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Uncensored CMO
Rare Beauty: the story behind the success of Selena Gomez’s make up brand - Katie Welch
00:51:37
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- [00:00]
Katie Welsh
Foreign.
- [00:06]
John Evans
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to Uncensored cmo. And in this episode, we're talking about beauty, but not any beauty. We're talking about Rare Beauty, one of the most successful brands on the planet right now. Absolutely ripping up. Founded by Selena Gomez, a real inspiration to young girls around the world about thinking about their mental health as well as beauty standards. And I'm here talking to their cmo, the amazing Katie Welsh, and we're finding out how it all happens and how she's made such a success. The brand and the journey they've been on. This is full of fascinating stories about a brand that is really on fire right now. You're going to love it. Here it is. So, Katie, welcome to Uncensored cmo.
- [00:42]
Katie Welsh
Thank you. I'm very honored to be here. I'm a longtime listener.
- [00:45]
John Evans
Oh, brilliant. Well, such an honour to have you and thanks. Dying to get into Rare Beauty and all the secrets around what you're doing, but tell us how you got here in the first place. You've had quite a career in beauty already before this point, but how did you get into the beauty industry and what's it been like?
- [00:57]
Katie Welsh
So I. My first job out of college was at Macy's. I did the Macy's buyer training program. So I was always interested in fashion and beauty and I wanted to be a cosmetics buyer so much. I was so envious of the cosmetics buyers, the. The people in the, in the training team who got to work with that team. But I instead was on the luggage and frames department. So I looked at luggage and picture frames and that's what I sold. That's what I was an assistant buyer and then an assistant planner for. But I still had this desire, this urge to be in cosmetics. I'd always just been a beauty junkie, really. I found the opportunity to interview for a job at Victoria's Secret Beauty, which was the beauty line of Victoria's Secret. And they were in New York City. That's where I was living. And I got an entry level job in their store communications department. And it was literally the most entry of entry level positions. I was clearing a voicemail called 1-800-HER-SHAT where store associates would call in and make requests for new products that they needed. Was it the most glamorous job? No. Was it something where I could even say, like, one day this woman's going to be a chief marketing officer? No way. However, what that Victoria's Secret job did teach me was about the industry and it gave me an opportunity to look at all the departments how beauty brands run and just really have a 30,000 foot purview into what it's like to work in the beauty industry. I learned the basics of beauty. From there, I was able to do a lateral interview into the PR department, where that's where I really, you know, I worked very closely. There were some really influential moments. When I think back to that time, I remember the creative director, her name was Marcia Mosak. And I remember how involved she was in some of the PR elements that we were working on. And one day I was working on a. I guess the equivalent of a PR mailer to. @ the time, it wasn't going to Instagramers or tiktokers the way we do now, but it was going to people like the B director at Vogue. And she came over to me and I was down on the ground just like stuffing these bags. And I remember there were marabou feathers. And it was in these, like, really beautiful but ornate hat boxes. And all of the Victoria's Secret holiday sets were in there. And I was probably lamenting like, oh, I went to college for this. Why am I working on this? And I'm on the ground. And here comes Marcia Mosak, this very credibly talented, notorious, like, creative director in the fashion and beauty industry, really well known. And she gets down on the ground with me and she starts messing with the marabou feathers to make sure each one is perfect. And I looked at her and I was like, why are you doing this? And she said, katie, each one of these is a representation of our brand. And it's going to people who drive the conversations around beauty. It's going to the beauty director of Vogue. This is just as important as a photo shoot. This is as important as a spread. It's the way your brand shows up. And I remember then, and they're thinking, oh, okay, I get it, I get it now. And it's moments like that where you realize, okay, that's. That's a level of storytelling. Now did I realize that was, you know, I'm going to be a cmo? No, no, no, no. But looking back, there are moments that impacted your career. And talking with her and understanding how involved she was in something that I thought was so minor was really influential. And then I remember looking around at my team and there was one woman on the PR team who had come from PR agencies, and I thought, she feels that's interesting. What's that about? I didn't know. I think it was also. This was the late 90s, early aughts there was no LinkedIn. There was no way to sort of look at other people's career paths and say, like, that's interesting. You had to just observe and figure it out yourself. No one was teaching you anything like that. She piqued my interest around what's a PR agency? So I ended up going, and I spent many years of my career at Weber Shandwick off and on. And then I joined the Weber Shandwick team and they had a bunch of beauty clients. The Unilever was one of their big accounts. And. And that was really an influential moment in my career because that's how I learned really how to think. I don't think I could do my job now if it weren't for those Weber Shandwick years. Now, I was there with increasing responsibility throughout my career, but truly, even the beginning days, like when I was a senior account executive, I learned how to think, how to think through a brand plan, how to think through a messaging hierarchy, how to present so many things that are foundational to a career. And that was. And that was also another beauty job, working so closely with Unilever and all the Unilever brands. Then I worked at another beauty PR agency, which was a really another wonderful time to learn a lot about management. I think with each job, you look back and you can take away, like, what did I actually learn from this? At a smaller beauty PR agency with. It was a smaller agency, but big team. You learn management, you learn management skills. And from there, one of the accounts that we had, I started to develop. You develop great relationships with your clients. One of whom was the chief marketing officer of Burt's Bees, who eventually then became the president of Bliss. And when he became the president of Bliss, he called me to be their head of marketing. So that was my first marketing brand job. And Bliss at the time, if you're not familiar, but was a pretty influential beauty brand, spa brand. There were locations all over the globe, but now I think there's only one in Soho. They had a line of products sold at Sephora. It was, it was, it was like a pinch me moment. That job, I couldn't believe I had it. And that was my first taste of everything that I'd learned at an agency. All of the creative ideation, all of the seeing how a brand message can move a business forward, actually watching it happen in real time. Because I think at agencies you learn how to come up with ideas at the such an incredible clip. You're able to really dive in and understand different businesses. You can be as Creative like there's so many moments for creativity, for inspiration, but you don't always get to see the idea come to life, come to fruition or see if it actually works. So this was the first time I got to see creative ideas come to life and see if it actually sold product. Did it move? Did it do whatever it intended to do? Does it move a consumer somehow? So I kind of got bit by the bug and then eventually I was at. I moved from New York to Los Angeles for a position at Hourglass Cosmetics and I was promoted into the CMO role there. At Hourglass, I helped the team and founder launch their purpose initiative of cruelty free luxury beauty as well as many just top selling products at Sephora Global launches and then through an acquisition to Unilever. And then I was briefly the chief, excuse me, the general manager at the Honest company for Honest Beauty, which is a beautiful brand, incredible founder. But while I was there, I met the CEO of Rare Beauty. I didn't know it was Rare Beauty at the time.
