How innovation succeeds with Kory Marchisotto [Uncensored Renegades]

Summary

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Uncensored CMO: "How Innovation Succeeds" with Kory Marchisotto [Uncensored Renegades]

Episode Date: March 2, 2026
Host: Jon Evans
Guest: Kory Marchisotto (CMO, e.l.f. Beauty)
Duration: ~26 minutes
Main Theme: Exploring the real-world dynamics that fuel innovation in marketing and business, with actionable insight and honest storytelling.

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Episode Overview

In this lively, candid conversation, Jon Evans and Kory Marchisotto dissect the realities of innovation—how it really works, what makes it succeed (or fail), and the pivotal role company culture, constraints, and customer connection play in bringing new products to life. They share firsthand stories, memorable phrases, and tactical frameworks, highlighting both the art and science of innovative breakthroughs.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Importance of Cultural Conditions for Innovation

• Innovation isn't just a command—it’s an environment.
  Kory emphasizes that innovation thrives when organizations foster cultural "energy fields" where ideas are welcomed, not shut down.

  • "You can't put people in a room and say, innovate, here's a magic wand. Go. You have to create the stimulation, the permission, the energy field, the excitement for people to want to flow ideas." (01:36, Kory)

• The 3-Part Framework for Selecting Innovations:
  Before greenlighting a new idea, Kory looks for:

  • Art: Does it solve a real problem in a creative, impactful way?
  • Science/Data: What does market data suggest? Is there demand?
  • Gut Instinct: The emotional ‘override switch’ based on experience.
  • "Not every idea should go to market... sometimes the data says don’t go, but your gut says yes anyway, and that’s absolutely critical." (03:15, Kory)

2. Testing, Feedback, and the Role of Patience

• Rapid Testing Over Analysis Paralysis:
  While validating ideas is vital, Jon warns against only relying on data or rigid timelines.

  • "You can do all the kind of research in the process...but the moment of truth is when it’s in front of the customer and you get that reaction. With every bit of innovation I’ve done, I can tell you within days if it’s working or not." (05:25, Jon)

• Patience is Underestimated:
  Innovations usually need years, not months, to reach true success.

  • "On average, it took seven years before you’d consider it to be a success...yet most companies give maybe a quarter, maybe a year max." (06:50, Jon)

• Nurture Creators, Don’t Crush Them:
  Shooting down ideas too early deflates the innovative spirit.

  • "If the business becomes too short-sighted...you’re gonna start to deflate your innovation people. When you start to deflate your creators, your pipeline gets weak and your brand starts to decay." (07:40, Kory)

3. Case Study: Building a Blockbuster Beauty Franchise via Co-Creation

• How e.l.f.’s Power Grip Primer Blew Up:
  Kory details how e.l.f. turned customer feedback into a mega-success.
  • Launch started with the classic version; rapid demand for new "pink" and "matte" options came from direct community input.
  • TikTok lives with up to 15,000+ people actively shaped product variants and names.
  • Listening to diverse needs (e.g., drag performers needing larger bottles) drove new SKUs.
  • "The spirit of co-creation...we listen, we act, we build this franchise. It’s absolutely incredible. Continues to explode." (10:00–14:34, Kory)
  • "When we launch the product, it’s not just about them being a passive member of the audience, it’s about them being an active participant. That’s innovation." (14:37, Kory)

4. Innovation from Constraints

• Constraints as Catalysts:

  • "Constraints are incredibly powerful...my favorite ever bit of innovation came out of a ridiculous constraint." (14:55, Jon)
  • Jon’s beverage story: regulatory shifts, lack of sales force, and zero budget led to creative solutions—like training students as a sales team and offering unique incentives instead of traditional selling.

