The Dirty Secret of eCommerce Growth: Everyone Is Copying Everyone With Cherene Aubert

Cherene Aubert is the CEO of Growth Capital, a growth marketing firm that scales consumer brands. As a seasoned e-commerce and digital growth leader, she has nearly two decades of experience scaling DTC brands and managing media investments across multiple high-growth companies. Before Growth Capital, Cherene was the Fractional SVP of Digital & eCommerce at ILIA Beauty, where she drove omnichannel digital strategy for a rapidly growing clean beauty brand.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

[3:31] Why marketers plateau by copying other marketers instead of studying customers
[5:55] How algorithm-driven advertising damages brands long-term
[8:48] Building customer-focused brands through research and emotional insight
[12:05] Cherene Aubert talks about turning subscription cancellations into meaningful brand moments and viral growth
[19:30] Why AI and influencer content fail without understanding emotional purchase drivers
[25:29] Examples of mid- and upper-funnel investments driving long-term growth
[32:56] What makes beauty a uniquely competitive and innovation-driven e-commerce category?
[38:12] The importance of balancing premium brand aesthetics with creator authenticity and segmentation
[48:53] How offline retail and experiential marketing strengthen brand connection and loyalty
[59:30] Parenthood as a leadership advantage and performance multiplier
[1:10:43] Cherene’s punk rock roots and how art and math shaped her marketing mindset
[1:14:45] The single most important thing a $25M founder should fix to unlock growth

In this episode…

Marketing has become automated and identical across companies. Brands chase the same ads, channels, and short-term wins, only to discover that growth stalls and loyalty disappears. How can you build something memorable and scale without losing trust?

The way forward starts with obsessing over customers, not competitors. As a growth and e-commerce leader, Cherene Aubert maintains that brands should use customer insights — from ad data to conversations — to guide creative strategy, redefine quality as value for the customer, and invest in full-funnel thinking. This requires originality, emotional resonance, and the space for creative teams to build long-term demand rather than quick conversions.

In this episode of the Up Arrow Podcast, William Harris sits down with Cherene Aubert, CEO of Growth Capital, to discuss how brands can escape the marketing echo chamber. Cherene explains why copying competitors backfires, how full-funnel content drives sustainable growth, and how premium and beauty brands can stay culturally relevant.

Resources mentioned in this episode

Quotable Moments

“It’s not really about what your competitors are doing. It’s about what your customers want.”
“I will give you the standard definition of quality right now. It’s a good value for the money.”
“You’re not selling a product. You’re selling like an aspiration or a feeling.”
“You have to go from creating immediate demand to generating demand and building desirability.”
“Get inspiration outside of the feedback loop. It’s an echo chamber.”

Action Steps

Shift your team’s focus from competitors to customers: Studying competitors creates short-term wins but long-term sameness. Deep customer understanding leads to differentiated messaging that actually compounds over time.
Build content for every stage of the funnel: Investing only in bottom-funnel ads limits growth once demand is saturated. Upper- and mid-funnel content create future buyers and stabilize performance as channels evolve.
Redefine quality through your customer’s lens: Quality is not universal — it’s perceived value relative to context. Aligning messaging with how your customers define value improves resonance and conversion without relying on discounts.
Give creative teams room to experiment: Original ideas rarely emerge from rigid briefs or performance-only constraints. Allowing space for exploration helps brands create culturally relevant, memorable work.
Invest in channels where your customers spend time — even if your ROI is delayed: Not every channel converts immediately, but presence builds familiarity and trust. Long-term growth depends on staying visible where discovery actually happens.

Sponsor for this episode

This episode is brought to you by Elumynt. Elumynt is a performance-driven e-commerce marketing agency focused on finding the best opportunities for you to grow and scale your business.

Our paid search, social, and programmatic services have proven to increase traffic and ROAS, allowing you to make more money efficiently.

To learn more, visit www.elumynt.com.

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Episode Transcript

Intro 0:00

Welcome to the Up Arrow Podcast with William Harris, featuring top business leaders sharing strategies and resources to get to the next level. Now let's get started with the show. Hey everyone.

William Harris 0:14

I'm William Harris. I'm the founder and CEO of Elumynt and the host of the Up Arrow Podcast, where I feature the best minds in e-commerce to help you scale from 10 million to 100 million to 100 million and beyond as you up arrow your business and your personal life, if you copy what's working for someone else, congratulations, you've just guaranteed you'll always be behind. Today's guest thinks that's why so many marketers plateau. They study ads, algorithms, other marketers, but forget to study customers. Cherene, the hair Aubert, the brilliant growth marketer behind Bobby and ILIA Beauty, has scaled brands past nine figures, managed hundreds of millions in media spend and a scene where just scale it can destroy years of trust. We're talking originality, premium brands, influencer myths, full funnel thinking and why the algorithm is training everyone to be the same. Cherene, welcome to the Up Arrow Podcast. Wow.

Cherene Aubert 1:04

I'm so honored to be here. That was such an amazing introduction. I think I need to change my twitter name immediately after this to Cherene, the hair Aubert. That is brilliant.

William Harris 1:14

To be fair, you are very good about changing your ex name all the time. It's always something different. I really appreciate that about you?

Cherene Aubert 1:21

Yeah, this whole time you're gonna say x and I'm gonna say Twitter, and we're gonna break each other down the fastest.

William Harris 1:28

I'm trying so hard to adopt it, but it doesn't come naturally. I still want

Cherene Aubert 1:32

to call it Twitter. I'm trying so hard not to adopt it.

William Harris 1:36

That's so good. I love it, all right? I do have one quick announcement that I want to get right into the good stuff, and we'll i Good stuff, and we'll the whole hair thing will make sense in a little bit. This episode is brought to you by Elumynt. Elumynt is an award winning advertising agency optimizing e commerce campaigns around profit. In fact, we've helped 13 of our customers get acquired, with the largest one selling for nearly 800,000,001 that ipoed. You can learn more on our website at Elumynt.com, which is spelled elumynt.com, okay, again, before we get into growth, we need to address the most important thing that I follow you on next. And I've noticed a lot of people say you have the best hair in DTC. I think even Harley Finkelstein said that. Am I right?

Cherene Aubert 2:16

He did. He did try to say that he was number one, but I think we all know the truth. He has some pretty incredible hair. But, yeah, it's true. You're here with the best hair in e-comm, the queen of DTC, Cherene Aubert. We're here to bring it down. You said you interview the most brilliant minds in e-comm. It's so true. I'm here.

William Harris 2:37

I love it. So obviously, the hair increases confidence then too, which I think is really good. So okay, how did you come to be known as the person with the best here at DTC? Like, how does this happen?

Cherene Aubert 2:50

Well, I feel like, rob you know roba, he was at Triple L, he made that comment, and then I was like, I'm just gonna take that and run with it, and that's just so I've kind of crowned myself a little bit, but nobody disagrees. You know,

William Harris 3:07

no, I mean, it's great hair. It's hair that people are jealous of.

Cherene Aubert 3:12

You know, I'm jealous of it myself.

