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Why Elf is Bullish on Social Commerce - Whether TikTok Stays or Goes
00:23:39
Next in Media spoke with Regine Fung - Sr. Director, US & Global Paid Media at ELF Beauty, about how the brand's media strategy has evolved from a pure DTC player to one that is embracing live sports, CTV, and out-of-home. In addition, Fung talked about Elf's huge TikTok presence, and why she think social commerce is finally breaking out in the US.
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- [00:01]
Mike Shields
See how you'll predict future buying behaviors and build a lifetime of customer loyalty. Discover the deepest customer Insights available@epsilon.com data that's epsilon.com data. This week on Next to Media, I spoke with Regine Fung. She's the senior director of US and global paid media at Elf Beauty. Regina and I talked about how Elf really leans into TikTok as well as creators who are very good at driving commerce. That said, Elf has really evolved the past couple years as he tries to push beyond pure Dr. Channels and into TV and even platforms like Twitch while trying to make sense of measuring on the impact of all these different levers. Let's get started. Hi everybody. Welcome to Next to Media. I'm Mike Shields. I'm here with Regine Fung. She's a senior director, U.S. and global pay media at Elf Beauty. Hey Regine, thanks for being here.
- [00:55]
Regine Fung
Hey Mike, thank you for having me.
- [00:57]
Mike Shields
Excited to talk to you because you are. Elf is one of those brands. I think it's evolved quite a bit, but it's one of those like those are the hardcore DTC brands that do media a certain way. I'm imagining, you know, that's changed a lot over time. But can you maybe talk about how your paid media strategy has evolved from just pure acquisition to broader stuff if that's the case?
- [01:19]
Regine Fung
Yeah, absolutely. You know, when I first started at Elf, we were already TikTok famous and very, very social forward. And that's because at Elf, we are bold disruptors with a kind heart that's really looking to shape culture and connect with our communities. When we first.
- [01:34]
Mike Shields
How long ago was that, Regina?
- [01:35]
Regine Fung
Like, I started January of last year, but you know, we dived right into TikTok. I want to say around 2019, 2020, when, you know, that platform was still like finding its footing, but we noticed our community was thriving and really excited to be there. And because community is at the heart of everything we do, we want to show up big wherever they are and we're definitely not afraid to test and learn as we go. We have this saying here. We work at ELF speed and that ELF speed is really to be in lockstep with, you know, the fast paced nature of culture, transforming brand identity. Right, exactly, exactly. It's really in our DNA. But going back to your question about, you know, how have our strategy changed since then and since I've joined, we continue to test new media platforms, new to Elf, if you will, things like TV out of home radio. So we've really broken out of that social media space. And, you know, dived right into those mass reach mediums. We've even expanded our orbit to like unlikely media partners like iHeartRadio and Twitch, where we have our own channel called ELFU. So definitely check out our Twitch channel whenever you can.
- [02:42]
Mike Shields
It's funny to hear you say these new platforms like tv, but it makes sense for brands that were really born on social. TV was always considered either not really trackable, not providing the tools for the ROI that you're used to on social, or just expensive. And that seems like that's changing a lot. So I want to ask you about that, but how do you balance that now that you're doing more of these different vehicles? The hardcore user acquisition tactics you associate with brands like ELF versus like awareness and other things? How do you figure that out?
- [03:13]
Regine Fung
Yeah, I mean, it's definitely a mixture of art and science. Right. But you know, I'd like to think of us as extremely effective brand marketers. And, and what that means is, you know, the traditional definition in our media world of awareness tactics. It doesn't just mean eyeballs and impressions to us. We start from a place of like, what do we want our community to feel? What do we want them to react to? What are the media types that they're going to resonate with, whether it's making a purchase, talk to us on social, whatever that might be. That's really how we find that balance. I don't know if you know this, but ELF stands for every eyelid face. So our expectation is really to go broad as well as deep into those various communities and subcultures of. Of course, yes, we have our search and shopping and other hardcore acquisition tactics, but I would say that's kind of secondary to us wanting to lead with our purpose and making sure we're reaching our community with engaging content and making a positive impact.
- [04:07]
Mike Shields
I'm going to lie and say I knew that, but I actually didn't. I knew it stood for something, but I did not know that. I apologize.
- [04:13]
Regine Fung
I'm not in Learn something new every day.
