Brad Farrell [00:00:00]:
Our goal overall is how do we make the world of social media, especially in beauty, that could be seen as quite unkind, a kinder place? And how do we take our brand ambassadors to really help with that much bigger mission of spreading kindness across social media?
But then back to your question about commerce. How do we also use them to help us talk about our products and to sell our products and reward them for doing that as well? That's where our program is very different. People are getting affiliate fees and getting rewarded for selling products all the time. We're rewarding them for that, but we're really rewarding them also for helping us spread kindness across the social sphere.
Paul Archer [00:00:45]:
Have you ever wondered why some brands grow exponentially, building legions of passionate fans that live and die by their logos and some, well, don't? I do, all the time. And that's probably because I'm a massive brand nerd. But I believe there's a secret sauce at the core of every remarkable brand. A formula that sparks the growth of passionate communities, of superfans, building a business and a reputation that will last for years to come.
In this podcast, we tap into the greatest marketing minds in the world as they share the exact tactics and strategies used to build the world's greatest brands. Dropping actionable insights every brand builder can apply.
My name is Paul Archer and I'm a specialist in Brand Advocacy and word-of-mouth. Having consulted for hundreds of brands on a topic co hosting with me is the wonderful Verity Hurd, expert on the bleeding edge of social media.
It's time to learn and build Brand Advocacy.
Paul Archer [00:01:42]:
Hello, my name is Paul Archer. Welcome to Building Brand Advocacy. And today I'm joined by the amazing Brad Farrell, CMO of Beekman 1802. Brad, welcome to the podcast.
Brad Farrell [00:01:53]:
Hey Paul, great to see you. Thank you so much for having me.
Paul Archer [00:01:55]:
Cool. Well, I wanted to start at the beginning, and I know that you've been in beauty and various different forms for a while, but when you joined 1802, take us back to that. What stage was the company at and why? Why did you join the brand?
Brad Farrell [00:02:13]:
Well, I joined the brand, as you said, I've been in the industry for a while. I spent 14 years at L'Oreal organization, mostly on the, and I really had a passion for skincare. And I just felt at that point in my career I was like, okay, I've done the corporate thing. I could do this forever, or I could try something more startup in indie, which I always had this more entrepreneurial dream to do, to really like work at a smaller company.
So I grew up in upstate New York, where Beekman 1802 is actually founded and headquartered, and had always admired what our founders, Josh and Brent, have created. And I reached out to them on Instagram and said, hey, confidentially, I'm thinking of leaving, and I've always loved your brand. And they got back to me and said, oh, we were just talking. Maybe we need a CMO.
We've never had a CMO before. And I went up to the farm the next week, and then a week later, they offered me the job. It was kind of crazy how, how fast it happened, but it's my advice to people in their career as, like, if you think of something and you want to just go for it, because you never know. Sometimes the stars align like they did in my situation.
My goal for joining the company was to obviously bring, like, my expertise in skincare. But at the time, Beekman was more of a lifestyle brand, had a lot of bath and body products known for their soap, and the distribution was really on QVC and HSN, as well as our kindness shop that's in Sharon Springs, New York.
But the vision was, how can we really take this lifestyle more bath and body brand to create a real skincare body care brand and become a big player in the beauty industry? And that's, that was really the objective. That's still where we're trending right now.
So that was like, the vision that we had to create. So changing kind of what we stood for, changing our, our brand tagline to this beauty and kindness, developing a skincare assortment, and pitching it to retailers. We were fortunate that we had lots of interest in that and shows Ulta Beauty as our partner. Now we're in all 1.3k Ulta beauty doors with both our skincare and our body care assortment.
So that was really the objective, which was a little scary because it's honestly much harder for a skincare brand to go into body care versus a body care brand to become a serious, clinical skincare brand. So it was a daunting task, but I'm happy to say we've been pretty successful so far.
Paul Archer [00:04:30]:
What I love about what you guys do is it kind of has this core theme that flows throughout of kindness. Where did that come from? Was that there originally? How do you kind of manifest that? I mean, as a CMO, trying to take this one value and then push it in everything that you do, it's a fascinating exercise, and it's clearly worked really well for you. So where was it when you started, and then how have you continued to bake that in? And where are we. Where are we today?
