How Social Media is Changing the Consumer Startup Playbook

Although celebrities and culturally relevant accounts have the ability to leverage their followers to create successful brands, at some point they will tap out growth from their existing audience reach. When this happens, these companies will need to test alternative customer acquisition strategies. The benefit of leveraging an engaged follower base to launch a company is the ability to create an established brand with influencer backing that may find it easier to enter wholesale and brick and mortar channels. This can accelerate growth but comes with its own set of challenges.  

An interesting example of this can be seen with Jet Atkin’s brand OUAI. Jen Atkin is one of the most famous hair stylists who has past experience working with the likes of Reese Witherspoon, Kim Kardashian, Jennifer Lopez, Sofia Vergara and more. Atkin leveraged her Instagram following to launch a hair care line by women for women. OUAI has seen great success originally launching as a D2C, online brand, before launching in all 410 Sephora brick and mortar stores. 

“I had to really sit and think about brick and mortar versus digital, and I’ve come to learn there’s an audience for both. My sisters who live in Oklahoma and Utah love to get in the car and go to a Sephora and try samples and smell things; my friends in NYC and LA want to do subscription service and just have it sent,” Atkins commented on the omni-channel distribution strategy.

The process of expanding to brick and mortar has several unique challenges. Some of the decisions that can make this transition difficult include: ensuring the proper processes are implemented, re-thinking marketing spend and channels, and additional human capital needed to manage growth.

We here at Volition believe consumer brands need to be omni-channel to serve all customer shopping behaviors. We pride ourselves on effectively helping companies handle the complexities of an omni-channel approach for distribution and marketing, and ultimately assisting them in achieving their dreams. While wholesale channels may be an interesting growth lever, these influencer-led brands should also test other advertising mediums such as paid search, CTV, direct mail, etc.  

At Volition, we have successfully helped several companies answer these questions. With Chewy specifically, we helped the D2C pet brand grow from 3 marketing channels to a multi-pronged approach successfully pressing the right buttons at the right times on their way to a $3.35 billion exit.