- [07:53]
John Evans
Now this is very, if I remember right, this is really early on. Is it really?
- [07:56]
Katie Welsh
Yeah, this was 2019 when we launched the brand in 2020. Launched.
- [08:00]
John Evans
So this is pre launch?
- [08:01]
Katie Welsh
Yes. I was at a conference and my now boss came up to me and said, oh hi, Katie Welch. I sent you an email on LinkedIn and you never responded.
- [08:10]
John Evans
No.
- [08:11]
Katie Welsh
Yeah. And I said, I'm sorry. I said, I'm so sorry. First of all, that sounds like me, like LinkedIn. Oops, sorry, sorry, LinkedIn. I apologized and I said now who are you? May I ask who are you? Or what, what, what was it about? Because he couldn't say because it wasn't public and he wasn't allowed to say like I'm working with Selena Gomez. And he said I'm. I'm working on a project that you might be interested in. And he said, oh my goodness, thank you so much. I am so happy where I am. I, I had only been there for, for eight months or so. I'm not really interested. Well, he kept calling and now I know he was. When the emails came in, I had to respond. So eventually I signed an NDA and I learned about it. And then I thought, oh goodness, like that's, that feels like a once in a lifetime opportunity. He said, and I met with Selena and he said this, you know, we want to create this, this brand that, to make a difference within beauty. And I met with Selena, first of all, she's disarmingly kind, hugs you right away. You forget you're Talking to someone who is such an incredibly talented celebrity. She's a normal person who has, has had a vision, has a vision and had an idea for this brand that she wanted to start. And she was looking for people to help her start it. And I thought, wow. And she said, I want to create a space where people feel welcome in beauty. And after working in beauty for so long with so many different brands and for being just a fan of cosmetics, that word didn't. It doesn't feel like something I had seen before. There's so many wonderful. There's so many powerful things about beauty. Self expression, inclusion. Thank goodness. There's empowerment. Welcome. Like literally, like, come sit with us. You belong here. I thought, there's something there. And then after getting to know her and realizing that that is really who she's like, like, if she were sitting in this chair right now, she'd be asking you the questions. She would not want to know. She wouldn't want to talk about herself. She'd wanna talk about you. And I think that's so cool and so authentic and she really cares. She's heartfelt. So this opportunity arose to help someone who's so authentically herself had such a powerful vision to help them bring it to life. And I met the rest of the team and they were all so cool and chill and just as heartfelt and just as kind. It truly felt like a once in a lifetime opportunity because when can you start something from scratch? There was nothing. So product development had begun. She had a name that she wanted because she wrote her album Rare and her song Rare. And the word rare was so important to her, but that was it.
- [10:44]
John Evans
That's incredible.
- [10:45]
Katie Welsh
Yeah. It's wild to go up to think like the time flies by so fast. It's hard to even like, I wish I'd kept a journal because it's hard to even imagine like what was going through all of our heads at that moment. Because it was a small team too. And Scott and Selena, our CEO. And Selena hired a leadership team first and then we hired our teams. And startup life is not for the faint of heart.
- [11:10]
John Evans
It's very tough, isn't it? What are the. What are the challenges in the early days? Because you're starting from nothing.
- [11:15]
Katie Welsh
Starting from nothing.
- [11:15]
John Evans
Got a worldwide famous celebrity, but true.
- [11:18]
Katie Welsh
Still gotta make. You still gotta make.
- [11:21]
John Evans
Prof. Yeah.
- [11:23]
Katie Welsh
You still have to launch at Sephora, so. So we decided to partner with Sephora and launch at Sephora. We launched in Sephora, US, Canada, Mexico in September of 2020. But to get to that point, There was a lot. I think we launched with 150 SKUs. I think it's a lot to get there. So every. If you think about any Sephora product page, every single thing that's on that product page needed to be finalized. Everything from shade names to tutorials to, To. To. To product swatches, product features and benefits. Writing every single thing, as well as defining, you know, I mean, defining the brand, the brand purpose, the brand, the mission, vision and values, and all authentically aligned to who she is. We launched Rare Impact, which is our signature social impact initiative. It's our. It's our way to make a difference in the world within mental health specifically. And we launched that before the brand even launched. So we had to. We. It was almost like launching two brands, two companies, and it was all during COVID Oh, this is. So we were. All right. That's the other thing. That's the other wrench that was a little difficult. So we're hiring teams, trying to. Some people you've worked with, some people you haven't, but you're all on your. At your kitchen table or your couch or wherever. It was a wild time having to create all that content, having to create. I. We. I remember. So we did do a brand campaign in January of 2020. And so fortunate to be able to get that done, because who we didn't know, but I think I had like five massive photo shoots planned with Selena to create all of the ads. Every basic asset you think that you need to launch a company. It all got canceled. They all got canceled. So we ended up doing things with our iPhones. All of our launch tutorials for sephora.com, all of our launch social, paid social, even organic social. Of course, it all happened mostly from Selena's bedroom. She took her iPhone. I mean, I don't even think. It's not that long ago, but they didn't even have those, like, suction cups for your phones, you know, like those things on the back of our phones. She duct taped her phone to her bathroom mirror. She has a vanity in her bedroom and she did all the videos from there. But what was so fascinating about it is that it was very in line with who the brand is. The brand.
