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- [00:00]
A
Our crown affair live brand breakdown.
- [00:04]
B
Something that is difficult about these brands. What the heck is a three course ritual for your hair? I always find with brands that are sort of DTC darling, sometimes you click into that ad library and we're like trying to sell everything under the sun. I would bet this product is an easy acquisition win for them. You really have to make the distinction. I think from like a strategy level. Is someone reasonably going to purchase that or is the route get someone to purchase it because the AOV is quite high and then you get them with the ink card upsell.
- [00:37]
A
If your focus is trying to like curate a beautiful aesthetic grid, you're missing out. You've got to go deeper with how you engage. It's all killer, no filler. I'm Eric and today we have a very special returning guest, Abes, back on the DTC podcast. First of all, A's. Before we dive into our crown affair, let's live brand breakdown or ad library breakdown that we're going to do today. Give the listeners who have not started listening to Adventurous yet the number one reason why they should be listening to Adventurous.
- [01:13]
B
I would say the number one reason you should be listening to Adventurous is to make better ads by expanding your horizons. I was just reading that the Onion is is way up in subscribers because they have started producing a print magazine and that kind of like returned to form. I was also, yeah, just reading this article about specifically Gen Z clamoring for like real things in this digital era. That is the kind of stuff that we tend to talk about. The first episode ever of Adventurous was about milk. Got milk? My favorite ad of all time. And that's the kind of stuff that we tend to talk about. So if you want to make better ads by returning the fundamentals, give it a listen.
- [01:59]
A
I liked your most recent episode about Cringe Mountain because I think that's like a meta skill when it comes to making meta ads is that ability to sort of get over yourself and put yourself out there and not worry about being perceived as cringe.
- [02:15]
B
Totally. Yeah. That episode came from, honestly, a lot of people internally and externally giving me that feedback. They were like, it doesn't seem like you care. And I was like, that's right on the money. I would rather do stuff, have a good time, then be nervous about people perceiving me as cringe. And then I started thinking like, this could be an episode because a lot of people were giving me that feedback and I was like, either I'm the lamest person of all time and so cringe and cringe. Maxing maybe. Or there's something here because this is not how most people feel, which is I don't care about looking stupid. I feel like looking stupid is like a precursor to having fun also.
- [02:50]
A
Yes. And nobody cares. Nobody really cares. What? You should not really care what other people think about you anyway. So whimsy. Maxing to the max.
- [02:58]
B
Totally. I was just gonna say I've never once seen a video that someone posted and then like gone to sleep that night and been like, I can't believe Eric posted that video. That was so lame. Like, nobody thinks about you or what you're posting that much. Good takeaway.
- [03:12]
A
All right, onto this new format that we're trying out where we basically I've just been looking around for for really cool D2C brands. Ideally want to bring them on the podcast eventually. But for starters, let's do a live breakdown of the Crown Affair, which is a hair care brand apparently. Currently you can check me if I'm wrong about this. I got it from ChatGPT, but currently between 20 and 30 million dollars in revenue, series B funded. It's a premium ritual focused hair care brand built on content community and clean beauty principles. So maybe I can do a quick screen share here and we can maybe start, maybe just start on their website and we'll go into their ad library first. Okay, so we are looking at the Crown Affair. What are your like high level impressions of this brand?
- [03:59]
B
First of all, I feel like a good disclaimer is like I have purchased from these guys. I haven't tried it yet. It's waiting for me in another hemisphere. So good disclaimer. Even before Eric brought this brand to me, like I was interested in them website wise. I'm saying that as a disclaimer because we're gonna kind of rip apart what they have going on above the fold. It's not super accessible, it's not super clear. I think that something that is difficult about these brands and again, I've already purchased. So take this with a grain of salt. Something really interesting is like what the heck is a three course ritual for your hair? It immediately doesn't make any sense to someone coming in from the top of the funnel. We don't know how they're testing landing pages. We don't know where they're sending traffic. But yeah, it's like difficult to read. First of all, white on a light background is just a very tactical bad move. But it's also really difficult to understand from the beginning. And I know we're all like Obsessed with food in the beauty industry, specifically right now, and, like, bringing our products to this really, like, I don't know, tactile place. But, yeah, from that image at the top, it kind of looks like a mushroom to me. I don't know about you, but it's very difficult to tell what we're being sold.