William Harris 3:16

That's good. All right. So I do want to get into some of the good stuff here. Specifically, you told me that there aren't that many good marketers because marketers are always looking at other marketers too closely. Why is that such a dangerous feedback loop?

Cherene Aubert 3:31

Yeah, it's almost like the slop like, okay, we're in the era of slop. And, you know, I think it's the same as just relying on. Sometimes you can put stuff into AI and try to get something out, and it's like, good enough. It's like, it's like, almost good enough. And then you, you know, I've done this many times, and you could say that, like, it's my fault for not being a good enough prompter, right? I'll give the AI as much context as it wants as it needs, it will output something. But there's just something that's just like a little bit a little bit off, and it requires a little bit of like, human finesse, right? It's just like, kind of like a commentary on the times where the the input in is based on what's already been done. And using AI as just like an example, or prompting as an example, if the input in is stuff that's already been done, then how are you actually doing something that breaks through the noise and creates attention? And I feel like marketers AI aside, tools aside, they're kind of in the same feedback loop where they're just ingesting what everyone else has done to date. They're looking at everyone else's ads libraries. They're like that ad has been live in the ad account for a year, so I'm just going to go rip that ad. There's whole startups that are based on this print. Principle. But yeah, I mean, I think that's where, that's where we're going wrong is like the algorithm and the way that people consume content, it fatigues so quickly. And so the the marketers who can actually break out of that trap are the ones who are cutting through.

William Harris 5:18

I literally sat in on a pitch of somebody that was pitching creative to one of our clients, and that was their whole their whole pitch was basically, we just look at what's really doing well for other people, and we steal it basically, almost as verbatim as possible. We don't re engineer anything. We try to get it as close to that exact other example as we possibly can. And I'm like, I get it, I get it. And like, in the short term, it is effective, like, and I think that's why it's so palatable to people, is because you will get some immediate results. Typically, it's better than whatever you're currently doing, right? But long term, this is where it becomes a problem, is that you end up not being the brand that you need

Cherene Aubert 5:55

to be, yeah. And even meta is like, telling us they're like, you dummies. We want creative diversity. Like, don't you know what that means? And we're like, oh yeah, instead of changing the color from blue to red, I'm just gonna go copy my competitors ads. And it's like, well, what is Why do? Why is meta begging us to provide creative diversity because the consumer wants to consume entertaining and different content. Like, if you opened up Instagram and you started to see the same thing, every post that were just different variations of other things, like you would be like this, Instagram sucks. I don't want to open Instagram again. So Meta’s incentive is to show users engaging in new and different content, and then meta is begging advertisers to do the same. And advertisers are like, Oh yeah, cool. Let me just swipe my competitors ads. And it does, like you said, it does work. And the kind of like trend cycle on social is just moving faster than ever as people consume more and more content. And so that's where, I think, you know, you introduced it so well, is like, it's not really about what your competitors are doing. It's about what your customers want, what's unique about your products and your positioning in the market. So it's kind of like a trifecta, the customer what they care about your products, how they're new, better and different, and then your brand, what that brand is positioned in the market to do. And that's kind of like the holy trinity of making good ads.

William Harris 7:32

I feel like I'm starting to cook here now too. Isn't that like peppers, onions and there's like something else, carrots, I think is like that. It's the Holy Trinity and cooking in Louisiana. So okay, I have entire friendships with people you brought up Instagram. I have entire friendships where, like, I have their phone number, I see them in-person, but 90% of our conversation just takes place, DMing each other memes that we think are very funny, right? But to your point, a lot of times you're like, this is like, the copy of the copy of the copy, and it's just not that funny anymore. It reminds me of, there was a movie. Let's see if you remember this movie. I think it was Michael Keaton, a multiplicity where, like, he clones himself, and then one of his clones clones himself. Because he's like, I want to do all the work either. And so, like, the clone is so dumb, and he's like, Hey, Steve. And he's like, I don't remember what his name he's like, my name is, Dan. Like, you like, you're my copy. Like, why do you think my needs? Anyways, it's really dumb and it gets bad. So I feel like that's where we're getting for a lot of marketers, we're getting copies of copies of copies. If we want to do the opposite. You talked about your holy trinity and where this is going, but it's like, you know what? What are if you were to strip this back to, like, the bare bones, take me deeper to those three things that you think are the most important foundations for customers, like, what are the how do we use those better to attract the right customers?

Cherene Aubert 8:48

Yeah, it's, I mean, starting with the customer. And I was at a brand called Bobby. It was an infant formula brand disrupting a duopoly, which is like a crazy thing to do, and they're the first brand that was a formula brand that was started by actual moms who experienced the problem and knew emotionally what it was like to be a consumer of this product that nobody actually wants to buy. And so they spent a lot of time like digging into the emotion and the psychology around making the purchasing decision. And the founders came from tech, which is like, totally different mindset than e-comm people have. And in tech, you do a lot of user research, and you do a lot of, like, Consumer Studies, customer interviews. So there are these amazing, brilliant tech founders that are running an e-comm brand, and they're like, we know what we're going to do. We're going to have weekly focus groups with our customers and like that. We're going to grab a group of customers, we're going to enter, we're going to talk to them about the product, the packaging, their experiences, how they feel. And I was like, my mind was blown because I'm like, I've been in e-comm. Um, for now almost two decades, I've never seen any e-comm founders doing this and that, like, penetrated the whole company. That was, like, the DNA of the whole company was this, like customer obsession. And like, you know, customer obsession is like a very tech principle, like Amazon and all, you know, Apple, all these, all these companies, the brilliant founders talk about it, but when you actually, like, integrate that practice into your company, and everybody's living and breathing like, what does the customer what would they actually think about this? How do they feel in this moment? We were able to create like amazing experiences that turned into like viral moments for the brand. For example, when you cancel your subscription, every brand is like, just diving and saving trying to stop you from canceling your subscription in baby formula. It's like, well, you have to cancel your subscription because your baby no longer needs formula after a year. So like, rather than, obviously, we can't be like, Wait, we'll give you 20% off if you keep doing what doctors don't recommend. Like, it was like, Well, this is a huge milestone. This is an emotional milestone for parents, like their little babies growing up. So it turned in, we turned it into, like, graduation. So when you click Cancel, there's like, confetti all over the screen, and you get, like a congratulations email, and we had, like, a video from like us, one of the celebrity parents that partners with the brand. And it like it was, like something that people would post to their story, they would post on their Instagram. They would talk about how emotional it made them, how they were crying, like when they canceled their subscription, and then you're you like, that's truly like a flywheel moment, where you take this subscription cancelation event and turn it into, like a customer awareness and acquisition event. And like, there were, there were a lot of things like that, innovative things that were born from a customer first mindset that competitors would start to copy and try to replicate, and it just wasn't as authentic because they were copying it. And, you know, that's like, where you where you can actually leave your competition in the dust. Like, what you said was, you know, how are you going to get ahead if you're doing what someone else is doing and you're doing it second?