• Lesson:
  "The constraint of...the new government legislation and secondly, not having a sales team, forced me in both situations: think how do I go much faster than everybody else? How do I get a product I don’t have a sales resource to do?" (19:40, Jon)

5. Real-Time Listening and Responding

• Viral Community Behaviors as Product Innovation Triggers:

  • Kory describes how TikTok trends (fans hacking e.l.f.’s products to create custom lip glosses) led to an official DIY kit, developed and launched within a week.
  • "The key on this one was the rapid response to the audience. In 24 hours, the Chief Commercial Officer and the CMO are on TikTok Live doing it with them, understanding why and what. And in seven days we put a do it yourself kit to market." (22:34, Kory)

• Get Close to the Customer—Always:

  • "If I look through my career, percentage of time with the customer correlates directly to success...Once your customer becomes internal, that is the death knell." (24:30, Jon)
  • "The role of the marketer is to be the voice of the customer in every single room you enter." (25:50, Kory)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On innovation’s process:

  "Not every idea should go to market... sometimes the data says don't go, but your gut says yes anyway, and that's absolutely critical."
  — Kory (03:15)

• On measuring when to launch:

  "A product does not go to market until you are personally proud of it, that you will personally stand in front of it, put it on your face, drink it, eat it, whatever business you're in and be really proud of the work that you've done."
  — Kory (04:25)

• On co-creation:

  "When we launch the product, it’s not just about them being a passive member of the audience, it’s about them being an active participant. That’s innovation."
  — Kory (14:37)

• On customer proximity:

  "If I look through my career and go, percentage of time with the customer correlates directly to success...Once your customer becomes internal, that is the death knell."
  — Jon (24:30)

• How to really innovate:

  "The role of the marketer is to be the voice of the customer in every single room you enter."
  — Kory (25:50)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 01:10 – Introduction to the innovation topic
• 01:36–04:57 – Cultural conditions for innovation, the "art, science, gut" framework
• 05:25–07:25 – The reality of testing, customer feedback, and patience
• 07:40–14:34 – e.l.f. Power Grip Primer case study and co-creation in product development
• 14:55–19:49 – The role of constraints and Jon’s beverage/entrepreneurship story
• 21:27–24:30 – TikTok-driven Halo Glow DIY kit story, rapid iteration, customer closeness
• 24:30–25:58 – The necessity of customer focus for sustained innovation

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Summary Takeaways

• Innovation is everyone’s job—but it requires purposeful culture, safe to fail, and genuine customer obsession.
• Successful innovation rarely comes from data alone. Blend analytics, creative vision, and gut instinct.
• Constraints (resource, regulation, team) often create the conditions for true breakthroughs.
• Foster co-creation, act quickly on real community insights, and stay as physically and emotionally close to your users as possible.
• The marketer’s ultimate role: be the customer's megaphone within the organization.

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Final Word (Kory):
"The role of the marketer is to be the voice of the customer in every single room you enter." (25:50)

Transcript

[A]

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Uncensored Renegades. This is the 20 minute podcast where Corey Marchisotto and myself tackle one big question every week. I hope you enjoy this. Now, if you are enjoying it, I got one request to make. We're putting this out on the current Uncensored feed for a limited time only. So if you're enjoying it, go over to Uncensored Renegades, hit subscribe and never miss an episode. Anyway, without further ado, if you. Let's get into it.

[B]

So, John, this is supposed to be a 15 minute podcast.

[A]

Oh yeah. This is the thing we forget every time, isn't it?

[B]

And so far we have been a little over 20 and then last episode we were over 30. So we're moving in the wrong direction.

[A]

We are moving in the wrong direction

[B]

or the right direction? I don't know.

[A]

Yeah. To be fair, we had the most amazing poetry last time, didn't we? So I think we'll allow ourselves a one off. But we're going to try and do this in 15, is that what I'm saying?

[B]

I think we're always going to try to get to 15.

[A]

Okay, we're trying to get 15, but we are picking, I think my favorite marketing topic.

[B]

Tell me what it is.

[A]

Innovation.

[B]

Innovation.

[A]

I, I am obsessed. Innovation. I, I think in my career I probably spent more time thinking about new products to launch than anything else. It's like the fun bit, it's imagining what could be in the world. It's also the scary bit, right, because like I failed more times than I've succeeded, if I'm honest. And the statistics out there play it out in terms of 9, 9 out of 10, you've done some pretty cool innovation. Like what's worked for you and why.