- [13:37]
John Evans
It feels authentic.
- [13:39]
Katie Welsh
It was very authentic to the brand. Who knew? And I hate to say silver lining because it was a terrible time, but it ended up showing. Selena's not a makeup artist. She's never feigned that she is a professional makeup artist, but she's learned a lot and she wanted the products to be easy to use a lot of many of which you can use with your fingers. So here she was doing these tutorials and showing, okay, I could do it this way. Or if she messed up, she would laugh and be like, okay, you can mess up too. Or if she did her eyeliner one way and the other eye wasn't perfect, she was. It was fine. And so it was very entertaining, but very true to who she was and then ultimately very true to who the brand is. It was fun because in a way.
- [14:21]
John Evans
Positioning wise, you know, the beauty industry is so much about the pursuit of perfection, right? And that's what's amazing about what she's done, isn't it? It's about everybody and being you and the idea of rare. I think positioning is really smart, isn't it?
- [14:34]
Katie Welsh
It all came from her. So she posted in 2018. The media talked at length about the way she looked. Didn't make her feel good. And she posted in 2018 about the beauty myth and the beauty myth of physical perfection. And. And from there, it sparked an idea in her. I was like, you know what? I think we can make change from the inside out. And how can we break down these standards of perfection? And when she talked about rare beauty, wanting to make people feel like they belong, feel welcome, it's because you don't have to look a certain way, act a certain way, dress a certain way that you can truly be who you are meant to be. And she always says, that is what's rare. You are meant to be who you are. And that is rare and that is beautiful. I think it resonates because it's true. Because it is true and it's authentic because that's really what she believes in. And she's always had this strength in vulnerability and being powerfully vulnerable. And when she recognizes the beauty in people for being who they are, you can. That's. There's a real there there. And so when to tell that story, it's not fake, it is authentic. And I'm constantly inspired by her, actually, a couple. When was this? A couple months ago. She was talking to a group of Sephora beauty advisors and they were asking her about when she launched Rare Beauty. And she said, yeah, when we launched, we cared about this, we cared about beauty here. And she patted her chest and she said, we cared about beauty on the inside. And I was just, like, looking around at all my co workers. I'm like, that's brilliant. She's good, you know, but that's because it's real. It's not coming from A place of like, oh, I'm just gonna slap my name on something. And of course, now I want to do a beauty on the inside campaign. I'm like writing it down.
- [16:13]
John Evans
Yes. But I got two daughters, 1 15, 1 17, huge fans of the brand. But I asked them about it and the first thing they said was, oh, you know, Selena's had all this hate and she's judged on how she looks and all this sort of thing.
- [16:26]
Katie Welsh
They knew all that too.
- [16:27]
John Evans
They knew all that. Yeah, that was what they knew about the brand. And you know, how she responds so authentically to it. And that's really what attracted them to, you know, to the brand, is that, you know, it's for everybody. Right. We've got a little extra guest here. So for anyone listening who can't see.
- [16:46]
Katie Welsh
What'S going on here, it is a dog friendly office.
- [16:48]
John Evans
We've got a new host of uncensored CMO here.
- [16:50]
Katie Welsh
She's never been on a podcast before. Does that bother you?
- [16:54]
John Evans
Not at all.
- [16:55]
Katie Welsh
You promise?
- [16:55]
John Evans
But talking about wellness, one of the things that I love looking at the range put together.
- [16:58]
Katie Welsh
Katie. Yes.
- [17:00]
John Evans
It's how even in how you describe products, talking about stay vulnerable, for example, things like that, you even follow it through, don't you, in terms of, you know, all the product messaging and everything. Messaging comes through brilliantly.
- [17:10]
Katie Welsh
Yes. That's all credit to Selena as well. When we talk about shade names or we talk about product names, I remember just even in the early days of working with her and she said one of her favorite words. Well, there's two stories. One of her favorite words is gratitude. So that when you think about even her favorite words or the things that she gravitates to, they are positive and they're uplifting. But another thing you may have noticed the post it notes.
- [17:34]
John Evans
Yeah.
- [17:35]
Katie Welsh
So when we were talking to her about her beauty routine, again, back to early days, planning and thinking through, you know, trying to get the inspiration, trying to get real stories. And she said, well, I. First I start with I have on my mirror. She writes positive affirmations on a post it note. So she didn't say first. I start by washing my face. She didn't say first I start with like spraying a mist or whatever one does in their beauty routine. First she starts with positive affirmations. She has a post it note that'll say something like, you are enough or you are rare, I swear. And I thought, oh my gosh, that's.
- [18:12]
John Evans
Amazing to look at it that way around from the feeling you want to create.
- [18:15]
Katie Welsh
And it Wasn't. So she said that and we all said, okay, that's cool. You know, it's fascinating. From there it evolved and now it's something we call a rare reminder. Rare reminder. And now these post it notes. We've introduced this idea to our community. People put rare reminders on their own mirrors. So they're starting their day with a positive affirmation. We do them at Sephora events. You can see in the beauty studio where the mirrors are, we'll have post it notes. We have our own post it notes.
- [18:42]
John Evans
Do you have a rare post it note now?
- [18:44]
Katie Welsh
Yeah, yeah. Cause we can encourage people to write their own message on them, to write their rare reminder. But even from that, and I think from her saying that's how she starts her beauty routine, that helped to inspire product names and sort of even the tone of voice of the brand. But it's not in a live, laugh, lovey way because that's not who she is either. She is funny, she has a dry sense of humor. She's real. So it's more in the way of a friend, the way a friend would talk to you.
- [19:13]
John Evans
I mean, there are so many celebrity led brands out there and they very often feel slightly artificially created, don't they? Like we need someone famous to, you know, be the face of the brand. I'm not gonna comment, but this feels so different, doesn't it? Because it's authentic to her story, the person she's in public.