- [05:11]
A
I think you're right. Like, it doesn't. If you don't know the brand, you don't know that it has anything to do with hair except that she has lovely hair when you get here. I do love the positioning of ritual at the highest level of brand strategy. I think that's, like, actually, like, one of. That's the cardinal rule of hair care, which was you doubled sales by saying wash, rinse, and repeat, by adding and repeat. So this idea of, like, forming a ritual and building that into the core of your brand at the highest level, strategically, I think makes a ton of sense and is maybe a reason for some of their success. I see what you mean, though, tactically, about some of their aesthetics.
- [05:49]
B
I would love to, like, see them tie the ritual to a benefit. So it's, like, healthy hair for our ritual, where it's like, you're not really getting that immediately, but that would be because I think, like, rinse, wash, repeat. The, like, immediate benefit is, like, silky hair, I guess, when we're boots on the ground, coming up with that. So this one is, like, what is the. What is the benefit to a ritual?
- [06:13]
A
Well, it's used twice as much as product. That's the real genius of it because it gets you to go through your product twice as fast. But tying it to. Yeah, to a ritual that you're. And I think you need at least three steps in a ritual. I don't know if that's true, but very clean, minimal design. I really like the brand aesthetic of it.
- [06:31]
B
Yeah. Below the fold, very, like, consistent, clean. This is kind of a read, I guess. But something that is, for some reason, not always happening, I guess, is, like, showing models with hair that is kind of aspirational. I think it was. Blake Lively launched a hair care brand, and her thing is really messy hair and kind of dried, and it just doesn't look the healthiest. So I love seeing, like, actual imagery that I feel like is really, like, connecting the dots. We've got, like, images of really healthy, silky hair, and then we've got the product in, like, what looks like my nightstand, to be honest, in its natural home environment. So it's cool. Cool branding.
- [07:15]
A
Okay, let's jump over to their Ad library and we can take a look at the way that they're presenting themselves on ads. I just got the fact that the crown affair is a pun because your crown, the crown affair, it's, it's got, it's got a lot going on there. It's got that regal air to it. It's got the air of drama, you know what I mean? If it's got the affair, it's, it's, there's some drama there. And here we've got some of their ads. Of course you can watch our live stream of this on our Spotify account or on our YouTube page, or you can just listen to us describe these wonderful ads. What do you think of what you're seeing in their ad library?
- [07:54]
B
Seeing like an immediate, pretty good mix. So if you're listening, something that's really coming through with Crown Affair is there is a mixture of CGC content. So you see lots of organic style, some very branded like testimonials. We're looking at one right now with like the Allure beauty badge which has specifically motivated me to buy previously. And then we've also got like a ton of press reviews with very branded photography as well, which I think for beauty specifically really matters because we're so oversaturated, so differentiating ourselves from both like a type point of view. So like I said, we've got creator content representing kind of more organic, accessible and then really aspirational stuff. So that's always a really good sign to see in any ad library. Means it's like a healthy mix.
- [08:44]
A
I like these, these bolded statements here that really sort of go right to the your pain point. Right. Like so much healthier than spray. Everyone's worried that their products are not healthy. Second day hair that feels clean, not coated. It just like evokes that feeling that if I had hair, I would imagine what it felt like.
- [09:04]
B
Totally. Yeah. I think like something too to describe, if you're listening is there's a lot of ads focused on a like dry shampoo product that is very atypical and how you apply it. So usually you spray that onto your head, but this is like a powder that comes with a brush. So it's very simple and already like a differentiator I feel like. So they're really, I think leaning into the visual differences with this as a dry shampoo versus like the aerosol filled cans which is also really cool and.
- [09:36]
A
Really focusing on it looks like it. It's hard to tell just from a cursory glance at the eye library but focusing on that dry shampoo as a hero skew.
- [09:44]
B
Yeah, that's really interesting. Like coming from the website to here. I always find with brands that are sort of DTC darling, sometimes you click into that ad library and we're like trying to sell everything under the sun. So it is really cool to see like probably a fine tuned strategy. Like I would bet this product is an easy acquisition win for them compared to like maybe a serum or something that's a little bit more evolved in that ritual. Like most people with hair. That sounds like a read to you Eric, but it's not. A lot of people with hair do use dry shampoo like it's a common product to own. So I like that they're not trying to immediately sell someone on a three step routine or whatever it is. Like they're focusing on something that's accessible, doing that through meta and that's kind of like the, the secret sauce, the winning formula most of the time.
- [10:35]
A
They're also running a lot of ads that drive you to retail to shop with their partnership at Sephora, which I think is worth a shout.
- [10:43]
B
That is interesting. I feel like it's revealing a lot about myself. But as someone who like loves buying things from Sephora or in Australia Mecca, that is a real like signal of quality almost in the marketplace I think and a like way to just prove that you're a legitimate brand. And I already said this, a very oversaturated market. There's so many different beauty brands popping up all the time. So it's so competitive that if you just get the shelf space in Sephora it already gives you some social proof which is really cool.