Brad Farrell [00:04:57]:
Yeah. So kindness has really always been a part of the DNA of the brand. I won't go into the whole brand story, but essentially, the company started, we say, with 100 goats. And one act of kindness, when our founders took in a neighboring goat farmer who had 100 goats who was losing his property and left a note in their mailbox that said, hey, I'm losing my lease. Can you take on my goats and let them stay on your land? And they said, sure, but we don't know what to do with goats, so you have to come live on the property. You could bring your 100 goats. And that was really the first act of kindness. And we tap into that and play it and use it more strategically.
I'd say no, but it has to be real. I think there's a lot of people who are talking about kindness right now. The world needs a lot more kindness, as we know, but it is innately baked into how our company started. So we wanted to take that and really use it and talk about it and be proud of it, and then infuse kindness in everything that we do, from our products that are kind to skin and made for sensitive skin, to our ambassador program. That's the Kindness Crew, where they're rewarded for doing acts of kindness versus just selling products. And that was kind of where I helped to scale the idea of kindness. It's always been a part of who we are, but we infused it into our tagline that there's beauty and kindness and we really live and breathe it across everything that we do now as a company.
Paul Archer [00:06:19]:
And we had breakfast a couple of months ago, and straight away after that, you guys were like, oh, okay, well, what's your address? And this kind of kindness of fact is like, this big box was transported across the Atlantic to my house with every single one of your products into it for play around with and to use and to test.
And also to add to this, you were wearing a very cool hat that said kindness on it. I got a separate box that had the kindness hat on it again, went through us and UK customs as well to get to this point. So this kind of generosity spirit in terms of getting products in people's hands and part of it, but also baked into the brand that you've got now. I love that. And, yeah. And do you ever struggle to get kindness infused in everything you do? How do you hold that value up?
Brad Farrell [00:07:08]:
Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't say it's a struggle. It's just we have to make sure that we're keeping it top of mind when we do everything, because whether we're picking influencer partners, they may be this amazing partner that works for other brands, but we read through their comments to make sure that they're kind.
I think that's a key differentiator, too. We don't want to work with people who are not perceived as kind because then they might drive great conversion for other brands and be these top TikTok stars, but they don't fit with our identity and our values of kindness. And I think that's when people see that and they feel that.
And our partners, whether they're influencers or brand partners or collaborations that we do with media or other brands or properties, like we did a Schitt's Creek collaboration, that was really the story of; kind of our founders, Josh and Brent, opening up an apothecary in the middle of nowhere. But that show is really about the kindness of that community and everything that we do, we filter it through, like, does this. Check those boxes of kindness.
And we'd be proud to tell people in our community that this brand or this person or this influencer we're working with because they're kind.
Paul Archer [00:08:11]:
If you're thinking about that kind of evolution, because I love the Schitt's Creek collab and I think, like so many people do as well in the way that you've. You've brought that rose apothecary to life and the soap and all those things that you're doing. But this is quite cool, quite modern, you know, sits in that TikTok world. I think the, what you're talking about with the creators you're working with and baking that in there, but at the same time, you guys were Ogden QVC, and that's still a big channel for you. How do you match the two of those? Because they're different demographics, shall we say?
Brad Farrell [00:08:45]:
Yes, it's, I think, actually a strength of our brand. We're really good at multi generational marketing. And I see these other brands right now, they're like these so hot brand; Gen Z brands, and I'm like, oh, God, like three years from now, are you still going to be that brand? Are you just going to be chasing? Because you're resonating and hitting with a certain demographic right now.
And the longevity of our brand, I think, is really powerful in that we are all about kindness and we're all about sensitive skin, and that really spans all ages. You could be, you know, a QVC customer who's older, watching us on Josh and Bren, on our founders on tv talking about our latest milk RX cream, which is amazing, better aging cream, but it's, you know, four times more powerful than retinol, but with zero irritation. So it's, you know, we're still talking about this. It's better aging, but in a way that's safe and safe for sensitive skin. If you look at some of our other products, they, uh, you know, can go a little bit younger, like our milkshake.
