296 - How to Stay Culturally Relevant with Tara Loftis, Global President of Cetaphil

Summary

Episode 296: How to Stay Culturally Relevant with Tara Loftis, Global President of Cetaphil

Release Date: December 3, 2024

In Episode 296 of The Marketing Millennials, host Daniel Murray engages in an insightful conversation with Tara Loftis, the Global President of Cetaphil. This episode delves deep into strategies for maintaining cultural relevance in legacy brands, the challenges of navigating multi-generational audiences, and the delicate balance between authentic influencer partnerships and consumer-generated content. Tara shares her extensive experience and actionable insights, making this episode a must-listen for marketing professionals aiming to keep their brands vibrant and pertinent in a rapidly evolving market.

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1. Tara’s Journey into Marketing

Tara begins by sharing her early passion for marketing, which was sparked during her childhood in rural Central California. Surrounded by billboards and local advertisements, she developed a keen eye for critiquing marketing efforts from a young age.

Tara [02:44]: "From a young age, I became really passionate as a marketing critic. I would critique every single company and brand's ads that were on the side of the road."

This formative experience solidified her desire to work in marketing, leading her to roles at Fiji Water and eventually Cetaphil, where she now oversees global marketing strategies.

2. The Challenge of Keeping Legacy Brands Relevant

Daniel and Tara discuss the inherent challenges legacy brands face in staying culturally relevant. Tara highlights that as brands grow, they often become risk-averse, which can hinder their ability to adapt to changing market dynamics.

Tara [05:45]: "I think what's working in marketing is changing week to week, month to month. So the playbook is changing and I think heritage brands weren't quick to adapt necessarily because they're risk averse."

She emphasizes the necessity for legacy brands to embrace change and innovation, blending traditional strengths with modern marketing techniques to stay relevant.

3. Redefining Brand Relevance While Respecting Heritage

When discussing how to evolve a brand's image without losing its heritage, Tara underscores the importance of combining intuition with data-driven strategies.

Tara [07:32]: "It starts with a blend of art and science. So as marketers, I think part of that is trusting our gut and then I think part of that is matching it up with data."

At Cetaphil, she identified opportunities to make the brand less "vanilla" and more distinctive by analyzing consumer retention, acquisition, and perception data. This approach allowed Cetaphil to pivot effectively while honoring its established identity.

4. Targeting Multiple Generations Without Compromise

Addressing the complexities of marketing to both loyal older generations and the more fluid younger demographics, Tara explains Cetaphil’s strategic shift towards targeting Gen Z and Gen Alpha without alienating existing customers.

Tara [13:36]: "We decided to do something a little bold which was shift the design target to Gen Z Alpha essentially... knowing that it would still appeal to older generations who are looking for what is desirable."

She shares her experience with consumer testing, revealing that while the rebrand targeted younger audiences, it was also well-received by older consumers, demonstrating that strategic targeting can bridge generational gaps.

5. The Power of Authentic Influencer Partnerships and UGC

Tara advocates for a balanced approach to influencer marketing, prioritizing authenticity and consumer trust over sheer celebrity power.

Tara [21:10]: "I am very much a product marketing purist. So for me, it starts with the product and the idea around the product."

She recounts Cetaphil's successful collaboration with influencer Katie Feng, highlighting how authentic partnerships combined with consumer-generated content (UGC) can amplify brand messages and drive engagement.

Tara [25:19]: "We Put her at front of in-store activation, front of all of our streaming television advertising, everything. And we looked at the KPIs... sales spiked on Amazon essentially."

6. Staying Culturally Relevant: Continuous Consumption and Observation

Maintaining cultural relevance, according to Tara, requires continuous engagement with current trends and consumer behaviors. She practices this by actively consuming content across platforms like TikTok, YouTube, and X (formerly Twitter).

Tara [26:36]: "I spend probably 10 minutes every hour scrolling TikTok and before I go to bed I spend at least 10 minutes scrolling YouTube... I love human behavior and what makes products sell."

Tara also emphasizes the importance of physical observation, sharing how her time in Paris walking to work inspired marketing campaigns by observing local trends and consumer interactions firsthand.