- [11:19]
A
And they're launching lots of ads. They've got really good velocity. It seems we're getting down more into some UGC ads for their Air Moose product with many diverse kinds of hair. As you were saying?
- [11:30]
B
Yeah, I was just gonna say it's really like cool to see how many different hair types are popping up because that's another concern I guess with brands like this. Like if you're just using people who have the same hair type and it's like an aspirational hair type, then I'm probably not gonna buy it. I have sort of thin hair, I'm always using heat. It's a little damaged. You want to see like actual hair, not super edited.
- [11:56]
A
I'm not seeing. Oh there's the first. I think I'm not seeing much founder led content and I, I actually like in my analysis of this brand when I was using chat GPT. I think this is the founder here actually. I believe and I think once you get into their retention program, they really lean heavily on the, the founder angle. But it doesn't appear to be as prevalent in their ads.
- [12:16]
B
Interesting. I wonder if they just haven't tested or found the winning way to present the founder across like more top of funnel channels.
- [12:24]
A
And I do see, yeah, a lot of reference to that idea of a ritual in a way. Right. Where because once you have people locked in on those rituals, they pay out cash.
- [12:33]
B
Yeah. Something I really like that I'm seeing here is that they're like referencing building your own ritual, which I think is really important. It's sort of like I am jumping into this, like I said as someone who just bought stuff from this brand, didn't do as much research as Eric, but something that's really interesting about like hair care for example is trying to sell people on maybe just like a specific system for their hair isn't gonna work because most people have different hair. So I like this idea that it's like the products inspire a ritual is what it feels like they're kind of getting across. But you can build that ritual to really complement your own hair care journey or whatever you would call it, really compliment whatever you your hair goals are. They're not like boxing you in by saying like this is the, you know, here's the hairbrush, here's the shampoo conditioner. It's like maybe you need an oil, maybe it's dry shampoo. There seems to be some flexibility within the idea of building a ritual based on the ads.
- [13:30]
A
One of the piece of commentary from chat D2C here was that it leverages founder led storytelling. I believe in their email which I was seeing when I did the research created by Diana Cohen. Crown Affair leans into deeply editorial, almost media brand aesthetic. Every product is part of a ritual rather than a routine. Think glossier for hair. What do you think of that statement that it has this sort of editorial quality? Do you, do you think that's made up or what are we saying there?
- [13:56]
B
Let's say maybe from the website. Yes. Which is what I love to see from the website. There is this like sort of higher brow quality to the brand compared to what you might get at like a drugstore for your hair. And I think just the word ritual invokes this idea of like repurchasing building habits, some very specific type of person instead of just being someone who goes to the drugstore, picks out whatever shampoo there is. Like you're being really intentional. When you build a ritual around something so you're kind of speaking to people who take hair care seriously, I guess is a way to put it. The gossip comparison is really interesting to me. I feel like glossier has really fallen off, which is something that I'm not going to talk about right now because I feel like I could do a whole podcast episode about it. But the way that that brand just nuked was really interesting to me. But I think what's really interesting about that comparison here is glossier was, like, really specifically targeted to a very young person. But the idea of building a hair care ritual speaks to me as a, like, woman in my now late 20s. I guess, like, that's something I'm doing. You're not building a hair care ritual if you're 19 years old and just kind of figuring out where you want to spend your money. Like, they're really defining who their Persona is and how they're presenting their products rather than. I think, again, the glossier comparison is really interesting because that was like, I'll buy one product, I get this tote bag, I'm part of a cult. But this is sort of like, way more specific to their Persona, which is, I think, a really good strategy in this era.
- [15:35]
A
They're also running. I just clicked through on this ad here. Bundle three products for 15 off. Get craft your hair care ritual. Get 15% off when you click through. It goes to an interesting PDP that's just literally asking, you know, pick your favorites, choose recommended favorites, save up to 20 when you bundle. So it's driving to a bundle builder that like, you know, gives you this content up front about how you should be rethinking, you know, what your ritual is. So, yeah, like this, this. Do we do a lot of driving direct to bundles from ads as well, or is it more of an in cart choice?