- [19:27]
Katie Welsh
You know what's interesting because I don't want to comment on any other, any other brand, but when we started in 2019, that the concept of a celebrity brand, celebrity brand, actually it wasn't as prominent in the media or beyond since then. So many brands have launched since then. It's. It's truly a conversation, but it's real. She had an idea and she wanted to start it and she did. She's always wanted to use her platform for good and to make a difference. So between creating a community where people feel warm and welcome and connect, I mean, there are people in our community have, who have become friends through rare beauty. And when we were starting the brand and talking about the brand purpose and really diving into mental health, we were trying to figure out, okay, as our friend Mark Ritson says, the purpose of purpose is purpose. We knew mental health wanted to be a part of our brand purpose, but we had to do something real. So as we were researching mental health and talking to experts, you know, as a brand, what could you. We can inform, we can educate. You can't stop. You can't, you know, it's have so many people are touched by it. One of the things that we uncovered or that I we read was about loneliness and how loneliness is oftentimes at the start of what could become a potentially larger mental health concern. And I thought, God, a brand. A brand can impact loneliness. A brand can make people feel. If we, if she. Back to what she initially said to me, that she wants to create a place where people feel welcome. A brand can connect people, people, whether it's online, offline events, like you can find your people. So I thought back then, like, if we can, if two people can become friends, we've done our job. And lo and behold, we had a couple. We have every year we have a mental health summit where we bring people together. Part of our vision was we wanted to. She wanted to start positive conversations around self acceptance and mental health. And so here we were having this mental health summit. 200 people of our community, not influential names like real people, our peeps in the room. We had experts from within the mental health community, within the beauty community, all having this conversation, all sharing trusted sources, everything that we had intended to do. And then I looked out in the audience and I spent the day with the audience, and people showed up with their friends that they met through rare beauty. So here we had really, truly helped people feel less alone in the world because they met. Like, it's hard to make friends and people met friends through this brand. And I got up on that stage to say thank you, and it's so embarrassing. I cried. And my team's like, oh, God, here she goes. A, because I'm a cancer and I'm emotional. B, because I couldn't believe it actually happened. And I think in all the years of writing PowerPoints and putting words on a page and thinking, okay, sure, we'll make. Yeah, we'll, you know, type time, make people feel less alone. Like, it's one thing to type it on a page, to actually see it come to life in that way, in such a meaningful way. It struck me. It was so powerful to me personally. So that's been really special. So back to Mark's point, the purpose of purpose is purpose. That was a perfect example of that. Truly helping people feel less alone by creating, helping people feel connected to something.
- [22:49]
John Evans
And I mean, we've never been more connected, in theory, with social media. More ways to connect, but also more lonely because we're missing human interaction. And there's also probably never been more expectations of perfection, particularly for girls, you know, placed on them by society and what they see around them. So you've got that social pressure combined with the, you know, distance that you end up creating through social media. So I can see the potency of that is huge.
- [23:14]
Katie Welsh
One of the things that we did when we were building the brand, so back to January 2020, we had a foundation. We were launching with a foundation. If you launch a foundation, you need to have individual assets to showcase what it looks like on people's skin. Skin tone, so you can help find the shade that looks like you. So I thought, oh, what a great opportunity to actually get 48 people together in a room, and maybe we can start living our brand vision and. And connect people and maybe they can start to make friends then, like, we're really going to be able to do it before we even launch the brand. So we did a casting call, for lack of a better word. I think we called it a community call. And in that, we asked people to share what makes them rare. We didn't want their headshot. We just wanted to say, tell us what makes you rare. Tell us your story. We got 20,000 responses.
- [24:05]
John Evans
Wow.
- [24:06]
Katie Welsh
We hadn't even launched the brand before.
- [24:08]
John Evans
So there was no brand, but you got 20,000.
- [24:09]
Katie Welsh
No brand. No brand.
- [24:11]
John Evans
That's incredible.
- [24:12]
Katie Welsh
And I thought, okay, all the stories are just going to be like, I just want to meet Selena. No, they were really real, open, honest stories. So here we had all these people who were wanting to engage with us and tell us meaningful things. Then we know what happened. So then we were reading that we found sort of a handful. We narrowed it down a bit. Then we went into quarantine, so we had to postpone it. But then we had all these people who wanted to engage with the brand. So we said, what the heck? Let's just start doing Zoom calls. People are feeling alone. We're gonna live the brand values. Let's do Zoom Calls. And then we can get to know the community. It's almost like, from a marketer standpoint, okay, we can hear what they want from a brand. And we did just that. Every week for most of the quarantine, we had a Zoom call with different members of what is now a very strong, robust, rare beauty community. And they told us things. We got to know them. And, like, that's to your point? To your point about talking about not being able to find your people or see people who look like you or don't look like you or celebrate who you are. We were starting to do that in these Zoom chats, and that was Fun that was meaningful. And Selena would join them and, oh, my God, when she would join, everyone in the zoom would just be like, what? But she wouldn't want to talk about her. They would always ask her questions, and she would ask them questions. And that was what was so meaningful because then they said, you hear us, you see us. It was very, very sweet. And that informed so much of our strategy, so much of our community strategy, so much of our rare impact strategy. And because when you think about marketing today, you have to be of service to your community or to whomever you're selling a product or doing whatever you want your target audience to do. Action. And so that was able to really inform us. So not only during that timeframe were we able to create these authentic assets and storytell about the products, but we also got to really know our community so that truly, I can say now that we are a brand that was created with our community, not just for our community. Cause I think a lot of brands say that, and they throw around the word. It's very popular around the word community, which is great. But I can say that rare beauty really did it authentically.
- [26:29]
John Evans
Makes. Makes a lot of sense that. Yeah. And the role of social media has been huge, isn't it? I mean, the way, you know, you've exploded in TikTok and in Instagram.