7. Execution as the Cornerstone of Marketing Success

When asked about her marketing principles, Tara passionately asserts that execution is paramount. She believes that regardless of a brand’s price point, maintaining high standards in execution fosters trust and consistency.

Tara [33:11]: "Execution is everything. I believe we should always do our best in terms of how we show up."

This philosophy ensures that Cetaphil delivers a consistent and reliable brand experience globally, reinforcing consumer trust and brand loyalty.

8. Final Thoughts and Recommendations

In closing, Tara recommends that marketers immerse themselves in both digital and physical environments to stay attuned to cultural shifts and consumer preferences. She encourages fellow marketers to engage directly with consumers, citing her experiences in stores as invaluable for gaining authentic insights.

Tara [30:42]: "I recommend that every marketer do that."

Daniel echoes this sentiment, acknowledging that the best marketers are deep consumers who draw inspiration from diverse sources to create impactful campaigns.

Key Takeaways

• Blend Art and Science: Successful branding requires both creative intuition and data-driven strategies.
• Embrace Change: Legacy brands must innovate to stay relevant, avoiding the pitfalls of risk aversion.
• Strategic Targeting: It’s possible to appeal to multiple generations by understanding and addressing their unique preferences.
• Authentic Influencer Partnerships: Prioritize genuine relationships with influencers and leverage UGC to enhance brand credibility.
• Continuous Engagement: Stay informed about cultural trends through active consumption of diverse media and real-world observation.
• Excellence in Execution: Consistent and high-quality execution builds trust and reinforces brand reliability.

Notable Quotes

• Tara Loftis [05:45]: "I think what's working in marketing is changing week to week, month to month. So the playbook is changing and I think heritage brands weren't quick to adapt necessarily because they're risk averse."
• Tara Loftis [07:32]: "It starts with a blend of art and science."
• Tara Loftis [13:36]: "We decided to do something a little bold which was shift the design target to Gen Z Alpha essentially."
• Tara Loftis [21:10]: "I am very much a product marketing purist."
• Tara Loftis [26:36]: "I love human behavior and what makes products sell."
• Tara Loftis [33:11]: "Execution is everything."

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Transcript

[Daniel Murray]

Welcome to the Marketing Millennials, the no BS Marketing podcast. I'm Daniel Murray and join me for unfiltered conversations with the brains behind marketing's coolest companies. The one request I tell our guests stories or it didn't happen. Get ready to turn the.

[Tara]

We have to stop being so risk averse. And this comes from someone that's at quite a large established skincare brand. We all have to embrace the risk and have fun with it. Marketing is fun.

[Daniel Murray]

What is up everybody? Welcome back to another episode of the Marketing Millennials. Today I have a really awesome guest. She runs marketing for a well known brand that probably most people have used in their life, cetaphil. She'll give you a little background, but excited to chat. We're going to chat about culture, relevancy and all things marketing today. So welcome Tara to the podcast.

[Tara]

Thank you for having me. It's such an honor. Following you and your channels make every day brighter for me.

[Daniel Murray]

I appreciate it. I want to get started about how did you get into marketing?

[Tara]

Okay, so I'm gonna try to not be too long winded, but from the time I was a little girl, I grew up in rural Central California and my dad's a third generation pistachio grower and so I spent a lot of time with my mom shuttling me to dance classes as a little girl. And all there was to talk about were the billboards on the sides of the road in Central California across all the cotton fields and the almond trees. And so I, from a young age, became really passionate as a marketing critic. I would critique every single company and brand's ads that were on the side of the road and growing. If any of you have grown up in a small town, you know, you spend a lot of time consuming media, whether it's commercials or it's magazines or whatever it is. I just became really passionate about looking at ads and knowing with my gut how amazing it would be if a brand could shift the look and feel or the message to be successful. So I remember telling my mom from a very young age that I my dream job would be to work for brands and to help guide their marketing strategy.

[Daniel Murray]

That's really cool. I mean, not many people have that experience that they know from the beginning that they want to get into marketing. But it makes sense by being in a town where all you see is billboards everywhere and you pick up magazines and you're consuming media and you, you just have that time to diagnose all, all the good and bad marketing out.

