It's very clever. It's called Burn Notice. I love wordplay, so I wanted to give you a shout out. But each of these solves a different problem for a different type of person and a completely different moment. And none of it is vitamins. So how do you think about creating audiences and targeting this customer base when it's getting quite broad, even though a lot of these things are in their own right, a bit niche.
- [41:47]
A
So a couple of things there. So when we launched, we launched with vitamins and it was a. Inspired by my issue and an issue that a lot of people had, but it was also quite simple. People kind of know what to expect when vitamin D or vitamin B12. We didn't want to complicate things too much and we wanted to keep it very focused. Where are your vitamins? Where are your vitamins? We needed to keep it tight then because it was such a new product. Our goal and our vision for the brand has always been about the future of wellness, being wearable, and that this is more of a consumer wellness solutions platform than a vitamin brand. And very early on I noticed that because our products were purely vitamins and there were no fillers or additives like a lot of patch brands have, you know, their energy product is actually caffeine or has some sort of stimulant inside to give you a sensation that we were churning customers faster than I would have liked in those early days because they didn't know what to expect expect, and they sort of weren't expecting that they would have to wait the same amount of time as a vitamin to see or feel results. Which is just the science. Is the science. It will take, you know, six to eight weeks to see measurable, you know, in your blood work, to see A measurable lift in vitamin D, for example. So it was really important to me to start introducing products that would give more instant gratification, not stimulation, but more sensory. So like the calm patch, you put it on and you do feel something, and it is still just the pure ingredients. We don't add anything to give you a sensation. But there's a benefit that you can feel immediately, while at the same time, at the cellular level, there are benefits that will be sustained over time. And so our product mix is first and foremost addressing everyday problems with a wearable solution. So that's the through line, but
- [44:15]
B
some
- [44:16]
A
are more, this works in real time. And the idea there is that if you try something and you feel it working in real time, you are more inclined to come and try our other products. But because we've built that trust. And so the last four products that we launched are products that give you a instant, real time benefit. It gives the customer that, you know, okay, this is working. Now I'm going to come back and I'm going to buy their vitamin B and their vitamin D, because I trust this brand. Maybe they weren't looking for vitamins to begin with. Maybe they didn't come to us because they were looking for vitamins. But now that they're here and we've built their trust and they see that this product is so comfortable and so easy to wear and it's waterproof and it's all these things, ticks, all these boxes, they are more likely to let us take up a little bit more of their shelf space.
- [45:14]
C
And I'm sure there's a lot of overlap between these audiences. People that have motion sickness also need to know when to reapply their sunscreen. These are not totally different people.
- [45:23]
A
People go through different stages and needs. And so now we've got a bigger chance of, of at least playing a small role in their wellness journey. No matter what stage they're in. Sometimes people, you know, they're, they're not looking for nausea, support, but then they become, you know, pregnant and they're looking for it, or they're going on a boat trip and they don't want to get seasick. Like not everything has to be every day, but, but the goal is for barrier to play a role in, in your life, you know, from, from ages 2 all the way, you know, to infinity. Because we've got products that can support all, all different needs, goals, your needs, change your goals, change your interests, change your, your lifestyle changes. And so by not limiting ourselves to one specific category, being vitamins we can potentially strengthen that relationship with our customer for, you know, that's built to last.
- [46:29]
C
So, final question, and I hope it's not too personal, but what you could argue that I'm asking you to disclose sensitive health data, but what's your regimen? What is your daily barrier regimen?
- [46:40]
A
So at any given. On any given day, I have, you know, she worn six patches. On full disclosure, I am. I was B12 and iron deficient, so I am no longer deficient, but I use for maintenance a B12 patch every day. And I use our brains and beauty patch, which is formulated with iron, B12 and hyaluronic acid twice a week. I use our NAD patch, two patches every other day. And this is for. For longevity, but it also just makes me. It's helped with brain fog, it's improved my skin, so it's just got a lot of benefits and it's kind of. I can't play favorites, but it's favorite. I also wear our skin support patch every single day. Pro tip. I cut out six topical products from my skincare routine, replaced it with this patch, and my travel and, like, life has just gotten a lot better. And I take up less of the counter space in the bathroom, which my husband loves. I wear Dear Dairy now every day. I am not officially lactose intolerant, but I am someone who experienced discomfort every time I consumed dairy to some degree. And I love this because now I really can, like, double down on my dairy. So I've been wearing this daily. Everything else I add in is needed. So Vitamin D I wear every day in, like, October through April just to make sure that that's covered. I use our everyday compatch to support my stress. So I put this on. I didn't put it on before our podcast because I know you and that you don't make me nervous. But when I'm speaking and I put this on, I put it on for travel. I put it on at night. And I do not travel without our big sleep melatonin patches. I use those every night when I'm traveling to keep up a healthy sleep routine. So it sounds like a lot, but I'm wearing a lot and you can't. Like, I don't feel them. I don't, you know, it's. It's so easy. And I keep everything I have at my desk or in my purse and I just kind of stick and forget it.
- [49:05]
C
There's nothing wrong with something that lets you double down on your dairy.
- [49:08]
A
I mean, I too, I was in Paris and I just said like we, we to everything. Normally I'm like, okay, like maybe a little butter because you just don't want to feel sick. But no, there were no no's. And it was so much fun to not have to think about it and to not have to time pills or anything like that.
- [49:28]
C
Viva la Dairy.
- [49:29]
A
Viva la dairy. Foreign.
- [49:41]
B
This episode was sponsored by Basis, the leading intelligent operating system for autonomous advertising. Its enterprise AI solution transforms campaign briefs into strategies and media plans that integrate directly into omnichannel activation. Learn more at basis.
- [49:58]
D
Com.