[B]

Yeah, I think the first part of innovation maybe for us to talk about, because I think it's actually critical and not talked about enough, is creating the cultural conditions necessary for innovation to thrive. So you can't put people in a room and say, innovate, here's a magic wand. Go. You have to create the stimulation, the permission, the energy field, the excitement for people to want to flow ideas. So everything has to start with the ideas. Now the ideas can come from a multitude of places. They can come from inside the organization, they can come from an aha moment in the shower, they can come from direct from your community. And then the work of the innovation teams is to figure out what actually gets on the roadmap. So then you have to pressure test and the pressure testing is triangulating the data points. Now there is something I like to talk about which is there are three things that need to be considered before something gets a go or no go. Art, science and gut instinct. All too often the only thing people realy on is data. Data is not enough. Data points are important. What do we think the market value is? How much demand and desire is there for that? Is there an equivalent? We can do all the studies in the world have all the spreadsheets and we need that, that's important. Then you have the art, which is really looking at the insight here. What problem am I solving? Is there a better way to solve it? How am I making your life better? How? Taking all this data and turning it into a narrative or a story and you have the art form of it. How do I create it in a textural color things. And then you have what I call is gut instinct. And gut instinct is your manual override switch for whatever reason. And you have a ladder of experiences that allows you to have a manual override switch. Even if the data says don't go, something is telling you go anyway or the opposite. And that is absolutely critical. So not every idea should go to market. And there are some brilliant ideas that unfortunately don't go to market either because there's fear or the data doesn't say so, or I can't justify it or whatever the case may be. So the first thing you have to do is create the cultural conditions necessary for innovation to thrive. Then you have to go get a multitude of ideas. Then you have to pressure test set ideas to figure out what's going to hit the roadmap. And then you've got to actually go make it happen. And you have to make it happen with excellence. The measuring stick that I use with the team, especially in the line of work we're in, is pride. A product does not go to market until you are personally proud of it, that you will personally stand in front of it, put it on your face, drink it, eat it, whatever business you're in and be really proud of the work that you've done. Is that from a measuring stick? I mean you've been in soda, you've been in beverage, like what? What's the measuring stick from the place that you think about innovation.

[A]

I love the pride thing actually because it's sort of the intuitive question that before I answer that question, just come back to your own gut instinct. What? We tend to think gut instinct is something random, right? It's like it's emotional, right? But your gut instinct is telling you Things that you know, but it's often very informed. Your gut is almost telling you something that you can't articulate, right. And it's sometimes better than you can articulate. And yet, and yet we don't trust it because we go, oh, gut instinct is wrong. But actually gut instinct is telling you something you know is true. You just can't quite put it into words. And it's, you know, over time becomes right yardstick is a really good one. And what I mean, I think, I think one of the things I've learned as well is that most important thing with innovation is to test it and prove the concept first before you go for it and to get the feedback really, really quickly. Because again, you can do all the kind of research in the process and then sometimes you've researched it really, really well and it fails, and sometimes you haven't researched it at all and it's amazing success. But the moment of truth is when it's in front of the customer and, and you get that reaction. And what I've noticed is with every bit of innovation I've done, I can tell you within days if it's working or not. You know what I mean? Like, it's very rare that it doesn't work and then it does or it does or it does work and it doesn't, you know, I mean, you just know, because that, and it's the ability to take the feedback and immediately improve upon it and go again. And I think one of my biggest learnings as well is that we just don't give it time. Because if you think, if you think about it, something that's brand new, so it's like a little baby, it's brand new to the world. It's, it needs to be supported, you know what I mean? And yet we tend to make decisions based on a week or a month or a year. And I did this project actually when I was working in beverages where I looked at the 20 most successful soft drink brands of the last decade. And I worked out, on average it took seven years before you'd consider it to be a success. In other words, it had a level of rate of sale that you'd look at and go, that's well established now. And yet most companies give maybe a quarter, maybe year max kind of thing. So I think, I think there's definitely a case of getting the feedback and responding to it and then it's, how much patience have you got to do it? But I think what most people get wrong is they go, they go mass market Straight away, and I've seen that so many times, is you just go, you put all the resources behind it, you pick a massive bet, whereas you're much better off going, right, we're going to test this with this audience, get the feedback, learn, and then we're going to go big.