- [26:37]
Katie Welsh
Yeah.
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John Evans
What's been the. I mean, obviously having Selena must be an enormous asset, and she's got an incredible following herself. But what's been the secret to using those channels to build the brand and get awareness?
- [26:48]
Katie Welsh
Don't let the standards of perfection hold you back in that realm either. You have to. You have to understand these channels and understand what. How they work, what goes viral, what doesn't. Obviously, you cannot plan for a viral video. We all know that. And, man, does my team hate when anyone uses the V word. But you have to have an understanding of that community. Who are the people talking about beauty? Who's driving the beauty conversation? What are the trends? To be able to have success of any kind, have engagement, and then you have to be a little fearless to be able to say, all right, test it. Fine, it'll work, you think? And if it doesn't, it doesn't. Also, it's just a video. It's not. It's just a TikTok, which I love. But, like, you have to be. You have to be creative. You have to be curious. You have to stay on top of trends and then figure out how you can interpret your brand for that platform. Now, you do have to understand your brand so clearly you have to understand products, your product, your product point of difference. So clearly. But you can't force feed the message. But if you know that your product does XYZ or your brand stands for this, then how do you take those messages and deliver it to those mediums in a way that, that works for that message, that medium, but it takes time and trust. I have a lot of trust in my team that. I mean, there's something that they do with a plastic dollhouse. I don't even know. They're putting googly eyes on blushes. Fine, let them do it.
- [28:24]
John Evans
Now we're sat here in Selena's office, which is great. Yep. One thing that.
- [28:28]
Katie Welsh
Thanks.
- [28:28]
John Evans
He's absolutely beautiful. And he's exactly how I'd imagine it to be.
- [28:31]
Katie Welsh
Oh, really?
- [28:31]
John Evans
It just feels like the brand.
- [28:33]
Katie Welsh
Oh, nice.
- [28:33]
John Evans
But you can tell she's really involved in what goes on.
- [28:37]
Katie Welsh
Notebooks up there.
- [28:38]
John Evans
Yeah. We've got loads of postits, lots of products all over the place and it looks amazing as well. How involved does she get in. In the marketing of the brand itself?
- [28:45]
Katie Welsh
She seems.
- [28:46]
John Evans
She's so intrinsically linked.
- [28:47]
Katie Welsh
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. She's super involved. She works really closely with product development on bringing the products to market and testing the products. And she'll have an idea for a product and then call Joyce Kim, who's our chief product officer, and they will bring it to life. She works very closely with Elise Cohen, who runs our social impact initiative. She runs Rare Impact and the Rare Impact Fund. She's very passionate about the difference that we're able to make and the impact to giving back. And then for marketing, she works closely with not only me, but with our creative director on campaigns. We were just. We just shot a campaign last week on Friday, actually, so I just saw her. So not only on the campaign direction, but who our photographer is, the styling, the theme, all of that. So she'll be very closely involved in that. And then works super closely with my team on social. Because what I love about Celine is like, she understands social media.
- [29:39]
John Evans
Yeah, you got the world expert.
- [29:41]
Katie Welsh
I know. Once we were. I remember we were. We were at dinner or something. One, this is. And she had just posted two different videos. She was like, this is so interesting. Why is this one getting more traction than this one? So she. I don't know, she's. She's. She's funny and that. She really pays attention to everything. She's a smart, smart person.
- [29:59]
John Evans
And what, what, what's the secret to getting a product launch right because you launch so many. I mean it's the amount of, I mean in the industry, you're in the amount of new product innovation that happens all the time and you know the trends in terms of different products that happen. And I'm just listening to my daughters talk about it, you know, there's so much. Isn't it? And it's so. Things become hot all the time. So.
- [30:20]
Katie Welsh
Yes.
- [30:20]
John Evans
How do you plan for this and how do you kind of. What's the secret to getting. Getting it right?
- [30:25]
Katie Welsh
That's the hardest part is that we. It is, it is where beauty moves at such a fast pace. And so we have since. Since September of 2020, we have since rolled out to almost every Sephora globally. We're in about 36 markets and then we're in space and K, in addition to Sephora in the uk, we launch maybe four collections a year. Typically most brands at Sephora do the same and they're 360 launches. And so not only. And we're doing it all. From El Segundo, California, I have one member of my team is in Paris and so he works closely with the Sephora Global and Sephora EU teams over there. But other than that, it's all happening here. And the most important thing is communication. We're constantly evolving the way the team talks to one another to make sure that everyone is informed because things do change. Launch dates, product points of difference, features and benefits. It changes daily. So I think what I have learned is the importance of communication over communicating. I think you can never over communicate overthinking or over prepare enough maybe makes my team a little crazy. Sorry, but you have to, you have to. And I think back to understanding your product's point of difference and making sure that everyone is on the same page because everyone has to sort of hit the ground running. And you do have to trust ultimately that your team knows what they're doing. So the more that everyone is aligned on the same page of the product point of difference, the brand point of view, they should be able to hit the ground running. And you just have to trust and build up that trust with your team so that they can do what they do best. I understand TikTok, I understand Reels, I understand social. I'm not coming up with the best ideas for it. They do. But if I can arm them with the tools so that they can come up with the best thing, that's what's gonna work. Otherwise, I mean, you could work 24 hours a day. We already work seven days a week. I can't do 24 7. It's too hard. Yeah, because the to do list is never like there's always gonna be another creator. There's always gonna be another product to launched. Just because it launched four years ago doesn't mean you still can't. You ha. You can just let it like launch it and leave it. You still have to talk about those. There's always going to be another moment to do a social post or another moment to comment to a response to something. There's always going to be another market that wants a meeting about something. So your to do list never ends. So you have to prioritize and over communicate.
- [32:55]
John Evans
I was going to say because I mean you've gone for in five years from nothing to I guess one of the US's fastest growing brands, you know and you scaled it massively.