That's very popular product on TikTok and with the Kindness Crew. And it's a fun, fun name, a fun product. But again, it doesn't have alcohol in it. It's not those stripping toners that are destroying your sensitive skin. So I think the cohesive message of our products are for everyone. If you have sensitive skin, we want to be your go to brand. And if you want a brand that embraces kindness and everything that we do, from our products to our community, we're also the brand for you. But it is a lot different.
I mean, we have a very consistent brand message, I say is key, keeping that in your brand guidelines, your brand visuals should feel the same. Whether you walk into an ultra store, whether you see us on TikTok, whether you are watching our founders on QVC. But the messengers are a little bit different, right? Our founders are very prevalent on QVC. Our team in our office, who are more Gen Z or you'll see them all over our TikTok page. But we're saying the same thing and saying the same message, and it should look and feel the same. It might just be different voices and different deliverers.
Paul Archer [00:10:45]:
And do you bait that in any other parts of customer service, in the experience, in the branding, the pr? Like, how far does this go?
Brad Farrell [00:10:52]:
Yeah, I mean, the kindness piece goes everywhere. I mean, look at. I'm literally drinking out of a kindness mug right now. That you'll see everyone in our office drinking out of our customer service really is one of the best around. Our neighbor services, we call it, because all of our customers, we consider our neighbors. And that's how the company started with our two founders wrapping bars of soap around their dining room table with their neighbors. And we continue to have that level, extremely high level. We have one of the highest NP's scores in the industry of service.
So it really is infused in our HRH. We also have on our company wide slack channel, we have an app called Benny that he is our kindness ambassador. And every day you get a prompt from Benny about do an act of kindness or celebrate someone in the organization and then everyone gets to see it and it really catches on and it creates this kindness within our organization that I've never really experienced for. And it's fun. We've gamified kindness internally and we have kindness challenges. We did like a kindness Olympics with the Olympics recently and we were all competing, like, who could be kinder. So it really does kind of infiltrate every part of our organization.
Paul Archer [00:12:06]:
I love that. So, shifting gears a little bit, what do most brands get wrong when it comes to Building Brand Advocacy?
Brad Farrell [00:12:16]:
I would say that they don't create a two way conversation and they're not really building real authentic connections. I think when people think about, oh, a community, we're going to build a social page, we're going to bring in followers and we're going to give them a discount to sell our products or just send them a bunch of boxes of our new products every week. And that's going to create a community. But it doesn't really work unless you first, like, listen to them, find your people who are your best advocates and understand what they love about you, what they, what your opportunities are as a brand and react to that and create something special and then make them feel like there's a true two way conversation.
Like ask them questions. We ask our community questions all the time about do you like this new product idea, do you like this name of a product? They want to feel like they're involved and they're co creating alongside of you versus just something here, you got a box. Why aren't you talking about us? Why don't you tell post about our products? Here's a code post about it. So I think, like creating that feeling of authenticity and community and like, you're really listening and it's a two way conversation is what a lot of brands are not doing.
It's a lot of work and I think that's probably why a lot of brands are doing it, because it's, it's hard.
Paul Archer [00:13:30]:
Yeah, it is. And it's like, it's, it's kind of the, the answers are relatively easy, but the doing of those are very hard. You've got to stay disciplined to it. You've got to constantly be keeping an eye out, communicating, I mean, two way, that sort of two way dialogue piece that you talk about there, like, how are you doing it? How are you keeping those channels open so you can build that advocacy for your brand?
Brad Farrell [00:13:54]:
Yeah, well, it's really from a few different places. We, you know, we're very avid about our social listening, making sure that we're looking across all of our channels, what people are saying about us, how they're commenting on our content and responding to them, and then bringing those insights back, bringing the insights from our customer service.
