Luxury beauty doesn’t have to carry a luxury price tag.
That’s the concept behind Beauty Pie, a fast-growing and industry-disrupting beauty brand. Beauty Pie positions itself as the “luxury Costco for beauty products.”
For a monthly fee starting at $10, consumers get “backstage access” to premium products at lower costs, Rob Weston, Beauty Pie’s Chief Marketing Officer, explains on this episode of The Empowered Challenger.
“The very best products cost about $30 right out of the lab. The rest of it is the middleman margin — the flagship stores, the chandeliers, marble countertops — none of the stuff that makes your skin more beautiful,” says Rob.
“We want to literally share the beauty pie — essentially the spoils of the beauty industry — with consumers.”
When it comes to winning over customers, Rob, a marketing vet with more than 20 years of experience, says it’s about embracing the conversation.
Gone are the days when brands could place an ad and change consumer behavior. That’s why he appreciates Beauty Pie’s 14,000+ Facebook community. He acknowledges that some feedback on the page “keeps us on our toes,” but emphasizes the importance of brands and consumers having a two-way exchange.
Tune in to this episode to find out how Beauty Pie is changing the market for luxury cosmetics by being less greedy than the competition, how Rob thinks about spending his marketing dollars (new customer acquisition!), as well as how the pandemic affected Beauty Pie’s business and what comes next.
Prentice’s Takeaway
👉 It’s amazing what can happen when a feisty challenger brand educates the marketplace. Thanks to brands like Beauty Pie, consumers are totally in control. Once the veil is lifted on an industry, we have no tolerance for middlemen anymore. Challengers like Beauty Pie don’t need marketing tricks; they don’t need a fabricated story; they don’t need convincing; they need to provide a great product, excellent customer service, and then educate the marketplace over, and over, and over.
Featured Challenger
👱♂️ Name: Rob Weston
⚙️ How he challenges: As the Chief Marketing Officer at Beauty Pie, Rob puts customer needs first, providing luxury beauty products without all the excess markups.
💄 Company: Beauty Pie
💎 Noteworthy: Rob has been in the marketing industry for 25 years and has worked with brands like Unilever, Nike, and Samsung.
🔍 Where to find Rob: LinkedIn
🔍 Where to find Beauty Pie: Instagram | Facebook | YouTube
Challenger Wisdom
Highlights from the conversation appear below.
💡 Being a disrupter doesn’t always mean you’ll be popular
“No revolution was ever achieved without breaking a few eggs. We aren't making friends among the bigger players who are used to overcharging for face creams. It’s the big cosmetics conglomerates that are lining up to be annoyed with us.”
💡 The challenge of being perceived as ‘too good to be true’
“I have to undo years of indoctrination done by an entire industry or industries [who told people] that price equals quality. We’re coming into the market telling people that’s no longer true, and they don’t believe it. We have to convince people that we are not too good to be true. If you go online, you’ll find the internet answering on our behalf that we’re 100% legit. We have everyone behind us saying that we’re a proper disrupter in this space.”
💡 Small companies, quick decision-making
“One of the most liberating feelings at a smaller company is the speed of decision-making. If we decide we want to go try something, we try it tomorrow. It’s that speed that is key. There’s no point talking this thing to death.”
💡 Small company, big emphasis on customers
“It’s amazing how at a massive, public company you are consistently bound by quarterly earnings targets, and invariably you end up making decisions because of what you need to be announcing to the market, and not what’s right for the customer. Whereas in a smaller, founder-owned or venture-backed company, you can make more decisions that are right for the customer because you’re playing a slightly longer game. That is a really fun and interesting place.”
💡 Product is key
“Product is at the absolute core of what we do. We only launch products that we think are world-class. We independently test them before any of them get out the door and we benchmark their performance against the most expensive brands in the markets. And that is the foundation of the success so far of this business.”
💡 Trust can be hard to build over Zoom
“Zoom has been amazing for many things, but trust amongst individuals in business carries you a very long way. I think it just takes a lot longer to build trust over a virtual medium. We’ll try to make sure we meet as many of our employees’ needs as possible, but personally I believe there’s a balance between the human contact and the sort of trust that comes from the human dynamics, and then every once and a while being able to sit back at home and get the work done without interruption.”
💡 Marketing is a conversation
“As soon as you hand over an ad to the internet, it’s a conversation. It’s not always great, people will often have some feedback that keeps us on our toes, but we equally engage with these people for innovation. We’ve asked people for help naming our products, and people love that two-way exchange with brands. It’s a conversation, as opposed to just throwing something over the fence and making it work.”
💡 Having the instinct for the ‘next big thing’
“Our founder has an outstanding instinct for what the customer wants and needs. We always start not just by knowing the customer, but knowing the industry so you can see the trends on the horizon, what’s exciting and potentially the next big thing. It can be exciting to bring that to market because you’re meeting consumer needs but with a level of novelty and excitement that the luxury end of the market should be leading.”
Top quotes from the episode:
Rob Weston:
“The world of democratizing luxury is pretty big. I’m fascinated by all these industries that overcharge. Wherever we can find a margin that’s unjustified, we can run in and create luxury products that cost what you should be paying.”
“Embrace agility. Uncertainty is the only constant, so invest in decisions that create option value for you. You need to be flexible and adaptable in order to survive, and you need to keep a finger on the pulse and be prepared to adapt. That’s when little companies are so good, they’re just prepared to see it and go with it.”
“It’s so incredibly empowering for consumers to experience that what you’re selling has to come first and then you market it. The product has to be the default choice, and then you begin to tell your stories. There’s no point in doing it the other way.”