- [33:05]
Katie Welsh
Sweating.
- [33:05]
John Evans
How do you, yeah, how do you cope with the scale up challenge? As you say, the to do list is impossible. Right. There's no end to what you could end up trying to do.
- [33:13]
Katie Welsh
You know, you're not in it, it's not me. There's a massive team and we're all in it together. And I really truly am amazed at this team. Few people have left so as a lot of people have been since the beginning, all levels, all departments. So we've gotten in a groove of really working well together and people aren't afraid to speak up. Like I think that's the other thing. Like we have a really well oiled still working on that. I think that can always be improved but we really work well together. People aren't afraid to speak up, people aren't afraid to question. And that really is important because oh man, there's some famous saying of like working together, going faster, I don't know but that's what it is is that the team really works well together. And that is something that I constantly am trying to improve because you know, we're raised as marketers to be strong marketers, not always raised to be strong managers and we can always be better. And you know, sometimes the chief marketing world, it's funny, I talk, there's a woman on my team and she said to me, I want to be you one day. I want to be chief marketing officer. I'm like, I'm in zoom calls all day long, you know and it's like sometimes you're just, you're doing human resources things all day long or planning or prioritizing. It's like I'm not actually in the work as much. I know you can't skip all those levels and go straight to cmo. First of all, I need your talented brain on like marketing director, marketing vp, because that's where a lot of the creative work is happening, which is funny. So it's, I think to move that fast at scale, you have to have a well oiled machine. Well, you know, a team that works really well together and hopefully we have.
- [34:54]
John Evans
That often saves people. Like when they say, oh, what it's like being, what is it like being a cmo? And they kind of assume that you're like the most senior marketer doing the marketing. I'm like, I said the four Ps of marketing when you're a CMO are completely different. Right. You know, it's politics, persuasion, people and planning. Right. Basically it's not marketing, it's managing other people and the politics around it. Yeah, getting things approved. Yeah, all that kind of stuff. And that's a very different skill set.
- [35:20]
Katie Welsh
The people in the planning, doing the marketing. The people in the planning. And it's funny because I have a handful of team members that I've worked with for a while and so we kind of think on the same page. But I've had to work on myself to, to become a better planner because if there are people that you've worked with for so long, you kind of speak the same, the same language and you can say, okay, remember when we did xyz? Let's go do that. But not everyone knows what that is. So of those four Ps, people in planning I think in my opinion are the most important because you can, you can never over plan at the same time. It's like how the best way to be agile and to like react to what's happening in popular culture and be able to turn things around quickly is if you have a strong plan. Because all the other stuff that's keeping the business going, if that's not locked and loaded, then you don't have the ability to sort of say, oh, we got to do this instead.
- [36:07]
John Evans
That's an interesting perspective. I've not thought about like that being really well planned then gives you the.
- [36:11]
Katie Welsh
Then gives you the opportunity. It's like, wow, there's a great opportunity. This shade of liquid blush is going viral on TikTok. What can we do? Okay, let's call Sephora. Let's see if we can get an email blast. Let's do a bundle on rarebeauty.com. let's see if Selena wants to do some content. Let's do. I don't know, do events at Sephora with the beauty advisors and our, all of if we are so underwater planning a launch that was scheduled but we're behind or something, you can't, you can't react. And that's the thing about marketing today, is that it is happening. I mean everyone says it's happening at the speed of culture. It's not bullshit. It really is happening at the speed of culture. So how do you be a brand that can reply, can respond to the speed of culture while keeping the day to day business intact and moving forward. And so planning and people is the most important part of that, the only way you can do that.
- [37:01]
John Evans
What's been the biggest challenge for you personally would you say in the last.
- [37:03]
Katie Welsh
Personally?
- [37:04]
John Evans
Yeah, because you, you've worked on some pretty big successful businesses. You know, you talk about Unilever bliss, well established. This is like being on a rocket ship, isn't it?
- [37:14]
Katie Welsh
Every day is different. You're never prepared for this. You know, we try to be as prepared as possible but man, there's not a playbook because there's things that are happening that you've never been through and you've certainly never been through at this scale or with this founder or with anything. So it's you, you do have to stay on your toes every single day. And that's not easy. It's not. It's fun. I'm fortunate. I feel so grateful and lucky. I love it. I love the team, I love Selena, I love the products. I do feel super, super grateful. But it's hard. It's a hard job.
- [37:47]
John Evans
It isn't it?
- [37:48]
Katie Welsh
Yeah, yeah. What else is? It's been hard. The pace, I think that the pace has been, has been tough on everyone. But we have the team intact to do it. And so it's, it is the planning and the over communicating. I started today, we're doing these daily, they're daily standups for the whole team. Because things were, are moving so fast. I just wanted to make sure that everyone knew. So it's like high school announcements but internal communication.
- [38:15]
John Evans
Well, oddly that's your first job actually. But that's so important, isn't it that everyone knows what their role is. Everyone knows what's going on. You know, regular communication. It's something I've learned previously.
- [38:26]
Katie Welsh
I try to my best and I hope that my direct reports and their direct words like that everyone needs to understand what their role is because it's like an orchestra. Every single one, every single person is playing a role, is playing an instrument. And if you're not all playing in sync at the same time. You're not going to make beautiful music, but when you are, it's powerful. So like even if you're playing the tiny little flute, was it piccolo or something like the tiniest little flute and you think, I just got the little flute. That flute is still so important. And they have. I think people have to see their role in the total team and their role in the total business because everyone wants to feel like they're contributing and everyone is contributing. But you have to take the time to explain that to people and explain to them what their role is, what the business is, what the objectives of not only the marketing team, but the total companies will be so that people feel connected.
- [39:19]
John Evans
Well, I mean one thing I think that works in your favor particularly is it's such a clear vision of the difference you want to make and the focus on mental health as well.
- [39:25]
Katie Welsh
Yes.