And then more recently with the launch of our Kindness Crew, which is our brand ambassador program, we have a Geneva group with them and different sub rooms within that group about product or other kindness, share something that you saw another ambassador do or someone in your own family about kindness. And we use that to really gather insights. And then we kind of bubble them all up and it's kind of a jingled process sometimes, but it's like, what are the common themes we're hearing across all these different areas?
Whether it's customer service, whether it's our social listing, whether it's our community talking to us and say, what do we need to focus on here? What are the big things that we want to action here to make sure our community is feeling heard and feeling like we're listening to them and that we're delivering something that is based on their needs and their insights.
Paul Archer [00:15:01]:
What's surprised you in terms of what outputs that they've given you through those conversations that you've had?
Brad Farrell [00:15:06]:
That's a good question, one that surprised me. I'm surprised by, I would say, how little things go a really long way. Like if someone reaches out for something and you take the time to write them back, it doesn't have to be a paragraph, it just has to be a little detailed thing that you are feeling heard. We hear your issue or we hear your recommendation and we're going to take this to the team and actually brainstorm on it. People are just floored because I think they're used to getting canned responses. That's. Thank you so much for your feedback. And we're like, wow, I do like that idea for a new cleanser.
Hold on, I'm going to bring in our product development team. We're going to have a conversation about this next week. People don't expect you to actually do anything, so they're surprised that we really are listening and responding in a thoughtful way.
Paul Archer [00:15:52]:
And how has it evolved over the past couple of years? You said social listening to activate this community. This is all relatively new for you guys as a brand, moving into this new demographic, this new generation of customers. What has been the tactics you've engaged to shift?
A lot of brands are out there, will have a demographic that they want to expand or they want to move down towards a younger demographic. And you guys have done that really successfully transferring onto social and the mindset and Zeds and Gen Z's, depending on which side of the atlantic you are. What tactics have you guys engaged over the past few years to do that?
Brad Farrell [00:16:33]:
Yeah, we've done a few things. One was our retail launch in 2020 when we created our skincare range. We chose Ulta Beauty as our exclusive partner and launched there. And really, our messaging and our targeting were all about sensitive skin and kindness. But we specifically chose partners, whether they were influencers or media partners, that were more millennial. That was really our target. And we are retail, and with our skincare brand, we are a millennial, mostly millennial brand. So we were successful at looking at our QVC channel that was more bath and body, a little bit older, launching skincare strategically, going after the millennial segment, and by doing so, that's what we achieved there as over the past couple of years.
It's like, okay for Gen Z or Gen Z, I would say, if I'm american, so I sound lame if I say it, but I think it does sound much cooler. Obviously, when TikTok came up, we were a very early adopter of TikTok. I had a lot of friends at some bigger companies, like, oh, we're kind of scared to go on TikTok. Like, our company doesn't know what to do. They're worried about the kind of content. And we were like, the opposite. We're like, let's just start throwing stuff up there. Get on TikTok early.
We worked with some of the biggest influencers before they were expensive, or as expensive, I should say. Like, Kat Stickler became one of our first brand ambassadors, and we really saw the payoff in that people were learning about us on TikTok, saw our content, that was fun and kind of out there, and we weren't perfect. And I think that's just a good lesson. Was a great lesson for me as a marketer. Like, if you see something jump on it, don't wait. It doesn't have to be perfect. And that is really, like, how we started to get the Gen Z customers. And now we're on TikTok Shop, and our milkshake is, like, you know, up triple digits, uh, across all channels.
And that is one of our most popular Gen Z products. So we do that too with our influencer strategy. Like, how do we pick certain products or certain campaigns that we want to lean in more into Gen Z when it's appropriate, without alienating, of course, our overall customer base. Because if we have that same message about wherever brand for sensitive skin and kindness, it works across multi generations, where.
Paul Archer [00:18:44]:
Do you see it going? I mean, it's great that your brand personality has doubled into this. So anyone who's listening, I'm wearing a bright yellow hat that says kindness and the oh, and Brad is drinking from a bright yellow mug that says kindness. And if you ever see any of the Beekman products have got goats all over them and there's kind of like this, this slightly relaxed vibe for it. And I love that that's kind of carried into this new world and obviously is appealing on TikTok. Like, where do you see the next couple of years going for social, for Social Commerce? And then also how do you see Beekman fitting into that?