[Tara]

There and there's a lot of bad.

[Daniel Murray]

Yeah. And I always say people recognize the bad more than the good. That's why marketing sometimes has a bad name out there, because people see the bad and critique the bad. But there's a lot of great marketing that people don't see, and that's probably the point of it, that they don't see it. But I want to get into the topic of today, and the topic I really want to talk to you about is what inspired your passion for keeping legacy brands culturally relevant?

[Tara]

Great question. So I have a pretty diverse background, and when I graduated from college, I knew I wanted to go into beauty or fashion because that's naturally where my personal interests lie. And I ended up going to Fiji Water. And what was interesting about Fiji Water was that while it wasn't necessarily in fashion or beauty, it was commodity. It's something that everyone needs. And so for me, I became fascinated with the idea of how do you make something so common so relevant? Right. So perhaps I'm just addicted to the challenge of it. So while Fiji Water isn't exactly a legacy brand, it was water. Like, what's older than water? Right. And so can you, as a marketer, I'm super passionate about this idea. Can you examine something that is so common and make it so cool and desirable and give it a bit of an edge over its competition? And so I think that that's just something that I'm a little fascinated by. And then being at cetaphil now has been, for me, the ultimate challenge, I think. But I've always just been in love with marketing, and I am someone maybe I have a love of nostalgia to. And so the idea of looking at these brands that I grew up with that maybe had fallen out of favor compared to the newest, hottest celebrity brand, for example, the idea that Gen Z in particular loves nostalgic brands as well, felt like a great time to kind of bring that. Bring that back for me.

[Daniel Murray]

Why do you think a lot of brands out there struggle with being culturally relevant?

[Tara]

As someone who's been at brands that are small and big, I think by the time you work to build a brand that is considered iconic or legendary, you're a big brand. It's a machine. And as you get bigger, so does the risk. Right. Whenever you touch any element of the brand, be it part of the brand image or the marketing model or even educational materials, it's considered a risk. And I think that older brands, what they did to get to where they are, they thought would keep going. Right. And I think you and I are both marketers and I think the playbook for marketing success was kept the same for a long time and maybe even for decades. I'm personally a big Mad Men fan, you know, and I love, I love to watch Mad Men and think about what it must have been like to be in marketing back in the day. And now I feel like what's working in marketing is changing week to week, month to month. Right. So the playbook is changing and I think heritage brands weren't quick to adapt necessarily because they're risk averse.

[Daniel Murray]

It makes sense. I mean, a lot of people, you don't want to reinvent the wheel of the wheel has been working for a long time, but you also risk the wheel stopping if you don't reinvent it. So one thing I wanted to get from you too is how do you approach like redefining a brand's relative while respecting the heritage of a brand?

[Tara]

So when I, when I joined cetaphil, I did a lot of investigating amongst my peer group that came from similar brands and I also met with a lot of our regions and one common theme that had become a bit of a saying was to strive to be as common as possible and only as different as necessary. And I felt like if that is the way I think, that says so much about the way heritage brands operate. So to move forward and to shift any of that, I think it starts with a blend of art and science. So as marketers, I think part of that is trusting our gut and then I think part of that is matching it up with data. Because especially when you're someone that's coming into a heritage brand, you don't want to be a bull in a china shop, right? You want to inspire with your ideas and the art side of it, but it has to be grounded in the science, which is the data. And so I came into cetaphil with an open heart and an open mind. Genuinely just a fan of cetaphil. And I came in thinking, oh my goodness, if the brand is working as it is today with the image that it has and with the working marketing model, I won't touch it at all. But what I found through looking at data and through talking to the consumer, talking to the retailer, was that there was an opportunity to shift and that was rooted in data.

[Daniel Murray]

Ultimately, what was the key data points that you looked at to see that, hey, there is an opportunity here, or what should marketers be looking at to find those opportunities?