- [04:15]
Mike Shields
Yes, hopefully my listeners are learning as well what you're describing. It's interesting because you're mixing a lot of different goals. It sounds like you have a lot of different goals. You want to be culturally relevant. You obviously want to drive, you know, revenue and transactions. Most, most brands do. You want to tap into a way people feel about the brand that's not easy to put in a spreadsheet and measure. Seemingly, I'm imagining you're not going to say you figured it all out. But have you figured out a way to blend all those different kinds of tactics into, you know, some kind of uniform way of measuring things? Is that impossible? What does that look like for you?
- [04:50]
Regine Fung
It is not easy, I can say that. But we have a variety of different measurement tools at our disposal. Right. You know, we have our media partners that have proprietary tools that help us understand on site metrics. Whenever we do things like TV and out of home or radio, we also, you know, deploy other third party measurement, like an MMM type thing. And then last but not least, this is kind of strange and I don't know if you have a lot of guests that think about this way, but our media is really one part of a 360 marketing effort. Right? So instead of just having a TV campaign, that TV campaign is really meant to be an amplifier to all the other marketing tactics that we have for that particular campaign.
- [05:35]
Mike Shields
So you don't go in. I think that's what I was kind of wondering before. Do you go in? Okay, let's add TV to the mix and let's treat it the same way we treat Instagram and try and measure it the same way and optimize the same way. That's not really what you're trying to do there.
- [05:47]
Regine Fung
No, no. And believe me, I worked long and hard to make sure people aren't comparing like, oh, why is Search doing better than social? Like they're inherently different platforms, the expectations are going to be different. So it's really about setting the right KPIs, the right expectations for each channel and the role that they play.
- [06:03]
Mike Shields
I know I'm jumping around a bit here, but that's kind of the way the show always is. When coming back to what you're saying about TikTok and how you were TikTok famous already, how do you. This is probably not a simple answer either. How do you figure out, you know, you want to take advantage of what the audience there is doing with your brand or how they're being organically talking about you. You want to maybe attach yourself to the right creators and also do paid media. Is there a uniform TikTok strategy? Is it really vary by product, season creator? Like, what does that look like?
- [06:35]
Regine Fung
That's a very, very big question because there's so many things to say about that. But sticking within like the TikTok realm, I would say, and kind of maybe expanding out just to social media in general. Since I mentioned we are very socially native social first brand, we've actually grown in that space considerably. Right. Because that space has Also grown and changed. Before it was all about connecting with your friends and family and sharing pictures and then it was connecting with celebrities. But now there's social commerce and live shopping. So not only are we continuing to expand our media mix to TV and at home, we're also expanding and evolving within platforms that we've kind of grew up in, if you will. Right. Because of social commerce and live shopping. And then creators is another element of that where they're really an extension of our brand and a way to engage our community at large. Our strategy for creators is really across a couple of different vectors. Like I mentioned, we're assigning the right KPIs. There's some that does a great job in driving awareness and engagement and some really do a great job in driving those sales, especially within that social commerce space. So it's kind of a mix and match approach depending on what we're expecting to do. But yeah, I think, I think social is really fun because it just continues to just evolve. I mean, I think the latest stat I heard was people are spending three hours a day on social media, probably a bit more amongst younger audiences. So it's not surprising that commerce has kind of grown into that vehicle because of the time spent there.
- [08:04]
Mike Shields
We've been waiting for. A lot of people have been impatient about when is social commerce going to happen in the U.S. right. It's huge in China, it's huge in other parts of the world. When's it going to happen? It seems like it's getting pretty real, especially with TikTok and a couple other platforms. What do you think worked this time around? Seems to be working. And, and how do you play there? Like how do you make sure you're part of that without screwing that up?
- [08:27]
Regine Fung
I love this question because I actually just did a panel on this recently. I want to zoom out a little bit because when I think about social commerce, I actually also think about qvc. Right. Yep.
- [08:39]
Mike Shields
Which is not right, I should say. We've waited. That's been around for a lot, for.
- [08:42]
Regine Fung
A very long time, for decades. And, and I think what QVC did really right was they knew their viewers, they knew their audience. They knew it was likely going to be a mom or a head of household or that sports fan. So they'll have a segment about sports memorabilia. They started with the audience first and they built all their segments around that. And I think that's really where social commerce kind of plays in nicely because they. It's all about knowing the community and what they want. I think the big difference between social commerce and QVC is that you're not engaging with a host on TV and you're calling in and you hope that they'll pick up. You're engaging with a whole community around you that is also interested in that brand or also interested in that host.
- [09:21]
Mike Shields
Right. That's very different.