William Harris 12:21

Well, I think we do that all the time, right? We do try to copy. But like you said, it's different than doing it first, because the reason somebody's copying you is because they just think that this works to convert. And so the whole The whole reason the mindset behind what they're doing is the wrong mindset. It's not customer centric now, and so they're going to get left behind by the next iteration that you have that's more customer centric. So let me go to this idea of you're talking about doing, you know, these, not focus groups or whatever, but it's like, I think in E commerce, we're not used to being in-person with people as much like, how do you set up a focus group that's actually going to be helpful and not distracting or inefficient,

Cherene Aubert 13:05

yeah, and it's like, maybe even before that. Let's start with the best focus group that most people have access to, which is their ad account, right or, like, even their email list or their post purchase survey. I'm working with a brand right now that's like, their e-comm is pretty early stage. They're a retail first brand. They have great in store penetration, and they're, we're just starting to grow their e commerce business. And, you know, they have, like, very effective products at a low price point. And they're, they're the from a the company's perspective, the affordability is like, the thing to hang our hat on, and the ad account, like, will give you a lot of insight about your own customers. And you're like, Okay, these are, these are my hypotheses about my customers and about my positioning and my products. Hypothesis, hypothesis one is that affordability will sell the products. Hypothesis, two is that the efficacy of the product will sell the product. So let's put those into the ad account and see get the feedback from conversion data and like, that's, I think, one of the fastest ways to learn. But it was really interesting because we learned that, yeah, actually, hanging our hat on price doesn't do much for bringing in new customers. They want to like the site itself will do the work. When they get to the site, they understand the value props. They understand what is good value for money. And then they get to the site and they convert. And I think, like, I'm going on a little bit of a tangent, but I think it's important to talk about what brands don't realize is that every customer has a different definition of quality. And so like, let's say you are serving your customers, or you're doing a focus group and you're asking them, What is. Product quality. Or, like, what does quality mean to you? Everyone's going to have a different, different definition, but I will give you the standard definition of quality right now. It's, it's a good value for the money, and that is different for every single person. So I think you need to figure out, well, like, Well, my, my product is quality, but someone who you know is household income of a mill, a million plus a year is probably going to have a different definition of good value for money than someone who makes 50,000 a year. So let's define what is good value for money in the lens of our customer and then communicate that clearly to them, but I

William Harris 15:43

never thought about that. I never thought about quality being a continuum, right? That it's like something either is or isn't. But to your point, if you look at it based on the value, then some people would think of it as quality, whereas others might not

Cherene Aubert 15:58

totally it's like, if you you know this is a terrible example if you need a chair to sit on, like someone who, you know has $1,000 in their bank account, a quality chair is like one that's affordable, that they can sit on. And you know someone who has a billion in their bank account, a quality chair is handcrafted Italy, Italian Leather. I don't know what you know. So I think that's the Yeah, exactly defining where your customers are on that continuum and where your brand is. And kind of like being able to communicate that clearly.

William Harris 16:33

I'm reading a book by Morgan Housel. I read his first, I don't know if it was first. The first one I read was The Psychology of Money, which is very good. I'm now reading his one what is it, the art of spending money, I think. And he talks about this example of this guy who basically, I think, he bought like, a $28,000 chair chair. And you're like, This is just madness, right? But it's like, well, because of the house that he had, it required that type of furniture in that house for it to feel like it was the right furniture. And so it actually became like shackles for him. He felt like he was in this lifestyle. And these are the chairs that his friends are buying. So he has to buy this chair. To your point, sometimes quality maybe has nothing to do with the quality as much as it has to do with the psychology behind what it is too.

Cherene Aubert 17:19

100% that's so true. Yeah. And then I think kind of going back to what you were saying about like, let's say a brand wanted to get into this customer first mindset, and they wanted to conduct a focus group. Like, what would they actually ask that is, like, you know, you can pay researchers, brands that have historically paid researchers a ton of money to come up with that line of questioning. But I think, you know, we have all these tools at our disposal to help us craft like the perfect and the right focus group. But I think the the I draw on my everyone says they didn't learn anything in college, I draw on an experience I had in college, which was actually, like, very valuable. I was in business for my undergrad, and we had a it was an entrepreneurship class, and the teacher harped on customer research, if you're starting a business, interview customers. And the interview style was what I took away from that, which was like, you ask a question, you don't just move on to the next question. You ask a question, and you listen for something interesting in their answer, and then you have a curiosity, and you go deeper into what they said. And then each time you ask a question, you're just maybe you're starting broad and then you're going deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper. So I generally genuinely believe that business owners or operators should talk to customers and have an interview style that is dynamic and allows them to dig deep into the like core of that person's deep desires that wouldn't come from like, a scripted, you know,

William Harris 19:02

discussion, yeah, it reminds me of the five whys. Are you familiar with that? Yeah, yeah, right, where it's like, you ask a question, but then Okay, but why is that okay? But why is that okay? But why is that it's usually, after enough of those you start getting into the actual root of it. And to your point, if you were doing if you don't have that curiosity, you're gonna ask a question, you're gonna take the superficial answer. You're gonna miss. Answer, you're gonna miss the deeper root of why somebody actually wants it, and you're not gonna come up with those good ideas that says, hey, we're gonna turn this cancelation

Cherene Aubert 19:30

into a celebration instead of a cancelation totally. And that's where I think, like, you know, like, if we, if we even use, like, AI UGC ads as an example. And we, you know, if I look at my experience at Ilia, it's a beauty brand, right? And you have these people who are like, Oh my gosh, you know, my AI, my hot AI, baddie is just gonna, like, sell so many products, right? Like, I. Um, but they don't understand that the women are not, like, interested in buying something just because the other woman's hot. Like, it's, it's like, what is the actual reason that someone would want to buy lipstick? Um, it's because it's fun and they're colorful, and they're different ways that they can express their moods, or, you know, there's, like, all these dynamic reasons that a purchase person might purchase something. And I think like, as we get into this next phase of AI creatives, I think there's going to be, like, a lot of really quick wins, and people are going to see, like, very fast growth. But it's like, can you actually build roots into a business, and I think going back to Bobby like disrupting a duopoly, the roots of that business were not, we're going to sell you an infant formula that's better than the other infant formulas on the market. They were, what they were selling was we're going to give you permission to feel like you're a good parent, because you are a good parent and you have made the choice that you had to make to feed your child, and this is an essential good for children whose parents can't feed them in other ways. And so, like, we were, like, it just changes what you're selling. You're not no longer selling a product. You're selling like, like, an aspiration or a feeling, and that's where I think that's the distinction between brands that have, like, quick, short term growth versus brands that can create long term growth and sustainable growth and legacy.

William Harris 21:37

I love that. I want to talk a little bit about some of the full funnel stuff, because you and I were having a good conversation about this, I feel like a lot of brands that I chat with, are you channel versus channel, and they're talking DTC versus retail or Amazon versus own channels, what questions should they be asking instead?