[Tara]

There were three key points of data that I looked at. The first was Consumer retention and acquisition. Okay. And what we were seeing was that our more mature consumers that were the ultimate brand loyalists, like they were continuing to be loyal, but we weren't recruiting at the younger generational levels. And so due to the way life works, it's really important to make sure that you continue to recruit. And beyond that, we know that Genelfa is going to be the biggest population in the world's history within the next 10 years. So it's a responsibility to look at that. So, you know, it wasn't intentional, but we had a leaky bucket, as we would call it, with the consumer. We have to keep refilling the bucket on the consumer side. And then we looked at focus group data around consumer perception, asking groups of, groups of over 100 people, broken into groups of 12, how they perceived our brand and how they perceived our competitions brand, and asking them this great question, which is, if all of these brands were at a party, how would you describe each of these brands? Is, is our brand the cool girl is our brand, the wallflower is our brand, the try too hard, et cetera. And anything, anything over, over, I'd say 30 to 50 is, is something we consider statistically significant. And we had over a hundred people that we spoke to and they had this, a common denominator, which was that they felt like Cetaphil had a really massive opportunity to become more known for something and to become a little bit less vanilla. And it wasn't offensive, the product was loved. And so we were able to guide our strategy from there. The third element that we looked at was trust, consumer trust and perceived efficacy. And so asking the consumer, hey, do you trust our brand? Do you trust us for results? And then asking by product category specifically, like, do you trust us more for cleanser, do you trust us more for, for body cream or for serums, etc. And then that collectively allowed us to get really, really surgical. So these three things I'm talking about now are not, certainly not inclusive of all the KPIs we look at. But if you're considering looking at brand health, I think it's a good way to look at one. Where is your consumer demographic lying? Where are you losing consumers in the journey? And where are you acquiring consumers? And then nothing beats the focus group of sitting down and talking to as many customers as possible in a controlled environment, asking the same questions, and then asking the hard questions around consumer brand trust.

[Daniel Murray]

What I, I think you said really interesting, and I've had people on the podcast talk about this before, is the Mature audience are normally like the brand loyalists and that's just how their, their consumer behavior is. But Gen Z Millennials and then maybe I don't Gen Alpha is getting in there but are very like discoverability and even more Gen Z is a more of like I'll try anything, I'm just testing everything out. I don't care. I don't really have a loyalty. So how do you, how do you work with different generations? How do you make sure your marketing talks to the Gen Z, the millennials while staying true to your brand loyalists?

[Tara]

Great question and a loaded question at that.

[Daniel Murray]

Loaded. But I had, I had to ask because you're marketing to a lot of different people. It's interesting.

[Tara]

So controversial response might be, you know, the truth which is that I believe you can't be everything to everyone. I believe if everyone wants to buy you, that's amazing and that should be the goal. But you, I believe that you absolutely have to have a design target. And so based on the opportunity that the brand had and the challenge that we had, we decided to do something a little bold which was shift the design target to Gen Z Alpha essentially. And that's based on the insight that typically if you can, if we could do that successfully it without doing anything that was too bold and too jarring. Right. Because we're self aware enough to know that we are a mass skincare brand. Right. We're not looking to shake the table too, too, too much. But ultimately what we decided to do is to position the brand with that Gens Alpha design target, knowing with the hypothesis that it would still appeal to older generations who are looking for what is desirable, honestly. And if that worked. So it's a multifaceted response. So as we were working with our creative agency Dingle on our rebrand, we stopped and did consumer testing along the way to ask not just our Gen Zalpha target audience, but Millennial plus too. Like what do you think about this? Do you find this more appealing or less appealing? Do you find it more scientific or less scientific? And what we found was that although we were using Gen Zalfa as a target audience, the older demographics found the rebrand the most appealing and the most scientific, even more than Gen's Alpha themselves. So I think that hypothesis proved itself to be true, which is that although older generations might not be like brand agnostic like Gen Z is, they're more loyalists. They're also I'm finding to be more flexible and still wanting to be buying products that are viewed as desirable by younger generations.

[Daniel Murray]

Yeah, That's a very interesting insight. Also, I think a lot of the Gen Alpha parents are pretty much elder millennials, maybe even Gen X. So they are the parents of these people. So they are the ones usually probably buying for the Gen Alpha. So you kind of have to appeal to that audience while appealing to Gen Alpha. And it's cool that you blended both of those. And because they ultimately are going to make the ending buying decision for the Gen Alpha, the Gen Alpha might be the one pushing them along.