- [39:26]
John Evans
I mean that really helps galvanize people and make them feel like we're part of something as easy talked about hearing it is.
- [39:31]
Katie Welsh
And we try to reflect everything that we do externally, internally as well. All of our team members are trained in mental health first aid. We do mental health Fridays. We have a slew of different employee benefits around mental health as well as for instance we have something called the Rare Beauty Mental Health Council. These are individuals within academia, within nonprofit, the medical field, mental health certainly all of whom advise us on our mental health strategy co create content. Everything that we heard from back in those rare chats, those zoom chats, we heard from the community that they wanted to hear trusted sources within mental health and they weren't getting those having those conversations or hearing about them in, in school or in at home. So we created this so that we could point pe point our community into the direction of a trusted resource. But in addition, we'll do things with them for our own team members. So whether they're zoom lunch and learns for one of the mental health council members or even a grantee so that we can learn more about the grantees if the Rare Impact Fund donates to and makes a difference with and that's been really meaningful as well.
- [40:39]
John Evans
We talked internally. What about the externally the community, you know, the first like 20,000 people that were, you know, queuing up to find out about how have you evolved that community over the last few years? Presumably that's got much, much bigger, isn't it since then?
- [40:53]
Katie Welsh
Yeah, it's. Well, especially as we've grown around the world and when we show up in so whether we're Launching in a market or whether we're even just doing a visit to meet with the local Sephora team, like the marketing team. My team will do community events and we'll do meetups. Whether you're in Paris or Milan or Wichita, like, you know, anywhere, it doesn't matter. There's community members everywhere. So what's been really fun is seeing. Meeting the people behind the handles and their names and like, getting to know who they are and like, rec. Seeing them in person. It's. It's really fun. It's. It's sort of wild. We did an event in the uk in London with Space NK and some of the community members I got to meet and it was like, oh, my. Of course I know who you are. It's wild. It's fun. So that was one thing. And then another thing that we do is we work with Tyb, which is a digital platform, and that community. It's a digital community engagement loyalty platform where you can collect digital collectibles around the brand and there's chat rooms and there's ways to redeem some of the points that you can acquire by sort of playing different games. And you can redeem them on rarebeauty.com Anyway, this sort of platform, we have about 80,000 members, so we've grown that community beyond our social channels, which I think are about maybe 12 million across all. When you add up all the channels.
- [42:18]
John Evans
Yeah. The amount of followers, you've got an engagement. And of course, you just hit 8.
- [42:21]
Katie Welsh
Million on Instagram as well, haven't you? Yep. But that's her. I mean, we don't touch that. That's all. That's her personal account.
- [42:27]
John Evans
So what's coming next for the brand? Where'd you go from here?
- [42:30]
Katie Welsh
We just launched our Soft Pinch Liquid Contour. So I'm actually headed to New York this week. We're doing a big masterclass for our community in New York, which will be fun. And then we just have a slew of events coming up and some more product launches.
- [42:46]
John Evans
But I can't say it's all very top secret.
- [42:49]
Katie Welsh
It's all very top secret. Was I too negative that the job is so hard?
- [42:53]
John Evans
No, because it is. And I think that's the thing that's really interesting is the different skill set when you're an entrepreneur in a startup, to make things happen compared to in a big corporate job, you're kind of managing.
- [43:07]
Katie Welsh
Oh, it's not like I'm.
- [43:07]
John Evans
Like you're shuffling things around.
- [43:08]
Katie Welsh
Call the agencies, do the thing. Oh, no.
- [43:11]
John Evans
But it doesn't happen unless you do it right in a startup. So, you know, I think the skill set is very, very different. It takes a certain kind of person.
- [43:19]
Katie Welsh
Yeah.
- [43:20]
John Evans
And particularly when you're also going through the journey from startup. Scrappy. Yeah, I'm just going to make it happen. And then to get to the scale you've got to. That requires.
- [43:28]
Katie Welsh
It's hard, it's weird.
- [43:29]
John Evans
Quite a skill set. And I mean, I know, you know, you talk a lot about what you've learned along the journey and reacting to things going on. You have to have that pragmatism, don't you? Of like I'm just going to, you know, we've never experienced what we're going through before. You know, you must seeing a lot of things the first time and figuring them out as you go.
- [43:46]
Katie Welsh
Yeah, a lot. It's funny, sometimes the team will say to me like, well, this is the way, Katie, Katie, this is the way we always do it. I'm like, what do you mean? We just started. There's no always doing something. And I appreciate. Yes, of course we need to have process and procedures and otherwise, just like we were saying, otherwise you can't be agile. But to assume something and to assume this is the way it's always done, I think that that sets potentially not to be so dramatic, but it sets you up for failure because things are changing. And also I think we have because we had to start from scratch. We had to reimagine everything because there was nothing from which to say that's the way we always do it. So we kind of did things our own way, a new way, the only way we could. And then other brands would start to pay attention and then that becomes a norm of doing things. And then so if we go back and say we want to do it that same way, then we're just doing it the way everyone else does it. And then how do you break through? And ultimately at the end of the day, that's what you're trying to do is break through the noise. There's so many things vying for your attention. How can a brand get your attention? And that's what I pay attention to, attention the most. That's the most valuable asset. Isn't that what Gary Vee has a book about it? Paying attention to attention. Attention is day trading attention. That's what his book is. It's good. It's true. It's true. We pay attention to attention. That's how I figured out TikTok. I watched everyone around me like not being able to put their phone down. So consumed by TikTok.
- [45:12]
John Evans
And you've also lent into it personally, haven't you? Because you've got a Quite a good TikTok following yourself as well.
- [45:17]
Katie Welsh
I'm not doing dances.
- [45:18]
John Evans
Yeah.