Paul Archer [00:19:23]:
Hey, it's me again. This podcast is sponsored by Duel, which is my company, actually. Duel is the leading Brand Advocacy platform used by the top retail consumer brands, including Unilever, Charlotte Tilbury, Elemis Loop, and about 50 more to manage, measure and scale their Advocacy member, affiliate, creator and brand ambassador operations. The platform offers unparalleled scale for complex brands by automating nine out of ten of the standard Advocacy management activities and allowing them to focus on arming their Advocates with the right tools to tell the brand story and drive Social Commerce, they can grow faster for less.
We only work with 15% or so of the brands we speak to, but we try and add value in many other ways, this podcast being one of them. So if you are a brand that's interested in this, maybe a large consumer retail brand, ideally you're doing $20-$30 million as a minimum, and you're pretty advanced on social and you need to know what the next stage is, then please get in touch. Email me at paul@duel.tech, that is Paul @ D, U, E, L Dot T, E, C, H or Google Duel dot Tech.
Brad Farrell [00:20:29]:
Yeah, I mean, for Social Commerce specifically, TikTok shop, if you're, if you're looking at the numbers, the projections there are pretty big. You know, Amazon obviously will continue to be a huge, you know, part of the, our e commerce business and our own d two C channel. But for socially, I think TikTok shop is where it's at at the moment. I don't see that changing over the next couple of years. But I think the question is like, how do you really engage with creators in that community to help you sell product?
I think that's part of the challenge that people have. It's great if you have products that are for more Gen Z focused and they think they could do on TikTok, but how do you break through and how do you create that flywheel on TikTok shop. It was really, we looked at all these ambassador programs, like, gosh, we know we have such a powerful community. Everyone's engaging with us, our engagements through the roof.
On social, we've created something, our founders have created something really special. Like, people are resonating with this brand. It feels different. Like, how, how do we create a community program that also feels special and different? So we really spend some time being like, God, what can we created this Kindness Crew? Like? Let's just not give people a percentage. Affiliate code. Like, how do we, like, engage them and reward them for acts of kindness?
And we have this whole, you know, program set up that is based on challenges of kindness for you to move up to the different tiers. Within our program, we have kindness challenges that we do with them, where they're engaging with each other within the community, within our Geneva groups, we have kindness challenges. They have to go out in the community and do a post about something that they've done good in their community and share that.
And our goal overall is to how do we make the world of social media that, especially in beauty, that could be seen as quite unkind, a kinder place? And how do we take our brand ambassadors to really help with that much bigger mission of spreading kindness across social media?
But then back to your question about commerce. How do we also use them to help us talk about our products and to sell our products and reward them for doing that as well? So I think that's where our program is very different. People are getting affiliate fees and getting rewarded for selling products all the time. We're rewarding them for that. But we're really rewarding also for helping us spread kindness across the social sphere.
Paul Archer [00:22:43]:
Which is cool because it kind of goes through all different people in your organization, because as I touched on the top of the call, you guys, the employees clearly buy into this mindset and the generosity of spirit that you've got with products and getting in people's hands.
Customers are buying into that when they're crossing all these different demographics or these different age groups, these different platforms, and then actually, then activating those creators within that and using that to amplify all this piece that you've got there, which is a really nice narrative, isn't it? As that kind of crosses between them as a, yeah, this is, this is how you build a brand in 2024.
That leads me on quite nicely to thinking about you as a CMO. How many years have you been that Beekman?
Brad Farrell [00:23:27]:
Four and a half years.
Paul Archer [00:23:28]:
Four and a half years; a long time in some of the much larger groups. What's the biggest lesson you've learned in your career?
Brad Farrell [00:23:35]:
In my career, I think there's similar lessons on every brand. I would say is one, the importance of just creating a strong vision for the brand, knowing who you are, what you stand for is so important.