Cherene Aubert 21:52

Though, yes, I see brands as they get more mature, it's tough because you have siloed teams and people who are beholden to p and L's that are separate and budgets that are separate, and then there's a finite amount of resources within a business, and it starts to become a justification and a fight over who deserves to have more budget. And I think that's where brands kind of lose their way. And yeah, where I think, you know, Omni channel brands are getting closer to solving this through incrementality testing and bringing all data into one source and actually being able to measure lift on advertising. That's one way. But in general, I think when brands start to get into like, these budgeting discussion and sales channel discussion, they lose sight of, like, the actual marketing funnel. Like, yeah, like, you know, it's not about where it is, about where the money's going, but it's more than that. It's more than where the money's going. It's about the content that you're creating at each stage of the funnel, even if you're a single channel brand, yeah? Like you have to move. You have to build content for different stages, and that should inform your media plan.

William Harris 23:12

Then, yeah. So what does a true full funny funnel, let's say creative strategy. What does that actually

Cherene Aubert 23:20

look like? Yeah, let's take an example of, I would say, like most brands, most brands in eight figures and below operate and as they should, because it works until it doesn't. In this, they're operating in this like we're selling a product. We're selling a product like all of our media is going towards meta and Google and, like, maybe a little bit here and there somewhere else, and it's just selling this product as much as we can, and then, and then, I think that works, until it doesn't. And then you're, especially if you're expanding your distribution, you're like, Oh, shoot. Now there's a ton of cannibalization, and there's sales going from DTC to Amazon, or they're going to retail. And maybe, like, I was good at selling shoes to people who needed shoes today, but like, what if, you know, how do I actually compete and find the next level of people who don't need shoes today and need shoes next week. You know what I mean? And that's where I think, think, you know, brands have to go from creating immediate demand to generating demand and building desirability.

William Harris 24:35

Yeah, I had Preston Rutherford on from Chubbies. And, you know, he talks a lot about the 95 five rule, and it's like 5% of your tam is, like, ready to buy now, and the other 95% isn't. And that's where you have to be creating content and things for them that way they are ready. But I think the part that I struggle with, with a lot of the brands we work with, and we, I mean, like this idea of 10 to 100 million, that's really our. Sweet spot where we see a lot of brands stall out at 10,000,025 50 million, and they're struggling to figure that out. And a big part of this inflection point that we're trying to convince them is exactly what you're saying, where it's like you got to where you are based on being more or less transactional with how you're looking at this. And you need to think beyond that now. But how do you how do you show that to a customer in a way that makes them say, oh, yeah, I get it. You're right. We need to start investing in this other thing, even though it's not going to convert tomorrow. Yeah.

Cherene Aubert 25:29

I mean, a good example like is, you know, I there's, there's a brand that was running quiz ads, and that the ad to quiz funnel was getting a ton of spend, getting super tactical, like getting a ton of spend in meta and the CPAs were terrible. And you know, the immediate reaction would be, let's just turn off the ad. It's not a good ad. It's getting it's eating up all the spend. No one's converting. Shut it off. Well, shut it off. A week later, look at email sign ups fall off a cliff. And you know, we do an analysis on Okay, well, the sign ups from email dropped. Those signups were converting at this rate. That ad was actually pretty, you know, good at bringing new people into the brand who weren't converting direct, like, you know, meta wasn't capturing that in their conversion window. And that's just like, one example of that, of this, like going from bottom of funnel, making bottom of funnel decisions, to, like, going a little bit more mid funnel. And it's like, let's just start to build a funnel. Build a funnel. There's another example of a brand, premium beauty brand, like 300 plus dollar products, that's a hard sell to make as an impulse sell. Why don't we try putting like, educational founder content that doesn't seem to be doing it as well in the ad account, in conversion campaigns, like, why don't we just try running video view campaigns, for example, like, let's bring some new to brand people into the into the funnel, and see what happens. Lo and behold, CAC starts going down, and you're bringing new people into the brand. So I think there's, like, you know, a lot of high, low examples of doing this, like, in small ways. And I think, like the bigger scale, bigger brands is like actually taking money and putting them into different putting it into different channels, into channels that may not pay back in that same month. Like for some brands, that's TV, for some brands that's investing in, like, educational content, a lot of brands are like, building their category that, you know, like they're that they're the top in their category, and they have to continue to invest in education to keep growing their category. So there's, there's lots of examples of like moving up our funnel,

William Harris 28:03

I think you're spot on with that. And I would say that we have seen that be one of the biggest contributing factors is when it's time, TV ends up being a much bigger impact for them. To your point, like other channels that maybe aren't immediate, and getting into that educational content, helping people understand what, what are the products actually solving beyond the the obvious? And then, how do they work together, too, right? And so it's like, Okay, so you've, you've got people to understand maybe one product, but then there's four or five other products. How do you get them to start to see how these products work together, creating content around that actually ends up, you know, boosting up the LTV in a way that makes it now a lot more of a growth engine for them, too.

Cherene Aubert 28:47

Yeah, and it's, I mean, like, every brand is so dynamic and so different, so it's really hard to apply, going back to the original premise, like, it's so hard to apply playbooks from one to another, but in some brands, you know, I I recommend, like, if tick, for example, tick tock is not driving observable direct response lift. We our conversion rates from traffic from tick tock are really low. When we do an incrementality study, we can see lift, but the lifts not as good as meta. Like, if you stop there, you're you're like, Okay, well, then let's just not spend as much on Tiktok. And a lot of brands get into this trap where they're like, we're just not going to spend on Tiktok. And I encourage brands that can afford to invest in brand media or upper funnel media to just, yeah, like, can we just treat Tiktok as brand marketing and put it in a different P and L and measure it differently? Like, don't measure it against our CAC for the brands that can do this, or are at the scale where this makes sense to do, like, but let's not hold it to the same measurement. But if you're kind. Customers are on Tik Tok, and this is the way that they're finding out about you. Like, be not being on Tik Tok is is important, and that is the one exception that I would make to the like, don't pay attention to your competition. Rule is like your if your competition is talking to your customers in another channel and you're not talking to your customers in that same channel, like, that's where you should pay attention to your competition.

William Harris 30:24

That's really good, because we've had that same conversation with some of our clients as well about the need to continue doing Tiktok. And literally, exactly like you just said, they're like, well, when will it be as good as our meta spend? And you just have to say, maybe never, to be completely honest, maybe never. And part of it is the way the platform works, right? I remind them that it's like we are so used to seeing things that you can click away from meta on that feels like a part of the way that that works. It doesn't feel like that's as native to Tiktok. It's not as much of like a I'm here and I'm ready to click away. It's, I'm here and I'm ready to just scroll and see things. And so it's, it's just fundamentally different. But that doesn't mean it's not having those conversations. And to your point, I maybe I like the way you're talking about customers. I like talking about like, let's just say relationships, right, like marriage and whatever. And it's like, hey, somebody's over here chatting with your boo, like they're over this other place. Maybe you should be there talking to your boyfriend, your girlfriend, your wife, whatever. It's like, you need to probably be there, right? Maybe, maybe don't let these other people have that opportunity to start talking to your customer, wooing them with this really fun new content, this educational content, doing things where they say, I still like the product I'm with now. But this is very, very interesting. I know this is very fun, right? Maybe make sure that you're still leading that conversation, that relationship with them, in those channels, that they're spending time on,

Cherene Aubert 31:47

so true, and you'll be surprised. I mean, some brands that I've seen, they'll, you know, we just assume meta is the conversion engine. We're just going to try to scale meta and oh, wow, we were seeing diminishing returns on our CAC. Why don't we try a different media mix? And why don't we put more into Tiktok? Like all, all signs point to meta is the best conversion engine for some some brands, if, if they move their budgets into Tiktok and they bring down their meta spend, I've seen like, more incremental lift, lower CAC, higher volume of new customers. I think it depends on the category and the brand, but there's just like build being able to build the funnel and convert people is so I think brands underrate the importance of that.