- [16:08]
B
Yeah, interesting question. I would say it's entirely up to, like, product AOV and the way that products function with one another. One of the brands that I work directly with or soft goods brand, it doesn't make a lot of sense for people to be purchasing many of the same product because it's just like not that type of thing. And so we tend to do a lot of in cart upsells instead of building a bundle. But say you are like a jewelry brand and each piece is around $70, that's your retail price starting to layer in. Like running to a bundle builder where people are stacking necklaces and like putting together coordinating sets. That makes sense in my Opinion. And that is something we do a lot of at Pilot House. But you really have to make the distinction, I think for from like a strategy level, is someone feasibly going to buy, like, you could bundle anything, you know what I mean? But is someone feasibly going to purchase that or is the route get someone to purchase it because the AOV is quite high, and then you get them with the ink cart Upsell really depends on, like, single SKU pricing. And also, like I said, what does the product actually do, and does it make sense to buy multiple things from that brand at once?
- [17:19]
A
Yeah, the framing of it as a ritual allows you to go into, like, the jobs to be like, broaden out through, like, the jobs to be done kind of theory and offer things like towels as part of your hair care ritual, you know, you know, brushes, whatever. All these different areas that you might not think of initially as hair care. Let's take a quick look at their. At just at their Instagram feed. I saw an interesting post the other day that was about just how you really like if you're. I think it was basically saying that if you're. Now if your focus is trying to, like, curate a beautiful aesthetic grid, you're missing out. You've got to go deeper with how you engage. And we're gone. We're sort of beyond the pure aesthetics of the. Of your grid into deeper things. So these guys definitely have a beautiful aesthetic grid. I don't think that should be a knock. What are your thoughts?
- [18:05]
B
Yeah, I've actually been seeing a lot of the same where it's like, the focus now is more on, like, niche and interests. So something that's interesting to, like, think through as an exercise with these people is like, what are the surrounding interests in, like, building a hair care routine, like, boom. That picture right there of like, a very aesthetic breakfast plate. I think that makes a lot of sense for a brand like this to post, because if I. And I am. I can't disclose this enough. I am the type of person who wants a ritual for all things in my life. I also have a very specific way that I eat breakfast. So showing those other rituals, I think is a really smart choice for them. Instead of just hammering home, like, aesthetic pictures of the product, like, bringing in different interests, because that's what people really want to see and why they're going to follow a brand, because something with that brand and their ethos connects with them. So you can kind of hammer home as many, like, aesthetic pictures of the product and photo shoots that you want But I think to build actual community on your organic channels right now is about doing sort of what they're doing with those, like breakfast pictures or maybe showing like a workout class or something like that. Like other instances of building rituals and showing up in a consistent way would make a lot of sense for them.
- [19:20]
A
I love that. But you're still not sold on the Butler mushroom tray situation they have going on here?
- [19:26]
B
It might be that I don't have my glasses on, but, like, it looks so much like a mushroom to me.
- [19:32]
A
It does.
- [19:32]
B
Or it's like.
- [19:34]
A
But it does have a white glove at the top of it. It wouldn't fit though. Like, it's just sort of. It's interesting. It's an interesting. It has us talking.
- [19:41]
B
So, yeah, that's all you can hope for. I think what's really getting me is the lack of glasses and also the way that this image is like lit. It's a very dim lighting. You can't really see the text on the product. So it's making it harder.
- [19:55]
A
Well, next time wear your glasses. We do a. We do a visual brand breakdown, but this was neat, I think. I think maybe unless you have any closing thoughts on the brand, maybe we'll leave it there. If anyone in the audience knows Diana or anyone who leads the founding team or executive team at Crown Affair, we'd love to have them on the DTC podcast. But we hope you found these insights valuable. And, and if there's a brand that you think you'd want us to look at, shoot us a note and. And make some suggestions. What do you think, Aves?
- [20:25]
B
Yeah, that sounds fun. I love doing this for a newsletter or audits, so looking at ad libraries is kind of my job.
- [20:35]
A
Nice. And this was our first one, so we just sort of gripped and ripped this one. But I feel like we got something here. And we will continue to refine this format. And yeah, thanks for coming on the All Killer no Filler podcast today, Abes.
- [20:47]
B
Thanks for having me. It's retro, it's fun. It's like coming back home.
- [20:50]
A
And go subscribe to AD- Venturous, search that in your podcast finder, subscribe to it and leave it a five star review because that really helps grow these podcasts in the beginning. And leave DTC a review if you haven't left us review. If we've ever given you any value. Go there. Leave us a review. Thanks very much. Thanks, Dave. Talk to you again soon. Thanks for listening to today's episode. If you're not getting the DTC newsletter You can subscribe for free at directtoconsumer Co. And if you want to learn more about Pilothouse's all killer no filler services, take off to Pilothouse Co. I'm Eric Dick and this has been the DTC podcast. We'll see you next time.