- [09:22]
Regine Fung
Right, right. So I think that that part is really, really exciting about social commerce. And I think recently TikTok had an article out that they reached $100 million in sales over Black Friday and a lift of 165% in Black Friday shoppers for that weekend. So there's tremendous growth here. But to your point, I mean, nothing like it is in Asia, especially in the live shopping realm, where it's still pretty, you know, up and coming here. And I think for us as a brand, it's really about testing and learning and growing into it.
- [09:52]
Mike Shields
Do you think this is a weird question, but you made me think of it with QVC has been around forever, but there was a certain population that just would like, oh, I don't do home shopping, like never. That's not my thing. But some, it seems like social commerce they figured out to make it cool and more mainstream. Is that. Are you seeing that?
- [10:09]
Regine Fung
Absolutely. I think it's about that frictionless experience. Kind of going back to what I was saying about live shopping is that you don't feel like you're at home and you're the only person watching that second. You really do feel like you're amongst your peers, your community, your tribe. And so I think that part is exciting. And also going back to my other point about how social media expanded from sharing pictures with your aunt to, you know, Kelly, to, you know, connecting with celebrities and brands and other media platforms. That frictionless experience is really great because now I'm spending three hours a day on social media and I see my favorite celebrity using this lipstick or whatever and then I can easily buy it. I think that part is just amazing.
- [10:51]
Mike Shields
Okay, let's take a quick break. I'm here with Sydney Boyd. She's a senior product manager at Epsilon. Hey, Sydney.
- [10:56]
Regine Fung
Hi.
- [10:56]
Sydney Boyd
Thank you for having me.
- [10:57]
Mike Shields
So I want to ask you about loyalty programs. How much does that. Are those tied to the ongoing loss in in signal that we're seeing in digital Hour?
- [11:05]
Sydney Boyd
Yeah, so I mean, the signal loss in digital advertising is undoubtedly an industry challenge, but I can't say that it really impacts loyalty programs just because these programs really rely primarily on first and zero party data captures. So at Epsilon, we really focus on leveraging the Data that our clients provide from their first party and zero party data capture. Also by giving them mechanisms to capture that and then through our proprietary data and segmentation, we help them create really relevant personalized experiences because that's what's truly key is using those preferences, like for example style quizzes for a retail brand to really tailor rewards that drive strong value in exchanges for engagement.
- [11:42]
Mike Shields
Do you have a good example of a brand you put this into practice for?
- [11:45]
Sydney Boyd
Yeah, so we did something with Tractor supply company so they were really interested in understanding their customer journey and so we helped them do that by looking at it both at an individual and aggregate level through their data and really coupled quantitative customer data with qualitative feedback from their in store shoppers. So with this, these richer insights that we were able to glean, we made key helped them make key adjustments to their neighbors club program. So adjusting their tier rewards to have thresholds and offerings for different tier status members like military service members, veterans, first responders, that's pretty specific to tractor supplies program.
- [12:19]
Mike Shields
Interesting stuff. Thanks Sydney.
- [12:20]
Sydney Boyd
Yeah, have a good one.
- [12:23]
Mike Shields
I want to come back to what you mentioned, creators, because I've been talking to a lot of different folks about this and there may not be a simple answer to this one either. But there's the what are creators for and how. And it sounds like you use them in a variety of ways because I think there's the they're part of the media plan, they should, they're another way to get great reach against our audience or they're an extension of our creative and we put our brand in their hands and they do their thing. And now you also mentioned commerce. Is there a uniform way of working with creators or do you put them in a different a bunch of different buckets depending on what they're about, what they do?
- [12:56]
Regine Fung
Definitely a bunch of different buckets. But you know, simply put, creators are an extension of our brand. Right? And I think you probably know this really well. Being in the social space, you have to be authentic. Everything from who you are as a brand and the purpose that you're, you know, sharing with the community down to the creators. And because of that we definitely don't want to, you know, have people diluting our purpose by extension of creators. I do think that assigning the right KPI for creators, for example, some creators are really, really great at driving traffic, especially in that social creator affiliate space. Right. Because that's another emerging kind of convergence between affiliate marketing and creators. Some do great job driving traffic versus some do really great job in terms of driving sales. And I think that kind of expresses itself between the whole micro versus macro mix. I think every brand kind of has a different mix that makes sense for them as a brand or as a expected business outcome.
- [13:56]
Mike Shields
Are the measurement cap. I mean, I keep coming back to it. It's not easy to measure any of this stuff. But are the measurement capabilities where you need them to be in that creator world or is there a lot of room for innovation?