William Harris 32:38

You brought up this idea of different categories and different businesses, and they have businesses, and they have things. And one of the ones I wanted to talk to you about, because I think you're the first one that I remember having on that is got as much experience in the beauty space as anyone else here. What makes beauty fundamentally different from a lot of the other e commerce categories?

Cherene Aubert 32:56

Oh, beauty is the best e commerce category. Beauty is the best category in the world, and I'll tell you why the margins are incredible. It's so competitive, you have to be on the forefront of marketing and the trend cycle, and that's what makes it like very exciting. And in general, this could be my own interpretation of beauty. But the company life cycle in beauty feels a lot like shorter than other categories, because there's it's so competitive. So I think as a marketer, it is the most exciting to be in. And I mean, like, as it relates to IP, there's not much IP. I think, like, you know, majority of products can be replicated. So the industry thrives on innovation, like, who's first to do something and who's who's doing it in in the most interesting way, and then, yeah, kind of going back to the whole Tiktok thing. I mean, like Tiktok shop, their number one category on Tiktok shop is beauty. So just, you know, seeing beauty thrive and come up so quickly on Tiktok shop. Yeah, it's exciting.

William Harris 34:08

What tactics in DTC that we seem to talk about a lot that work really well in other DTC, but just don't work that well in beauty? Yeah, it's,

Cherene Aubert 34:19

I think, you know, it's funny, because I'm watch all the conversation happen on Twitter and, like, it's like people are discovering things that was like, a no brainer in beauty a couple of years ago. Like, I hear people talking about, oh my gosh, partnership ads are like winning, and influencer ads are like the top performing and, oh, we're shifting our ads from statics to videos, and you would not even last a minute in a beauty brand without having like partnership, first video, first ads. And it's been like that for a couple of years now. So you. Because it's such a visual product. You know, the people people buy off of what they're seeing immediately, yeah, there's just so, so much you learn about how to communicate in that first two seconds, without saying anything, like all the things that you wouldn't think about. You know, if you're making a static ad, you're like, Well, I'm just going to think about everything that I can put in this thing immediately to tell everyone everything about my brand and product. But with video and Creator content, it's hard to scale, it's hard to control the quality of the content. You have to get very good at briefing. You can't be too precise with briefing creators, because then they sound unnatural and robotic. But you can't be too loose, otherwise they'll be boring and not get the point across. So, yeah, it's really interesting. You learn, like, how can I communicate visually in a video in the first, like, two to three seconds? Like, what can I actually do to, like, communicate that it's the the way that the Creator looks, where how good the lighting is, where she is, how she's holding the products and applying them and showcasing like. These are all like little, micro, nuanced things that you have to, like, refine, which is just super fun,

William Harris 36:19

and that probably matters more than a lot of, you know, we talk about UGC being one of those things that it's that idea of, like, raw, like people like that. But in beauty, is that still the case? Or it's like, no, you actually, really do need, like, a little bit HD, and you actually need this to be better lighting. It's like that matters more now here than maybe you could get away with, like, you know, iPhone quality video outside of beauty, or am I just wrong? It's like, no, that still works really well.

Cherene Aubert 36:45

There you still, you still UGC still works. But it's like, you know, it's, it can't, it has to look good. Like it has to, you know what I mean? Like, if you just go back into the history of beauty marketing, it's like magazines and commercials and like, it's very like, esthetic driven that hasn't gone away. Like, it still needs to be esthetically beautiful, but also native to platform. So, like, the way you do that is experienced creators. Like, really these, these people are professionals in the way that they set up their lighting. They're still shooting on an iPhone, but they they're having, like, the natural light hit them. They're not in like a dingy room, like they're in a beautiful room, and they're, you know, what they're wearing is important, and how their hair is done is important. All those things are you know, still

William Harris 37:42

important, like you said, working with experienced creators, I feel like some of the pushback I get from, let's just say, not just beauty, but luxury brands specifically, right? So this could even get outside of beauty, but still very esthetic luxury brands. The pushback is that it can feel like some of the influencer or UGC stuff, it feels cheap. It feels like it diminishes the brand, or at least to their perception. Um, does it? And how do you get around that?

Cherene Aubert 38:12

That is a huge, that is, like the big, I think, one of the biggest topics in beauty, or any kind of, like premium product, where you're selling something visually, like fashion too, because your brand is literally, literally everything, right? Like, these are goods that are, can be, have no IP, right? Very little IP. So it's all about esthetic. Yeah, I think it's a it's always going to be a challenge for those brands. And it's about having, like, a high low strategy, and with, you know, macro creators, or brand partnerships, or things that the brand produces, the storytelling that the brand does that's kind of like going back to, like the content by the funnel stage that's kind of lives in this upper funnel world. And then let's say you have your affiliate creators, your Tiktok shop creators that are more like the relatable mom that the brand probably doesn't want to associate with because she's a little too relatable. And you know, you doesn't want you don't want regular, average, everyday person representing the brand, but those are the people that are going to drive a ton of affiliate sales. So I think one, one way to get more precise in that strategy is to actually segment creators the same way that you would segment your audience. For example, one of the problems that our product solves is it addresses sensitive skin so let's find a bunch of creators that are not these super polished, high profile creators that all have sensitive skin issues. And let's. You know, we've done customer research to see that our Latina customer base is growing. So why don't we start partnering with like Latina creators and see if we can expand into a new audience? Because at the end of the day, also like creative is your audience targeting, and if you're getting the same type of person as a creator from a looks and Problem Solution standpoint. So it's almost like taking your creators, yeah, and segmenting them the same way we would segment your market.

William Harris 40:33

Yeah, no, that makes sense. You brought up the idea of quality and value before, and I think now that we're coming back into this idea of premium that takes on a whole new level. Why is it so much harder to advertise or show quality value over price, and how do we show that in an ad?

Cherene Aubert 41:00

Yes, first, it starts with the motivation. Like, you have to convince yourself, as a brand operator or as a marketer that you want to show someone something other than that, like a price based incentive or offer. Why would I well, you're just talking to the same people over and over again. Like, if you're like, 50% off your first order ad is your top ad in your ad account, like, yeah, all day that's going to be your top ad. But you're talking to people that are the people that are going to be resonating with that ad are already know about you. So it's like, okay, what is your incentive. If your incentive is to drive incremental new to brand customers, then you actually have to inform new people that you exist and get them interested in what you're saying. And it like goes back to the whole like, again, I feel like we're coming full circle and advertising to the principles that were defined at the dawn of advertising, like ADA, the ADA framework, you need attention, interest, desire and action and like, if you're just focusing on the action part, like you're not even getting anyone, anyone's attention or interested or creating desirability. Yeah, I think we're just missing, we're missing the the funnel.