- [45:20]
Katie Welsh
No. So, yeah, I, I'm fascinated by TikTok and by social and I, I learned through, through Instagram, through Twitter. If you're not participating in these platforms, how are you really going to understand it? How do you really understand how some things, how content works? You can assume, you can pay attention, you can let your team know. I wanted to figure out for myself and we were building the team and I was trying to hire people and I didn't, I didn't know I had some like entry level positions to fill and I didn't really have a pipeline of folks to tap. So I was thinking about that and it made me think a lot about actually how I got into the beauty industry and like when I was 19, 20 and how I found out about some stuff. And I remember I met a woman who worked at Estee Lauder when I was 19. I was like, and I grew up in Missouri. There was no big beauty companies there. And I said, that's your job. You do that. And she's like, yeah. And for the rest of history, like, that's what I want to do. And so I thought, gosh, I wonder if I could pay it forward, be that person for someone the way I was at 19. But then also like start to meet younger folks who could potentially work at Rare Beauty B, understand this platform that's getting so much traction because I knew it was going to be important for us. I thought, what the hell, I'll just start. And I thought, okay, I'm not obviously not going to do dances. I mean, not obviously. No shade to anyone who does them. I just do not know how. But I do know about marketing and I know about careers and the beauty industry. So I thought, okay, I'll do content around careers or joining the beauty industry. People just started following and it was sort of fun. And then I made, I met really wonderful people and helped people find jobs. Like, people would come up to me. It's just the other day when Tick tock was, was briefly down and everyone was sort of reminiscing about oh, back in the day. And this woman posted on Instagram about how she's like, I followed. I watched all of Katie Welch's videos around the beauty industry and I, and I put them into practice during my interviews. And now I work at too faced Cosmetics, which is a cosmetics company.
- [47:24]
John Evans
Oh, that's great.
- [47:25]
Katie Welsh
Oh my God, I was so touched.
- [47:27]
John Evans
Yeah.
- [47:27]
Katie Welsh
And it's like you can share, like especially now we're all working remote or hybrid, you don't get the chance to mentor as much or to have those interactions. Sometimes it's just run ins with people where you have learned so much in your career and if you don't have those opportunities, you know, and if you can use platforms like TikTok or LinkedIn to share what you know, I think it's so important. And then I learned so much from them. I mean, I only know so much. But then I would hear from people one on one, whether it was like on a TikTok Live and the types of questions that people would ask, or I eventually ended up just doing a bunch of zoom mentorship sessions and then like really getting to know people. And I would always ask like, what's inspiring you right now? And at the time, and I wonder if they would answer the same way. But at the time a lot of These individuals said TikTok and this was 2020 and I was like, really? So again you started to see and they said yes. And it wasn't because they were learning the renegade dance or what have you, but it was because they were passionate about different things, be it cooking or careers, and they were able to learn more information or find people about it. And now, I mean, what we've Learned is like TikTok has now replaced Google and for search and that that's where people are finding out more information. Or I guess now maybe it's even chatgpt. Anyway, see, the world moves so fast, but it was really meaningful and I love the community that I built on TikTok. The other thing that I've learned is how hard it is to be a creator. Takes a lot of time. So when you're a brand working with creators, when you go back to them and say, I don't really like that line, can you redo it? That is a difficult thing to ask for. And so make sure your brief is right or just let them do it in their own voice because they understand their community and they know what's going to work. So I think I learned a lot about not only the platform, what works, what goes viral, what doesn't, but then also being a creator, the act of it, and understanding how difficult it is. That gate I give, I have a lot of respect and admiration for creators.
- [49:29]
John Evans
It's very three or four times more work and time goes into it than people probably realize.
- [49:34]
Katie Welsh
Oh, my goodness.
- [49:35]
John Evans
How long do you think it takes to record a podcast? Look at the prep and the travel and the setup and the set down and the editing and all that sort of thing. It's probably like three or four times more time than people imagine.
- [49:45]
Katie Welsh
Totally. I mean, the research that you went into doing this one, I was so impressed. Like, oh, God, you read that? Hope that's okay. Yeah, it's a lot. It's a lot of work.
- [49:54]
John Evans
It is, isn't it? Yeah. Well, well done for your building your personal brand alongside running.
- [49:59]
Katie Welsh
But it's not even about that. Like, I mean, I guess, yes, of course, but it really was. And now I'm super passionate about paying it forward and like, because I think the beauty industry is a really wonderful place to work. But you don't know about all the different career paths or even how to get into them. And it's important to pay forward, especially in my opinion, to help people get to the C suite.
- [50:21]
John Evans
And I think that's the amazing thing with social is that there's so much wisdom and intel out there. You can also network with people. Right? I mean, a lot of people will reply. If you want to reach out and say, I agree. The ability to get to people, learn from them, get a mentor.
- [50:35]
Katie Welsh
Sometimes I'll get TikTok resumes so people will say like, hey, Katie, I'm a. I saw that you posted a social media manager job on LinkedIn. Here's my application. And if. And you will find them via TikTok.
- [50:47]
John Evans
There you go. If you want a job, then you know what to do.
- [50:51]
Katie Welsh
Yeah, yeah. See you online.
- [50:52]
John Evans
Amazing. Katie, thank you so much.
- [50:54]
Katie Welsh
Thank you for having me. I'm so flattered.
- [50:56]
John Evans
Oh, no. Well, look. Well, thank you because this is amazing place.
- [51:00]
Katie Welsh
Thank you.
- [51:00]
John Evans
It's quite a journey and it's been great to pick your brains about it all.
- [51:03]
Katie Welsh
Thanks. It was fun.
- [51:05]
John Evans
Thank you. Thank you very much for listening or watching uncensored cmo. I hope you enjoyed that. If you did, please do hit the subscribe button wherever you get your podcast. If you're watching, hit subscribe there as well. I'd also love to get a review. Reviews make a big difference on other people discovering the show. So please do leave a review wherever you get your podcast. If you want to contact me, you can do. I'm over on xensorcmo or on LinkedIn where I'm under my own name, John Evans. Thanks for listening and watching. I'll see you next time.