[B]

Well, the other thing in what you said, when you think about innovators and creators, they're sensitive, right? This is their creation. It's like somebody who writes a poem or paints a beautiful painting. This is their soul talking. And if you shoot down their creations too early, then you have to think about the impact that that's going to have on your innovators and creators because you have to again, go back to those conditions necessary. They have to one, be okay that things are going to fail. But they always have to try and they always have to try with head, heart and soul in the game. And if the business becomes too short sighted, oh, we need instant gratification. It didn't work. In five minutes, you're gonna start to deflate your innovation people. And when you start to deflate your creators, then you start to have a weak and lackluster pipeline. And when you have a weak and lackluster pipeline, then your brand starts to decay. So all of these things work together in very important ways. And I love what you said about iterating. So I'm going to take you on a journey through power Grip Primer, which is a franchise that we created, which is now hundreds of millions of dollars in just a couple of years. So first I'm going to start with what the elf is a primer. Because you're a dude and you don't wear makeup and you might not know. Okay? So I'm going to put it in terms that you understand, or at least I hope you understand. Have you ever gone to a Lowe's or a Home Depot or like a hardware store?

[A]

I've been to a hardware store.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And have you ever bought a primer that you lay down before you paint your wall?

[A]

I've done that.

[B]

So yeah, same exact thing. Only what we do is we put primer on our face to create a smooth canvas before we put the makeup on. So same exact concept. So the beauty of primers is a primer can be worn alone. It gives you a beautiful smooth finish. It may lessen the appearance of pores. It creates a beautiful smooth canvas and you can just go out like that for the day. If you're someone who doesn't wear makeup or it's going to grip your makeup to your face and make it last for a very long time. So there was this very premium product on the market that was very expensive. And what elf does is make the best of beauty accessible. The place that we're sitting in is we actually do it better than for a fraction of the price. And this guy called Power Grip Primer was our first at bat with being able to deliver this incredible sticky, grippy formula that was gonna get your makeup to stick to your face. And it shot off like a rocket. I mean, just unbelievable. Became the number one selling item in America in beauty. That's crazy, because Primer is actually not the most purchased product in general. Mascara is lipstick, eyeliner. The things you prob probably know. Well, Primer is like the 12th biggest category. So the fact that this little green machine became the number one selling cosmetic skew is absolutely bananas. So we don't need any more data points to tell us we're onto something crazy here. So people started to ask us for a pink one. And so you see, we have a pink one here. So where I'm going with this is the spirit of co creation. Because they loved this guy so much, we wanted to have conversations with them about, well, what else would you want to see from Power Grip? They loved the sticky, grippy texture. They loved how their makeup would wear. They would be amazed. Sixteen hours later, their makeup didn't move all the great things. And we had had this watermelon primer called Jelly Pop that people clamored for and went nuts for. And it was a seasonal one shot that they kept begging us for. This is the same formula. It's the same formula. So we did this because watermelon's not going to appeal to everybody, but it's the same formula. So I get on a tick tock live to have a conversation with the community directly. 15,000 people show up, and I'm like, help me understand why you want to have this in the pink form. And they're like, oh, my God. We want, you know, we want the watermelon. We want the watermelon. We want the watermelon. So, okay, whatever. So what I understand from them is not only do they like the watermelon flavor, which we keep as a seasonal one shot, but they love pink. So we created a pink version. And this one, we put niacinamide in it. So you get this beautiful same formula, add niacinamide, and you get the pink version. This thing flies off like a rocket ship. And now this franchise starts to build into something massive and incredible. Then you have people who have oily skin. So they came to us and they said, well, what about us oily skin girls? Like, we don't want to have a dewy finish. We don't want to have a shine. So we created the matte version. So you see this spirit of co creation happening. Go to the community. What else do you want to see from us? And so we listen, we act, we build this franchise. It's absolutely incredible. Continues to explode. And then this crazy moment happened where I go to dragcon. Do you know what dragcon is?