- [14:05]
Regine Fung
I feel like with the convergence of affiliate and content creators in the social space, that actually made it very, very easy. Right, because now you have trackable links that, you know, kind of goes down inarguable.
- [14:18]
Mike Shields
Real, real, you know, ROI is happening.
- [14:21]
Regine Fung
Yeah, it's pretty straightforward. That made it super easy.
- [14:24]
Mike Shields
Okay, so that's interesting. It's not, you know, it's not a squishy thing when you've, you've seen sales happen from.
- [14:29]
Regine Fung
And on the platform side too, they're also making it easy. Right. Like now with TikTok shop, Google is making strides on their YouTube partner program. So I think a lot of people are looking to be able to measure the value that creators are providing for them if it is a sales driven.
- [14:45]
Mike Shields
You know, KPI you mentioned, we keep mentioning TikTok and how big you guys have been there. Obviously no one knows what's going to happen in the next few weeks. What do you make of the other like the, you know, between reels and YouTube shorts, it seems like that they, they, they were, they were seen as knockoffs. They seem to all be working. It's not always easy for brands, I think, to figure out how to squeeze themselves into that. What do you, what do you make of that landscape right now?
- [15:10]
Regine Fung
Yeah, I, I do think they all serve different roles, but maybe the other way to look about it is, you know, I, I've spoken a lot about how our community is wherever, you know, is at of everything that we do. So that means wherever they go, we want to show up in a big way. And that does mean having that diversified approach, using multiple platforms to connect with our community. But it also means using the right type of creative asset. That makes sense. I think Pinterest is a great example. Right. Like that's a. I was going to.
- [15:38]
Mike Shields
Ask you about Pinterest actually.
- [15:39]
Regine Fung
Yeah, that's a great social media platform, but the utility of it is very different from the utility of a reels or you know, a Reddit even because.
- [15:48]
Mike Shields
It'S inherently about shopping or I think.
- [15:51]
Regine Fung
It'S about ideas and getting inspiration versus like, you know, zoom Scrolling. I think, like I said, every, every social media platform has its own kind of use case or mindset. I think Reddit is, is another one that is obviously very conversational driven, fact driven. I'm, I'm going there to understand more about XYZ versus X where it's really about real time conversations and, and kind of celebrating the latest Olympics conversation or, you know, whatnot.
- [16:23]
Mike Shields
Speaking of every platform having its own unique, you know, use case and community. I'm not a huge Twitch person. I would not expect ELF to show up there. That surprises me a little bit. Can you talk about, you know, why that makes sense and what you're learning there?
- [16:36]
Regine Fung
Well, I love hearing that because we love being in unexpected places, so that's, that's a plus. But yeah, I mean, I love this story because it actually started with this woman here and she's a gamer and so am I. And as a female gamer, we know that sometimes if you're playing certain games, there tends to be a little bullying, right, because you're a girl gamer and it's a little unexpected. Not unusual, just unexpected. And it's just, you know, how the gaming world is. So because at elf, like I said, we are bold disruptors with a kind heart. We thought, you know, let's create a Twitch channel for other female gamers or other gamers that just wants a safe space to talk about the games they like to play, talk about beauty. And that channel has been thriving for us. It's also a place where we have a lot of live streams as well that gives access to people here at elf and it's really all about accessibility to our brand and to, you know, have it peek inside our purpose.
- [17:35]
Mike Shields
So how did that, how do you put that together? Do you find the right live streaming gaming enthusiasts who want to be part of that, do you start building it and hopefully that you still the community rise? Like, what does that look like to put together?
- [17:46]
Regine Fung
It's like any other channel. You have a content strategy, you think about the audience at hand and then, you know, whether we have hosts. I think most recently we, you know, have our CEO and our CMO attend. It's really, you know, what the community is asking for and trying to give them, you know, something new or something engaging in entertainment.
- [18:04]
Mike Shields
All right, shifting back to you mentioned, you know, television being relatively new for elf. How do you approach it? You know, I'm at, you don't have the history of doing, you know, upfront buys for 25 years. Do you come to it, you know, in a different way than a traditional brand. Are you doing more streaming executions? What is it? How do you get started in television? And what is that? How is that? What have you learned there so far?
- [18:29]
Regine Fung
Yeah, I mean, it is new for us, and we continue to test and learn from a creative perspective. It's also a place where, like I mentioned before, TV on its own is just tv. Right. But it's the thing that we do around it, and a good example of that is our Big Game moment. I don't know if you saw that a few years ago. We've been in the Big Game two years in a row now. But that is our wavemaker moment. And the reason why we were there is it was grounded in an insight that even though the Big Game reaches one in three Americans, I think, you know, that's the stat of about, like, a hundred million viewers.