I think a lot of brands get lost, especially when new CMOs come in or leadership, things change. It's like, oh, we should be over here, we should be over here. Staying focused on who you are, on your voice, on what your values are and what your mission is, is, I think, really critical. It sounds like basic marketing, but you'd be surprised. A lot of other brands kind of like try to chase the trends, they try to trace the competition and they end up kind of losing sight of what they are and what they stand for. And I think especially at Beekman, I think we're very strong with that.
Like you could tell what we look like, you could tell what our voice is, you could tell we're all about kindness. And then when it comes to our products, I think the importance that I've learned too is just really being, I mean, the word innovation is so overused, but how are you really breaking through and bringing something new and better and different to the market and to the customers?
And that really has to be based on insights of things that youre hearing. Were launching a new product and its like the world doesnt need another moisturizer, the world doesnt need another cleanser necessarily. But if you tap into and find what people are saying that they dont like about what theyre currently using or, wow, this is really damaging to my sensitive skin. If im using this, I wish I had x instead. I think thats really the power of innovation.
So I would say those are really the two things, like having a great brand mission, sticking to it, having a voice that feels different and staying with your codes and then coming up with ideas, whether it's products or services or whatever, that are truly servicing a need and based on an insight in the market that people are wanting. Because if not, you're just going to have a bunch of me too products and a brand that's nice but doesn't really stand apart.
Paul Archer [00:25:33]:
Love that. And how do you make sure that that then trickles down into your team? And actually then how do you go about building and running a high performance marketing team to carry that throughout? What do they say when you're not in the room?
Brad Farrell [00:25:48]:
Well, I don't know. Have to ask them. But hopefully good things. I think it's very different coming from a large organization where it's like we had customer insights team and all of this data and report that would just land on my desk and we could comb through it. It was easier in one sense. But also, I don't think our teams, like they are now, are just so scrappy. Like every, everyone I know on our team, we just become, like, customer obsessed. And, you know, we're looking at every other product out there.
We're listening to everything. We're all, like, reading through comments on TikTok from our, at our post because we just want to know what's happening. We want to understand. We do have access to some trend reports, like, we work with Spade. That gives us some great information that we're kind of always trying to see what's happening and what's being predicted out there.
But I would say it's hiring people for me in this organization has been finding people who are obsessed with the industry, obsessed with products, who are very passionate and who are very scrappy and who are listening all the time to what's happening out there. And that's where I found, like, the most successful members of our team. You're not scrolling even in your spare time on Instagram and looking at what cool new skincare products are coming out.
They're like, I don't know, why are you even working in this industry? I just don't think you're as successful as you would be if you're truly engaged and paying attention.
And then we just try to inspire. We do brainstorming sessions. I try to create a culture of creativity where people can throw out any ideas. Sometimes they're crazy. The crazy the better. And sometimes we fail and it's okay to fail. We just have to fail fast and learn from that.
And I think creating that culture is important. It's a little challenging because everyone's always scared to fail, but everything's not going to work. And if you don't try things and experiment and do interesting things, then you're never going to break through and do what I said earlier. You need to be new, better and different with your innovations and whatever you're launching.
Paul Archer [00:27:39]:
Do you have an example of a tactic you use to make it acceptable to fail?
We were just talking at Duel about actually, we want failure to be much more acceptable. British people. Failure is just not an option. People just like, don't try. There should be no risk. Versus the American mindset where failure is absolutely embraced and encouraged because it's how we learn and get better and so I'm fascinated to learn about how you can build that into a culture.
What are the tactics that you can push on people just to be like, it's okay, and how do we make sure everyone knows it's okay to try stuff, try big stuff, try small stuff, and then to know that when it goes wrong, there's not a problem with that as long as we're learning from it and moving on to the next thing.
Brad Farrell [00:28:18]:
Yeah, I think it's just how you frame it with your team. You know, I think, and you have to take smart bets that you think you may be able to fail.