[Tara]

But yeah, for sure. And I think, you know, we also know from consumer studies that Gen Zelfa, what resonates with them so much is authenticity. Right? Like, I think we're so tired of hearing the word authenticity these days, but it's true. And so we intentionally made sure that our rebrand campaign was age inclusive and it was skin tone inclusive and it was something that we wanted real people to see themselves in the campaign. Whereas before our advertising, if I may be so bold, was a little bit more on the expected traditional side. And you might have seen one model and you didn't necessarily get a full vibe from the campaign. And you do now to build on that thought. I also know that to be true because before coming to Cedar Phil, I spent the nearly the past 10 years at LVMH's Beauty Brand Incubator Kendo Brands, where I worked with Marc Jacobs on Marc Jacobs Beauty. And in the later years of my time at Kendo spent a lot of time on Fenty Beauty. And one of my most memorable campaigns at Marc Jacobs Beauty was signing Kaia Gerber. And she was, we were her first beauty contract. I've been thinking about this a lot this week since she is, since she's on the COVID of American Vogue and Mark is the, is the guest editor. So was thinking about the fact that when we took that risk of signing Kaia Gerber on Marc Jacobs Beauty, she hadn't, I don't. She didn't even have an Instagram yet. She was a relatively unknown model. But what was so incredible about that campaign is that it not only connected us to the younger generation, but for Millennial plus, those of us that grew up with her mom, it just like, like hooked us at our heartstrings. And so we saw our, our consumer acquisition rates on Marc Jacobs Beauty go through the roof with that campaign, not just connecting the brand to Kaya's generation, but to older generations as well. So I came into point being to bring it full circle. I came into this role at Cedar Phil feeling really confident about that Idea that you shouldn't be afraid to reach young because if you're smart about it, you can connect to the heartstrings of the, of the older demographics too.

[Daniel Murray]

That's a really cool campaign having, I mean, obviously having her mom being so famous and then you taking a risk on that, which I think it's a very good educated risk that she's going to be popular too, because of her, her mom. But it's still a risk per se because nobody had used her as a model. So I think that's like what you said at the beginning, using pretty much your data, but also using that, that art part of your marketing brain to make sure that this is how this campaign should go down.

[Tara]

Yeah. And I don't think we talk about it enough as marketers. And I feel like so many people are looking for a playbook on how to be successful in marketing. And at the end of the day, I feel like my biggest wins as a marketer have been fine tuning that, that art, that instinct side, so that when you just know the second you hear a good idea, you just know that it's going to be successful, you know it's going to be viral and you learn to trust that gut. And I think that that's a muscle that we can, that we can build and we can flex as our careers go on. But it's not something that you can learn by reading a book on marketing, that's for sure.

[Daniel Murray]

A lot of trends lately also have like a mixture of using obviously influencers, celebrities, but also using real people. So how do you balance those three categories of like the celebrities versus what influences are big and then also how to use like UGC from actual, like actual customers using the product.

[Tara]