- [19:03]
Mike Shields
I like how we don't even have to say the Super Bowl. We both know what we're talking about. Yeah.
- [19:06]
Regine Fung
But half of those viewers are women, but nobody was speaking to them, so we did. Right. And I think NFL quoted, you know, about three quarters of the viewers look forward to the commercials. So we answered that call, and we wanted to show up as the first beauty brand to be at the Big Game. And how we measured that was really, like I mentioned, like, we have proprietary tools, but we also look at what are we expecting from this moment. Yes, we saw lift in key metrics, but we also had other things wrapped around it, like, you know, CRM, social lighting up alongside tv. Because TV alone is. Is not how we kind of approach our campaigns.
- [19:45]
Mike Shields
Now. That's such a. Such a special case. Right. The super bowl is massive. You know, you're not dipping your toe. You're going all the way in. When it comes to doing what you. What you'd like to do in terms of being able to have a lot of trackability and flexibility, is TV where it needs to be? Like, I often hear from brands that would like it to move faster or be able to do a lot more optimization than they like. Like the Canon digital platforms. It's changing, but is it getting to where you need to be?
- [20:09]
Regine Fung
I still feel like TV is a great channel to reach people quickly. Right. It's still a broad reach.
- [20:17]
Mike Shields
Roll up a lot of audience faster.
- [20:18]
Regine Fung
Exactly. And the way I define. And we define TV here at ELF is really kind of the living room screen. So it could be a fast channel, it could be CTV, it could be streaming, it could be AVOD, it could be linear cable. I think YouTube Live TV is probably ramping up to be kind of the second largest, kind of quote unquote cable network after charter and just YouTube in.
- [20:41]
Mike Shields
General is showing on the TV. It's huge.
- [20:43]
Regine Fung
People are spending hours on YouTube even though that's not traditional TV. Right. But I think it's important for us to be kind of flexible on what that definition of TV is. So that said, going back to your question about measurement and speed of impact, I think once you kind of expand your definition of TV and see video very agnostically, but kind of loosely defined by what I was calling out before, between streaming, svod, AVOD and fast channels, you have a lot of opportunity to not just go broad but also go deep.
- [21:14]
Mike Shields
Last thing for me, and it's a two part question, of course, I have to ask about AI. How are you approaching it? Everyone's trying to figure this out. It seems to be changing both media buying and planning and also creative at the same time. Are you experimenting either in either case? Do you have ambition there? Do you want to be careful? What does that look like for you right now?
- [21:35]
Regine Fung
Yeah, you're absolutely right. Everybody is talking about AI, whether it's the future or it's now. But I think AI has existed in media and creative for some time now. Right. Like the moment platforms provided the ability to have automated bidding or creative optimizations in dco. To me, that was extremely advanced. And I think that those moments is what led us to today with the introduction of AI. I think the application of AI is what helps us ramp up even faster. And now we can scale creative so much more, like thousands and thousands of permutations. We could have a lot of different objectives many times over, but I think stuff like that is really good for certain types of campaign objectives, like maybe conversion campaigns or driving frequency. But I think the way we approach media strategy here at ELF is that when you're talking about shaping culture and connecting with communities, I think there still needs to be that, you know, human element where you're building relationships with publishers and media platforms around a singular idea or a problem to be solved. I think AI is a great complement to provide that speed and scale, but it's really one component of the media strategy. And I think, you know, there's, there's still, there's still a role for, for us humans.
- [22:52]
Mike Shields
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense though, if culture is so important. Yeah, it's one thing, it's one thing to use AI tools, to have a million variations of a pricing or an offer or like you said, conversion stuff, but to expect it to be able to figure out how to connect with cultural the right way, I think is asking a lot at this point in its history.
- [23:11]
Regine Fung
I think so, yeah. I mean, we'll see. I think in five years, maybe we'll have a different conversation.
- [23:18]
Mike Shields
Right. All right, Regina, awesome stuff. Thank you for taking so much time out, and let's chat again on our own. Thanks a lot.
- [23:24]
Regine Fung
Amazing. Thank you.
- [23:25]
Mike Shields
Thanks again to my guest this week, Elf Beauties Regine Fung, and my partners at Epsilon. If you like this episode, please take a moment to rate and leave a review. We have lots more to bring you, so please hit that subscribe button. We'll see you next time for more on what's Next in Media. Thanks for listening.