William Harris 42:23

That's so true. You know, I'm an Apple fan boy, and they come out with something, right? And it's like, they're like, now in yellow, like, that's the whole thing. That's all they say. And people are lined up out the door to get, you know, whatever they have in the new color, because they've already done the work to create that that attention and that interest, and so now they just have to let you know that it's there. And I see new brands try to copy, let's just say, some of these premium brands, some of these luxury brands, with these beauty brands, and their ads are highly esthetic, but they've done nothing to communicate why somebody should want this over something else. And I would say, when I think about it, a lot of times, it's that idea. It's like, well, what makes it cool? And I think about this from the concept of my my teenage daughters, I have three daughters, 1512, and 10, and for a while, couple years ago, they all had to have a Stanley that was the thing. It was like, you're not cool if you don't have a Stanley mug, right? Like you have to have that. And then it was and then it was like a Walla, and then it's a hydra jug, right? It's like, whatever. Like, there's always this thing, and there's nothing inherently different about any one of these, for the most part. Like, as far as my daughters are concerned, there is no difference between any one of these. The only difference is, that's what their friends are saying is cool. So outside of that in-person, people are saying that this is cool. How do you create that desirability for a brand that is premium, especially this is that idea of getting away from just copying brands that have already done that, where all Apple has to do is say we've got it in a new color, and they line up out the door. Normal brand says that it's not enough, right? How do you start to create that desirability?

Cherene Aubert 44:05

Yeah, I mean, I think specifically for beauty, it's to target your daughters. This is like the whole beauty industry is, you know, fighting for the next generation of customer, because that's how their brand stays alive, right? Like, if you age out with your customer, you become irrelevant and you're gone. So I think brands, beauty brands, especially like premium beauty brands, even they have these amazing products with quality, you know, ingredients that are safe for your skin and and they're they're still kind of like we also need to be culturally relevant, because that whole story is boring. So yes, let's tell that story, and let's target those people that have, like, XYZ concern, or you. Care about X, Y, Z, value prop. But most importantly, in that market that is so trend driven, it's, how do you continue to be cool, and how do you continue to be a part of the cultural dialog? And so much of that is, I think, like there's this huge, massive shift out of traditional PR and into influencer and social content that's just been happening over the last few years, and it just feels like just more bigger than ever to me now, like it like brands are making decisions on their PR budgets. Are we going to hire a PR agency? Are we going to throw events for editors and have them write articles about our product that shows up on Google for someone that's searching like 10 Best you know, skincare products like people don't shop that way anymore. They they do search. There is search as a part of the shopping funnel, but the real PR is happening with influencers, and sometimes it's like in real life activations with customers like, you know, you see road Haley Bieber's brand has done an amazing job of creating a lot of hype and buzz, and they throw these events. Of course, they have a celebrity founder, but there's just, like, this desire for people to want to connect with the brand and, like, do things in-person. You know, you see, there's other beauty brands like the ordinary, they're totally like, kind of unbranded, very affordable, highly efficacious skincare, and their whole brand positioning is like, we don't pay influencers because we want to pass on, like, the cost savings to you, but they're still doing these, like, amazing activations that kind of, like, break the algorithm and cut through and, you know, people want to share it and like it. And, yeah, I think that's another thing that brands are tunnel visioned on. Is like, if you want to stay relevant and cool, social media is where that's happening. Like, organic social media is, like, so important. It's basically your press strategy. Now it's basically your brand strategy. And you can't just do the influencer thing. You have to do the influencer thing if you want to be relevant. But you also have to have, like, a brand point of view and do things that are make enough noise to cut through.

William Harris 47:25

I love that you got into some of this offline stuff too, because I don't think they gets talked about enough in DTC. My daughters again, referencing them, I asked them and their friends, you know, like, where do they like to shop and stuff? And they love to go to the mall still. And to be fair, we live in Minnesota, so we've got the Mall of America. It's a pretty fun mall to go to, but they like to go to even other malls with their friends. They like going there. And I'm asking them, it's like, why don't you just want to buy this online? Like, it's really a lot easier. And they're like, you know, for things that are inconsequential, they like to go to Amazon. She's like, I don't really care what I'm getting. It's just like, get it to me by, you know, the time I get home from school kind of thing. That's fine, but for a lot of the stuff that they actually care about, they want to go to the mall because they want to experience that brand. They want to be there in that brand store, experiencing the lighting that they have set up in the way that they're going about things. They want that experience. And I think that's a good thing, because I do think that we've gotten to the point where maybe there's a little bit of a pushback on being so digital and saying, I need some in-person stuff. I need to be in-person. Maybe that has something to do with them spending so much time during covid, when they were young, locked up, and they're just like, I want to get out of the house. I want to get out and go be around other people. I had Brieane Olson on from PacSun, CEO of PacSun, she was talking about how, you know, they're expanding retail locations, where a lot of people are thinking, wait, you know, is retail dying or malls dying? It's like, No, it's not, if you're staying relevant with the younger crowd, which I think is interesting, yeah.

Cherene Aubert 48:53

And I think DTC marketers, we forget, like, people love to shop. Like, people have so much fun shopping. I like to buy, like, it's enjoyable for me to buy things. And I think especially the younger generation, like, like you said, where everything is becoming so transactional that people are seeking out things that feel more personalized or have meaning. And that's not a new thing. That's always been that way. But yeah, I mean, and I think with, you know, a lot of DTC first brands also are tunnel visioned in that the majority of their market is happening, likely most of them, the majority of the market activity is happening in retail. And the thing that's shifting is that people are doing their discovery online, and we've done, like so many market research studies, where it's like, yeah, they learn about you on social, but they actually go and purchase, oftentimes, depending on what the category is in store, especially beauty, especially brands that have, like, a you know, it has to match your skin tone. You like want to go into the store fragrance. You want to smell it like there's all these. Reasons that people it's convenient, yeah, so it's an interesting time, and I think one of the things that's scary is, like the how algorithmic shopping has become has made it so that people don't actually have a connection with the brands that they're buying. Like, if you were to ask me, like, what brand are you loyal to? What brand do you love? I'm like, literally none. I don't care about any of them because they're there to serve a purpose in my life, and I just want to buy them to meet an immediate need or a longer term need, and then I don't care. And that's a problem for brands that they don't realize it, and they're kind of like, you know, we're going into this, like, discussion about, oh, everything is going to be a product feed, and everyone AI is just going to do all the shopping, and no one's going to shop. And, you know, like, the tech bros are going to create the reality that they want to create, which is like, if that's the reality that the tech bros want to create, they will create it. But I think we just need to remember that consumers really like to shop, and they want like, they want to have experiences with things that are fun and like everything is kind of going in this automation, algorithmic, transactional direction, like there's people are still people, and will still want to have good experiences with brands and experiences with brands. And so the ones that can actually like meet that need will probably be probably have outsized gains, longer term gains.