[A]

I discovered this a few minutes ago.

[B]

Okay, so DragCon is this annual event where all the drag queens come and they're celebrities. And the people who love the queens will come and line up to meet them and take pictures with them. And it's this incredible, incredible show. I had never been there. This was my first moment. And we were there with one of our favorite queens who is a great. She's part of our elfam now. Her name is Heidi in Closet. So we're there supporting Heidi. We set up a beautiful booth for her and we're spending the day with her. And she tells me I have to meet the queen of the queens. And I'm like, fantastic. I can't wait. So I get taken behind this curtain and I'm behind this curtain with this absolutely, spectacularly gorgeous, theatrical drag queen. And she's like, we need to talk. And I'm like, great. About what? And she holds up power grip. And I said, what's up? She goes, now mind you, her hands are about three times the size of mine. And she's like, you're not creating for my surface area. And I'm thinking, man, I created a green one, a pink one, a black one. Never once, never a big one, did anyone talk about surface area. So of course I have the open, curious mind. So I start asking a lot of questions. And she's like, first of all, look at the size of my hand. Second of all, I'm using this in one shot. What about here? What about here? We like to have glittery on our arms. Like I need a giant version. So we came out with the 3x size, but we didn't want to just come out with a jumbo size the way. Yeah, it's a great idea. It's a wonderful thing to do. But we wanted the community to be really involved. So if you look at them, they all have different names. The community named these for us. So they have so many fun, clever pet names for this thing that they love. They love Power Grip, they're obsessed with it. So slime, sticker grip, goat, magic worker, the big gripper. So when we launch the product, it's not just about them being a passive member of the audience, it's about them being an active participant. That's innovation.

[A]

I love that. I think that's spectacular and it's so true. I mean, by the way, I'm borrowing your phrase now, which is one of my favorite phrases ever about, you know, when you said the distance from the C suite to the customer and the distance from the time from insight to action. That's a brilliant, brilliant example. The other thing I'd say that is unrecognized in innovation is the importance of a constraint, because I think constraints are incredibly powerful in terms of projecting us forward and, you know, forcing us to be innovative. And my favorite ever bit of innovation I've ever done came out of a ridiculous constraint. So I was working on a. I was working on a juice brand, right? So small juice brand, zero budget. And the government in the UK were about to change the legislation for what you could sell in school, right? They basically limited the serve size, limited the amount of juice you could put in, limited amount of sugar you could put in. I mean, it was very, very draconian. So. And it was quite funny because I think we were the 10th biggest soft drink company in the UK, so we were quite small, right? We were Coke and Pepsi. All the big ones were there, but we were just number 10. So we snuck into the government consultation. I was kind of like, very much the junior party sitting in all the committees. And I listened as around the room, all the big players going, there's no way we can adapt our production lines to make the smaller size. There's no way we're going to change our formulations. That takes 18 months. You see, I'm listening. This is brilliant. This is amazing. They're literally declaring themselves out. So I basically said. I remember going to the board and saying, right, the new legislation comes in in three months. I'm going to launch in three months. We'd normally take 18 months to do, but if you can sign off as 100 grand, we're going to have to spend. If you can sign this off, I'm just going to do the right pack, the right formula anyway. So I got it to market. Yeah, first, right? And being first, we absolutely cleaned up. But that wasn't that. That was the first constraint. The second constraint that then happened is I then went to the biggest supplier of drinks to schools in the Country. The number one is called Compass Group. Right. They were massive. I mean, they employ tens of thousands of people. Anyway, I went through the pitch process and I utterly failed, right? Utterly failed. And, and, and they end up saying to me, like, I was like, nowhere near the pricing that I had to be at. Now, the thing that you need to know about Compass Group is just getting a listing gets you on the list. It doesn't get you in the school because every school can choose what they have from this big, long list. So you then have to send people around to the schools to go, oh, you know, dear school, you should have our one, not their one. Yeah, there's a whole thing that goes on. And we had no sales team, right. And so I didn't have the price, I didn't make the list and I didn't have a sales team. Anyway, I had a bit of luck because I got called up because I'd obviously signed up for this thing and they said, oh, would you, as a supplier, will you come and present to our annual conference? And. And I'm like, I'm not a supplier. But so what do I do? Do I go anyway and just pretend? So anyway, I decided to act as if I was a supplier, go to the conference and pitch the plan for next year. So I pitched this idea and the idea was I was going to create a new entrepreneurs program in schools where basically I was going to train the kids to run their own basic drinks business from within the school. They had to basically order the stock, they had to price it, they had to merchandise it, they had to manage the, you know, the, you know, the stocking and replenishment and that kind of thing. And it's going to be an educational thing. So basically I was going to get the kids to become the sales team.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Anyway, they love the idea. They were literally like over the. They thought this was the best thing ever. Anyway, so I then got this, this con. They then contacted and said, right, we're going to do this, this entrepreneurs program with you. We're so excited. We need it in 3 weeks time. Need every school to have your products available within three weeks so we can kind of launch it. I'm like, but they don't stock me and my price is too high. What do I do? And everyone was on holiday as well. So I remember phone up logistics people going, can you help me out with something? We're not technically listed and you haven't got our pricing. Agreed.