I am very much a product marketing purist. So for me, you know, as we talked about, younger generations are less brand loyalists. They tend to be more product loyalists. So for me, it starts with the product and the idea around the product. And the right person to front a campaign for a product could be a celebrity, it could be a real person, it could be 100 real people, or it could be an influencer, I think. So I'm open to using all of the above, honestly. That said, I do think you're right. We're at a moment where we're seeing a lot of different trends. And I do believe, as controversial as this may sound, that we're at a moment where celebrities have diminishing power over in the marketing, in the area of marketing. And I think for celebrity to work, I think for the past few years it had to just be very authentic. And now I don't even think that's enough. I think for a celebrity to work, the concept has to be right. You have to near break the Internet with what we would call a chaotic marketing concept. But I think at the end of the day, the celebrities that are commanding huge dollars for me, I would much rather probably 90% of the time assign an influencer that in place of a celebrity that has perhaps a smaller following, sure, like numbers to numbers, but someone that has this incredibly trusted affinity with their audience. And then I think to support that campaign, real people using CGC like consumer generated content to make the product and the launch completely unavoidable. So I think you either have an influencer or you have a celebrity or a suite of any of that combination be in your official campaign. But you have to have real people as your advocates flooding the Internet with consumer generated content. I have a lot of conviction about this right now and I've spent my career working with incredible A list celebrities and emerging celebrities. I think that what can really, really work and I'm a huge fan of what Skims did over the past like 12 to 18 months where it seems like as soon as a celebrity begins to emerge as popular. On White Lotus, for example, a campaign drops. The fact that Skims has the foresight to know who's about to emerge and become culturally relevant at that moment, a campaign drops is brilliant. They're able to work in real time because they have that foresight. On Cetaphil, we took a risk with signing Katie Feng. We were getting ready to come out with our salicylic acid gentle exfoliating range and we had all these conversations. Do you sign a celebrity? Do you use a model? Do you use a product image? And at the end of the day I thought Kitty Fang is the queen of the get ready with me amongst Jim Selfas and she loves skincare. So why don't we, why don't we go to Katie Feng and ask if she would want to front a Cetaphil campaign. And I had had personal experiences watching her convert to sales in my previous life and thought if she's a Cetaphil fan we should do this. And she had been using it since she was a baby, turns out as had her whole family. And we were able to look at the KPIs following this campaign. Daniel this is the first time that Cetaphil, a 77 year old brand, had signed anyone, like in a significant way, especially an influencer. And we Put her at front of in store activation, front of all of our streaming television advertising, everything. And we looked at the KPIs, we looked at the Google trends, we looked at the Amazon sales, we looked at all of the engagement and media had been turned on for this product before it went live, before it, before Katie had been announced. And what we saw was it wasn't until Katie Feng announced the collab with us and we had our that people started searching about for the product. And it wasn't until we had a pop up event with her and this phenomenal dermatologist from Canada, Katie Blesnay, that and it was in soho in New York and that was where sales spiked on Amazon essentially. So as much as we want to play this game with media dollars, creativity and making bets on influencers as faces of campaign can be the biggest rewarding like initiative.

[Daniel Murray]

I think I that's a super cool story. And I want to also ask you like, how do you stay culturally relevant and how should Margaret stay culturally relevant? Because I think you have to be consuming a lot of things to know that Katie was culturally relevant.

[Tara]

Great question. I spend probably 10 minutes every hour scrolling TikTok and before I go to bed I spend at least 10 minutes scrolling YouTube and I make sure that I'm on that, I'm on X twice a day and that is part of my program and I make sure that my team operates in the same way. And because I am a very old millennial, I also love media and I'm always reading the news as well. So I not only know what's trending, but I know what's being perceived as relevant by the news media and by journalists, which is also something we have to take into account when we make these decisions. But I try to stay relevant through being very disciplined with checking social media, honestly. I'm American, obviously, but I live in Switzerland, so my feeds are really unique because I get the full stream of Euro trends as well as American trends. But I love it, I'm obsessed with it. We have to know what's happening out in the world and that's genuine. I'm not doing it because I'm obsessed with being successful. I love human behavior and what makes products sell.

[Daniel Murray]

I, I love that because I always have the hypothesis that the best content creators, the best marketers are the best, the deepest consumers. And I think you have to be a great consumer to be a great marketer. It works. But you can't just create things because a new idea is basically two disjointed ideas. Put together and you're just connecting the dots and you need those dots by consuming. Otherwise you're just never going to come up with anything really that creative.

[Tara]

Yeah, I'll give you an even more analog answer than that. So six years ago, I moved from San Francisco to Paris, and my life changed when I moved to Paris and I started walking to work. Okay. And living in San Francisco, the hometown of Uber, I wasn't doing a lot of work walking in San Francisco. And when I moved to Paris, I found myself walking to work, which was about 30 minutes every day. And because Paris is so beautiful, like you, you want to enjoy that, right? But I found myself walking and looking at people, looking at businesses, looking at architecture, walking through the park, naturally, looking at street style, looking at beauty trends, looking at advertisements that were going by on buses, looking at what was in the metro. And I had never been more grounded, like in nature or what was happening around me. I wasn't just rushing to hop in an Uber or rushing to the airport. And so I got the best ideas by living that lifestyle, honestly, because I was able to pick up on real, relevant consumer behavior in a way that I hadn't been before. Because I think a lot of us are very much at risk of losing our edge, our creative edge, because we're rushing to the office, we're coming up with ideas on demand, and we're not spending enough time out in stores and on the street seeing real consumer behavior. When I was in San Francisco last month, I had the opportunity to spend a lot of time in stores and I spent hours just talking to our consumers. What literally standing in Walmart in my Cetaphil sweatshirt asking consumers what brought them in, what made them want Cetaphil. And that was incredibly eye opening for me. And I recommend that every marketer do that.