William Harris 51:33

And to your point, I think the way that you meet that need, if everything online is algorithmic, is to meet that need offline there like, how are there ways like these offline activations and things like, how are you getting involved in their life?

Cherene Aubert 51:45

Totally, totally, and I think there's this, like, new chatter around, like, high luxury is, you know, people not exposing their kids to social media, people going out and doing things in real life, like the peons of the world are going to be the ones that are like, glued to their phones, Doom scrolling and yeah, it's going to be like a new symbol of luxury to go and have a real life outside of the screen. Yeah.

William Harris 52:12

And I think a wise one at that right, being able to just, how do you protect your brain from shrinking the hippocampus and all the other things that happen as a result of that. Let's go into being original, because, let's just even say, like, how technology can sometimes decrease originality, it has the potential to increase it as well, right? And so I, I don't, I like technology. I use a lot of technology. I'm in technology. But to your point, you know, AI being fed the same stuff. It's not necessarily net new creative. It's just regurgitating other stuff into something that maybe looks kind of new. How do we actually become original? What are ways that you use to say, like, let's come up with something completely net new?

Cherene Aubert 52:58

How I love this, and I also love AI and technology, like, I just set up a claw bot. I know there's like, a lot of ice, and it's like a ton. It's my buddy. Like, it's the first time I truly feel like I have a partner.

William Harris 53:13

Am I interviewing Cherene, or am I interviewing her clod bot? Right now, I gotta know this

Cherene Aubert 53:18

is my clod bot. Is called Liam Gallagher. He's very effective at doing whatever I want him to do. But I think, like, you know, digital people, growth people, business people, like, have a hard time understanding creative people, but if you spend a lot of time with creative people, and you understand the process that they go through to come up with really good ideas, like it takes time and it takes inspiration, I do think AI for creative is a massive accelerator and can help accomplish a ton of things that people couldn't do before. It still has. It's gonna get better and better and has, still has a way to go. But, you know, having worked with, like, some of the world's best creatives, in my opinion, their process is just so different. You know, like they spend time. They spend time, like, getting inspiration from things that are outside, like they're not looking at every other brand. They're looking at, like, you know, musicians or artists or cultural things or things that are happening in other countries, I mean, and then they're kind of, like, bringing together a vision and a mood, and they're creating an a feeling, and that just that creative process just doesn't exist yet in AI, and maybe it will, but I feel like it's so like, we just don't give enough value to that process. And then when you have these, like, amazing creative teams, I'll give you an example from Ilya. They did this, like we had our friends and family sale. And when you think of friends and family sale. You think, like, I'm going to make 50 static ads. They're all going to be red, and they're going to be like, blinking, and it's going to have the biggest percentage off you can see. And it's my time to shine as a growth marketer. I'm going to put that percentage off as big as I possibly can. The creative team did a whole shoot for the sale. They did a whole style brand campaign. They rented these, like, old Mercedes. They went to Palm Springs. They shot like, you know, they got like, bumper stickers that said, like, please be patient. I'm putting on my mascara, just like, super funny stuff. And like, they created these, like, video vignettes, and it was like, one of the top performing ads. And not only that, but when it was posted organically, the community of people that were just piling on how much they loved the content, they were asking for the bumper sticker, they were like, there's all these things that, like, get people excited, that I'm like, we're just, don't forget. We can't forget to, like, get people excited, and that is a process that takes, like, a lot of thought work. Yeah?

William Harris 56:06

So I'd say the takeaway for brands that are looking at this is give creative people the opportunity to be creative, let them just explore and come up with things don't stifle that. Yeah?

Cherene Aubert 56:20

Or if you're a, let's say you're a small team or a founder that's just getting started, and you're reading what's on Twitter, and you're listening to podcasts, and you're hearing about all these new, cool pieces of technology. It's just like it get inspiration, like, get inspiration outside of the the feedback loop. It's an echo chamber. Like you're in an echo chamber. And your job, if you want to break out and have, like, bigger success than what what you could, is to get yourself out of the echo chamber. And that's by getting inspiration from things that are outside of your industry. And like, you know, you can look at ad accounts. My suggestion would be look at ad accounts in totally different industries and get new concepts that are not in your industry, not happening. That's where you get your winning.

William Harris 57:10

So good constant. Dan, yeah, we find a lot of stuff by looking at, you know, I like that idea of getting outside of your Echo Chamber, you know, as you put it, I think there's so much that you can learn from other people, from other experiences. I think I don't remember who it was, but I think I heard something like, Oprah spends like one hour a day actually doing work. Like the rest of the time during the day. She's like, well, I'm reading this book because, you know, to get inspiration about this completely unrelated thing. And I'm, I'm doing this activity, and, you know, meeting these people, and it's like, doing these things, and it's like, and that's what brings it all together. So when she goes on the Share show, it's like, she's got all of this stuff coming from all these different directions that allows her to be interesting and intriguing to every single person she's talking to, totally.

Cherene Aubert 58:00

And I think, yeah, just, even just Phyllis goes back to my philosophy for life is like having been someone that's, I work very hard and I grind, and then you can, you can build, start to build anxiety by like, just constantly grinding and seeking perfection. But it's like the perfection exists in the little moments of rest where you just, like, now I'm just going to do nothing for a minute, and I'm just going to think about, like, the beautiful things in life, like the sunset, oh, like, Let's just enjoy that for a minute. Like, there's some flowers outside. Like, Let's just enjoy that. And like, that's where I think, like, you know, if you can control your senses and, like, control your anxiety, and you become a better operator. And then you have more inspiration, like Oprah like to do these crazy things, and yeah, and you have better ideas that no one's ever thought of before.

William Harris 58:51

I think there, I think that you're right on the money. I think there's something that is intrinsic in our nature as human beings where we need that pause in order to kind of restore and reset. Speaking of human beings, I do want to get into who is Cherene Auber, the human being, your working mom, and when we were talking about this, one of the things that you said, that I liked was there was this debate going on on Twitter X for a while about like, whether it was an advantage to be like, have kids or a disadvantage, and you took the stance that it's an advantage.

Cherene Aubert 59:29

Why? Yes, it's a total like force multiplier to you know, it's like, your primal instincts take over and your adrenaline takes over, and you're like, oh my gosh, there's this like tribe now that we have to protect and take care of and however good I was before I like, you know, I had all the time in the world. I'm way better now, because I can do this with no sleep. I can do this. Have 50 other things going on, like my doors, walls are broken because my kids are like, throwing things, and I have to take care of that. And like you, just your capacity for what you can handle, just like expands exponentially beyond what you thought it could be before with very little energy, like you, you have the energy comes out of you from a place that you didn't know that it existed, because you have no other choice, literally. And I do think it makes you better. I think it makes you like, succeed.