[B]

And.

[A]

But I managed to work, you know, work behind the scenes, and it ended up Becoming like the number one drink in schools.

[B]

Look at that.

[A]

And there was not a single salesperson involved. I think I spent £400 and all I did is I filmed a video of me on the production line. Oh, sorry. I should say the incentive was the school that sold the most the following year would come to our factory and design their own bottle label flavor, and they'd learn how you make a drink. Right. That was bait. So all I did I spent on a video camera filming me on the production line going, this could be you next year, the winning team.

[B]

Okay. We're going to have to see that.

[A]

Yes. Okay.

[B]

I need to see that.

[A]

Yeah. But I was like the constraint of, firstly the new government legislation and secondly, not having a sales team.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Forced me in both situations. Think how do I go much faster than everybody else? And then secondly, how do I get a product that I don't have a sales resource to do?

[B]

Right.

[A]

I'd never have come up with that idea had I had the sales team, I'd have used the traditional form of innovating.

[B]

That's. That's living in the zone of friction. Right. You had all of these opposing forces which allowed you to break through and do something awesome. We probably failed again at our 15 minutes, but I have to tell you this story. And here we go, going over. So this Halo glow thing, okay. So I told you this is like a giant franchise. This is also a giant franchise that we built, which is also hundreds of millions. Right. This is actually like a highlighter. So I wake up one morning. This is the zero distance I talk about between me and my community. My entire TikTok feed is covered in people. Emptying this bottle out, removing all of its content, cleaning it to, like, almost factory, resetting to factory state, and then filling it with lip gloss. Ooh. And I'm like, what in the hell is happening? And it wasn't one TikTok in my feed. It was like hundreds. I just kept scrolling and scrolling and scrolling and I'm like, something is going on. So I get to the office, I talk to the team. They're like tens of millions of views have happened in, like 24 hours. And I was like, do we have anything to do with this? They're like, no, nothing. Zero. We had nothing to do with this. This is straight up organic. So I did what any CMO in my shoes would do. I walked down the hallway to our chief commercial officer, Jenny Lar. I call her Jenny Lar. Boo Boo. Because she loves Labubus. And I said, Jenny Larbooboo. What are you doing today at 4 o'?

[A]

Clock?