I think if, you know, you're looking at your innovation calendar and it's you, you have five products that you're launching, it's like maybe you don't take your riskiest bet to fail on your number one volume driving product that you launch that year, but it's like, hey, but this one over here, this one, if we, if we nail it right, this could really be like, maybe triple what we want, or it could maybe be, you know, zero or nothing on that.
So I think it's, one, strategically picking your bets where you, where the failure is more likely, and then two, you know, when the failure, if a failure does happen, just acknowledging it, learning from it, failing fast, and then taking those learnings. Because sometimes, as we all know, in life in general, you learn more when you fail. And that could be really beneficial to what you do next. Because if you never take those risks and you're always playing it safe, you're not going to learn as much. And if you're not learning as much, you're not going to be smarter about how you're running your brand, what advice.
Paul Archer [00:29:20]:
Would you give for any aspiring CMOs out there?
Brad Farrell [00:29:22]:
Well, I think that I'd say two things. One, if, depending on your career path, a CMO could come from many different cloths, right. Some people are product people, some people are more digital people, some people are more brand people at their core. But I would say as you're building your career, most successful CMOs I know are right brain and left brain. And I think that is a skill that you could learn. Some people innately have it. But I think as you're looking at your next move, understanding what gaps you might have, and if you're seen as the analytical guy, how do you shift from that to be? Oh, he's also like a creative guy. Oh, he knows about products, too.
Because I think the challenge is people get so siloed, and I've seen it happen. Other CMOs, and they get this CMO job and it's like, oh, gosh, but I don't even know the entire other half of here. I've never worked on product innovation. I've never fallen under them, I've never ran a creative team, but I was a great analytics guy or great performance marketing guy. And I think vice versa, too. If you're too strong in the brand and product side, but you don't have those analytical skills, you don't have that business skills, you don't have that strategic thinking, you're not going to be successful either. So I think really, as you're building your career, like, don't get so obsessed with like, getting promoted so fast and moving up in whatever role you have. Try to expand what you're learning. Try different types of roles.
Learn about something that makes you uncomfortable, that you're not good at. And when you get to that point, I think you'll be much more well prepared to be a CMO that succeeds and stays somewhere for more than a few years.
Paul Archer [00:30:56]:
Which is the problem, isn't it? Highest turnover of any role within the C suite. And I'm, I'm always amazed at how often you speak to people who are either on the performance side of things that don't, anything that can't be measured doesn't happen. And that's the way it is. And it's like, well, actually there's a lot more nuance to this, but also there's the flip side of this. The folks who are on the brand side, who have particularly, I see no understanding of the sort of the fundamentals of the business, the customer acquisition costs, the average order value, the lifetime value, and coming back and all of those different parts of those metrics, and actually stitching the two of those together. Those who have the two of those accelerate their careers much faster than those that are specialists in one of the others and actually really build their walls around that.
Brad Farrell [00:31:46]:
Yes, exactly.
Paul Archer [00:31:47]:
Amazing. Okay, cool. And looking further out from where you are today, what's the long term vision for Beekman and how do you plan to achieve it?
Brad Farrell [00:31:58]:
So I would say the long term vision for Beekman is to be the number one prestige brand for sensitive skin around the globe. That is really the ultimate goal from a brand positioning standpoint based on our two main ingredients that we say, everything we do has the science of goat milk and kindness inside everything.
I truly think what we've been discovering about goat milk through our clinicals and all of our testing that we've been doing on it is. It really is this amazing superfood essentially for people with sensitive skin, there's 34 active nutrients in there, from lactic acids to peptides. It is like this amazing ingredient for sensitive skin. And then we marry that with our other clinically proven ingredients and our formulas. That is really the difference of us. If you look at the trends of the industry, I've been here for a while.
It was all about derm brands back in the day and then the whole movement switched to the natural brands and then it was all like, oh God, now they have to all be the clean brands. And now it's a little kind of like going, swinging back a little bit towards this like the derm thing.
But I think that safety is really something that no one's talking about. Safety of ingredients.