[Daniel Murray]

Yeah, I think that's a. That's another part of it is there's so much you can only get on social media because it is tailored, it is to your interest. There's so much different things you can get from just walking in a culturally relevant city like Paris or New York, or where you can actually feel what consumers are doing and see what consumers are doing. And also looking at going to different cities and looking like, what billboards are they showing in this city versus city, like what stores are people going to and what are the different stores in this city versus you can learn so much about a city by looking at the billboards, looking at the stores that pop up, looking at. Because you could tell, like for Paris, obviously It's fashion everywhere. Everything's fashion. You can tell it's a fashion city if you go to Austin, Texas. It's all health brands. And you know, it's a health city. It's. You could tell a lot about a city by what stores and what advertising they doing there.

[Tara]

Absolutely. I remember walking to my office and back, and at the time, I had just moved to Paris. Okay. Like, I was hungry to understand who was relevant and what was happening culturally in Paris at that time. And I saw this incredibly beautiful woman who was. Who was in this campaign for a Le Parity Latin, which is the Moulin Rouge's competitor. And her name was Iris Mitenaire. Iris Mitenaire was a former Miss Universe that had been Miss France. So France was incredibly proud that Miss France had made it to Miss Universe. And she was so cool and so beautiful that Le Paradis Latonne had signed her on as a guest performer. And I saw her everywhere. I saw she had nearly 2 million followers. And because of that, I asked my team about her. And because of that I thought, huh, we were launching a new mascara campaign. We should ask Iris Mitenaire. And so we asked her to be the face of a mascara product for KBD Beauty. And it was hugely successful. But if I had not been out walking around and seeing what was alive around me in my city, I might not have ever have learned about Iris Mitonair candidly. So I'm really passionate about that.

[Daniel Murray]

And what is a marketing hill you would die on?

[Tara]

Ooh, marketing hill. I would die on that. Execution is everything. I think that just because your brand is priced a certain way doesn't mean. Doesn't mean that you should not put your best foot forward. I believe we should always do our best in terms of how we show up. I think about McDonald's a lot and the experience is the same no matter where you go. Around the world, they might have a localized menu, but McDonald's is McDonald's. And I think we should strive for. I think we should strive for complete global consistency through excellence of execution.

[Daniel Murray]

I always say that consistency is the number one trust builder in the world. If you can stay consistent and people, you show up consistently wherever you are, even with creating content or doing whatever you do. And at work as a brand, you are seen way more trustworthy if you are that consistent person or brand that just keeps showing up that way. And obviously the last question I have for you is where can people find you and what you're doing?

[Tara]

So I would recommend from a brand standpoint, Cetaphil. You can follow Cetaphil on Instagram and TikTok and YouTube and myself personally I am pretty active on LinkedIn and on.

[Daniel Murray]

X and Instagram as we heard early in the conversation. You have your 10 minutes a day of TikTok, you have your X time and you have your YouTube time. But we didn't talk about the link 10 time which is not really for your brand but for yourself. You're always on social. That's good to know. Well, thank you so much for joining and I really appreciate it.

[Tara]

Thank you Daniel. It was an honor to be on your podcast. I'm a huge fan of what you do, like I said before and I really enjoyed it.

[Daniel Murray]

Thank you so much.

[Tara]

Thank you.

[Daniel Murray]

Thanks so much for listening. Keep tuning in to hear more great insights from the coolest marketers from around the world. If you haven't read, make sure to subscribe and follow the Marketing Millennials podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcast. And if you like what you hear, I would greatly appreciate you giving us a five star rating. It helps bring more marketers into our community.