[B]

She said, what do you need me to be doing today at 4 o'? Clock? I said, I need you to jump on a TikTok live with me. The community is going nuts building these giant halo glow lip glosses. We need to figure out what's going on. Like let's to understand it, we got to do it. So let's be in the community doing it with the community. So her and I jump on a TikTok live, 16,000 people show up and we ask them to basically direct us through creating our own giant lip gloss so that we could understand the why, of course I could do it. Why am I doing this? Right? So, and they're directing us. They're like, yeah, no don't, that's too much, you know, raspberry color, put more chocolate, put vanilla flavor in there. You need to have a little glitter. And like we're having this entire banter as we're doing this thing and they're take out the stopper and oh my God, leave space because you have to mix. And it's incredible, right? So I make my own giant lip gloss directed by the community. When I finish, I put it on and I'm like, this is the greatest lip gloss that has ever been invented and only I have it. And the amazing part was the why. Why were they doing it? And that was the reason. First of all, it's fun, right? I want to be my own chemist. I want to create my own one of one product. And so I go to the team after that and I said, this is pretty outstanding. Can we get them empty bottles? Because this, this practice of emptying out the contents on the inside was making a mess in their bathrooms. The boyfriends were getting mad, the parents were getting angry. Like it just that became a whole episodic content series was emptying this bottle out and cleaning it so you could fill it with lip gloss. And the key on this one was the rapid response to the audience. In 24 hours, the Chief Commercial Officer and the CMO are on a TikTok Live doing it with them, understanding why and what. And in seven days we put a do it yourself kit to market where they had an empty bottle and they could fill it with a variety of lip glosses. So I think innovation is not just about having a three year pipeline, not just having things on a roadmap. It's also understanding what is happening, why is it happening and how do I do this alongside the community.

[A]

Absolutely amazing advice. Well worth the extra time

[B]

you should make your own giant halo glow lipstick next time.

[A]

I was fascinated to find out what the insights that was the fact that it was making their own rather than

[B]

they wanted to make their own ponent,

[A]

their own potion, a bigger version of it. Yeah.

[B]

Well, they love the doe foot. There is an incredible applicator in here which is a very large, oversized doe foot.

[A]

Ah.

[B]

So you see that? So what that'll do is grip a nice amount of lip gloss. So then they were able to apply it and use that applicator.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So not only do I want to create my own formula, but I want this applicator.

[A]

You want that applicator. Got it.

[B]

I would have never in a million years put that in the innovation.

[A]

And one of the lessons I've. If I look through my career and go, percentage of time with the customer correlates directly to success. Literally. And you can tell once you get in those roles where you realize your customer becomes internal, that is the death knell. Because suddenly it's all about internal prioritization process, all those kind of things. Now you need those things and I'm not saying you don't need those things, but when that becomes the predominantly focus of your time and attention, that's when you've lost.

[B]

That quote is amazing. And we should end on that quote.

[A]

Very similar one to your zero distance thing.

[B]

Bam.

[A]

Literally. I was like in about three or four different roles, I've set up new business units or new brand teams. And at the beginning, you just obsess about the customer. You're out there, you know, in the shops, you're talking to the wholesalers, you're meeting the consumer, you're doing the sampling, you're listening, getting feedback, feedback, feedback. And then you start to operationalize as you grow. And then you forget and you start to worry about, you know, what's my forecast, what's my stock levels, what's my plan for next year? Am I keeping the stakeholders happy and I'm making enough money? And that then becomes internal and it's almost like the. As long as you look X out, you'll be fine. The moment you start looking in is when the trouble begins.

[B]

100%. And the role of the marketer is to be the voice of the customer in every single room you enter.

[A]

Exactly. There we go. We'll end on that quote then, shall we? So, from Cory Marchesoto, myself, thank you so much for listening and watching Ton Sense and Renegades. We genuinely, genuinely hope that you enjoyed this conversation. Now, we do have one little request. We would love it if you could leave us a review. Reviews are so important to other people discovering this show. So wherever you get your podcast from, go and drop us a review. We would really appreciate it. Thank you.