As we look at, as the industry has become more clean and whatever the incidence of irritation and things like eczema and rosacea, like people are actually destroying their skin more because they're putting so many harsh ingredients on their skin. So when I look at the safety of ingredients, how are we bringing clinically effective products using the science of our goat milk? But in a way that's kind to skin and safe for sensitive skin because over 60% of people have sensitive skin and that rate has been going up. So I think that is really our opportunity to own in the marketplace as we grow around the globe. We're bringing products that are kinder to your sensitive skin in a way that will give you clinical performance.
And we're helping spread kindness around the globe in general with our initiatives as a brand, whether it's our Kindness Crew or our collaboration with kindness.org dot, that's the leader in kindness research. So that's really where ICS is leading in products globally for sensitive skin and helping to spread kindness around the globe.
Paul Archer [00:34:10]:
Fantastic. How did you know that even you've got 100 goats on your farm that you should probably move into making?
Brad Farrell [00:34:16]:
Well, it really all started when farmer John, who I mentioned brought his goats over to the property. By the way, farmer John still lives there on the property and takes care of the goats. And our founders literally googled, what do you make with goat milk? And it was like soap or cheese? And like, okay, let's start making soap. We got to start making money because they had both lost their jobs.
They were two New York City guys. And it was like, okay, we got to start doing something here to pay off this mortgage. And what happened was they started making soap and giving it out to their neighbors. And slowly people are coming back and like oh my gosh.
This has like changed my skin. My skin has never been so healthy. God. I had eczema, I had rosacea. I have highly sensitive skin. And this is like the only thing that has worked on my skin. It doesn't dry it out, it doesn't irritate it, it doesn't leave it red. Uh, so Doctor Brent, one of our founders, being a, you know, self proclaimed nerd and science guy, really started to dig into that and it was discovered, you know, that the goat milk has the same ph as human skin. So there is no like, you know, reaction. It's your skin truly just drinks it right in.
So its super hydrating and super moisturizing. But, you know, if people have allergies, you know, when women are breastfeeding or with their guilds and they're having issues or they're serving them cows milk, they say to use goat milk BecAuse goat milk has the closest composition to human milk, to breast milk. So really is your body identifies it. I think thats kind of like the first unlock is like, oh, wow. It's so similar in composition that your skin recognizes it versus an artificial ingredient.
And then the second is we did a white paper study and said, let's take this to the next level and really deconstructed goat milk and understood that there's 34 different active nutrients inside every drop of goat milk, which ranges from lactic acid to vitamins, multiple vitamins, and multiple minerals to peptide. So it really is this super ingredient.
And then we said, okay, how do we take that even further?
When we worked with a company called my microbiome and said, can we test goat milk and its impact on the skin's microbiome? And we found that it helps to balance the microbiome versus disrupt the microbiome. And goat milk was actually the first ingredient in the world to be certified to be microbiome friendly. So we're always pushing the science of goat milk and learning new things about it. But it really all started with our neighbors just using this open saying it changed their sensitive skin.
Paul Archer [00:36:33]:
That's amazing. What a story, Brad. So if anyone wants to chat to you more, or if they want to learn more about the brand, where should they go?
Brad Farrell [00:36:41]:
You could go to our website, Beekman 1802, dot comma, go to our social channels. Everything's Beakman 1802. Find me on LinkedIn if you'd like to chat with me personally. Happy to do so.
Paul Archer [00:36:53]:
Legend, thank you so much, and thanks for being a part of Building Brand Advocacy.
Brad Farrell [00:36:56]:
All right, Paul, that's so much fun. Thanks so much for having me.
Paul Archer [00:36:59]:
Been a pleasure.
Paul Archer [00:37:01]:
That was another episode of Building Brand Advocacy, the world's top brand building podcast. To find out more about Building Brand Advocacy and how this podcast is part of a bigger plan for our brand building cookbook, then make sure to search for Building Brand Advocacy in Apple podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or anywhere else that podcasts are fine. And make sure that you click subscribe so you don't miss any future episodes. Thanks to dual for sponsoring. To find out more, go to www.dual.tech. That's D U A L dot T E C H and on behalf of the team here at Building Brand Advocacy, thanks for listening.
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