William Harris 1:00:32

I'm Team parent. I've got three kids. I completely agree with you on that. I know it's a controversial take, like there's good reasons from smart people on both sides of this, but I do feel like I am significantly more effective in everything I do because of having kids in my life. There was my wife put me in touch with somebody to hire at my company. It's got to be like, three years ago or so now, who was a mom, and she was a mom who had decided to take some time off when she had kids. And I want to say it was, you know, 15 years since the last time that she had had a job, and she, you could tell she was a little bit like, I don't know, am I able to do this or whatever kind of thing? And it was like, I know from watching my wife, even right, that it's like, I have seen the way that you can handle, like, doctor's appointments, and then you're doing this, and you're getting this here, and you're doing this here, and it's like you are one of the most organized, effective people that probably exist on the planet. Like, the mom piece is incredible. The dad piece is incredible. It's like to be able to, like, you're also able to, you know, as a parent, you're able to manage irrational human emotions from, let's just say, from the kids, as well as well as potentially from your partner, who is also sleep deprived. And so it's like all of these things go together. And it's like you are now like, able to handle pressure and irrational emotions and stay on top of tasks and set schedules, because somebody's going to get cranky if you're not on schedule with whatever kind of thing. And so all of these things fit together. And I do see that. It's like, man, the people who I hire that are parents, like, there is, there is some grit, there is something in them that you maybe haven't developed until you are in that position.

Cherene Aubert 1:02:09

Totally the problems that you thought were big, like, suddenly become like, I'm like, like, that's a joke. That's a joke of a problem. And I think the a lot of the debate, or wasn't even a debate, I think it was more speculation from people who didn't have kids, and you just don't. It's like a completely different world that you enter. And you're like, Oh, shoot. This is, like, serious. I gotta step up,

William Harris 1:02:34

put the big girl pants on, the big boy pants on. You're like, yeah, it is. It is different. You also told me, though that you take time off and out of the day to make sure that you're at, you know, school events and meetings and things like that, you're your own boss now, which helps. How did you get away with that when you weren't your own boss?

Cherene Aubert 1:02:52

You know, that's such a good question. I just always treated it like that was my priority. So I was like, you know, if I could, if I could get time off for going to the doctor, then I could get time off for going to be the mystery reader at my kids school or to volunteer at the library. And I'm just like, you're going to be fine. Everyone's going to be fine. We're selling lipstick like no one's going to be hurt or everyone's going to be fine. We're selling baby for whatever insert product you're just selling, we're just selling stuff like, everyone's okay. So I just like, I'm never gonna get these years back. You know, you're never gonna get them back. Who cares? Miss that meeting, reschedule it. It's not even worth and i It's funny, I talked to my husband about that a lot, and like, something will come up spur of the moment. And I'm like, it doesn't matter. Like they're not going to fire you. You're still able to do your job. Your kids are always going to remember that you were there when they had these events, or they're always going to remember that you weren't there if you if all the other kids, parents showed up. So it's like, not even, who cares? You know?

William Harris 1:04:00

Yeah, it's hard, I would say, because in my own experience, I I'm first born, and let's just say I carry the typical first born traits of, like, this hyper responsibility. It's like, I will not, I will not miss a day of school, I will not miss a day of work, right? Like, it's like, I this is my responsibility, and so it's hard. And I would say for me, the biggest thing was kind of to your point. It's like having the permission to do it, giving yourself the permission, like you giving your husband the permission. It's like, hey, no, no, hear me, you have the ability to take this time off. People aren't going to die most of the time. For most of us, people aren't going to die as a result of this. Take the time off.

Cherene Aubert 1:04:43

Yeah, and usually no one cares as much as you do, like the part, you know, in my husband's case, I'm like, he cares way more than anyone at his company would care if that, like, he told them what he was, you know what I mean? Same with me. I'm like, you know, no one's gonna be like, Wow, you're terrible. Worker, because you went to your kids school, they're generally very appreciative. I also think remote work has helped women a ton. Like, it is really, you know, because you don't just have a baby and go back to work, like, especially going back to the complexity with formula feeding and nursing a child, like, just being able to be at home and, like, nurse your child, because remote work is an option. So yeah, I just, I did think, like, I don't know where I was going with that, but it's just incredible that those opportunities exist for people.

William Harris 1:05:36

Yeah, and I think it's good when businesses recognize that. We try to recognize that with our team, as well being a big part of there's, there's not really any question. It's like, if you need to do something for your family, you take care of it, right? And we just send a message Make sure everything is handled and you know you're not dropping the ball on something. But like, Hey, I gotta go take care of this. I gotta go do this. And we just, we've tried to create a culture of that being the norm here, and I think that that's important for people leadership. Um, I want to talk a little bit about art and media and stuff like that with you, because you are telling me that you've been revisiting a lot of David Lynch stuff. Um, why do you think audiences still crave that complexity? This is

Cherene Aubert 1:06:17

such a great topic. Yeah, I I really enjoy David Lynch stuff. I really enjoy watching movies and TV shows, and like appreciating the art, you know, the cinematography and the acting and all these things. And you know, lately, a lot of stuff has been coming out where actors are revealing that Netflix, for example, is forcing everyone to dumb down their scripts because people are scrolling on their phones while they're watching TV. And you can see it like when you watch media, it's like the like the audience doesn't want to be treated like they're dumb and like, I really love this. Why I love David Lynch, and why I think it's, like, applicable to marketing is, you know, he would never tie things out very neatly. You could find the answers if you spent enough time or paid enough attention. There's, like, lots of clues. And I really love, you know, film and TV where things aren't tied up in a neat little bow, and you're like, left wondering because the, you know, I because I appreciate when something is made that validates my intelligence or helps me think that I'm, you know, not an idiot. So I think the same is true with like, our marketing. Yes, there's, there's definitely a point and a time to be clear and have clarity in your messaging, but there's also just like, consumers aren't dumb, and they don't want to be treated like they're dumb, and like, find ways to entertain them, and that type of stuff, you know, gains a cult following.

William Harris 1:07:56

We do talk a lot about how important clarity is, and to your point, it is very important, and a lot of times we overthink that clarity, we become too cute with it, right? But there is something about discovering things that makes us even more excited about it. It reminds me of and I'm going to butcher who or where I heard this story first from, so I won't even try to give credit to it, but I think it was like the Betty Crocker cake mixes, or something along those lines, where, you know, you you just mix in some water and eggs and oil. It didn't start off that way. Apparently, it started off where it was just the cake and the water, and it was like, you just mix those two things. And people more or less complain, saying, I don't feel like I'm actually making a cake. I haven't put any work into this, and so I feel deflated. As a result, I don't feel successful. And so they're like, Okay, great, we'll take a couple of ingredients out. Now you have to add water, eggs and oil. Now, do you feel like you have baked this cake? And it's like it did, because we've given people the opportunity to be a part of this, they walk away. Instead of feeling unaccomplished, they walk away with this, this emotional high of feeling accomplished, this dopamine hit even from making a cake by removing ingredients and letting them be a part of the process.

Cherene Aubert 1:09:09

I've done a ton of testing on this with quiz funnels too, and we tested a short quiz versus a quiz with more questions, even if the questions don't change the output or the answer and the conversion and the AOV lift on the quiz that had more questions was higher for that same reason, is like, you know, like you said, people want to feel like they're doing some work. They don't want it to be spoon fed all the time. Clarity and messaging. Getting is incredibly important. Getting too cute is like, not the move when it comes to more comes to marketing, but like, if you are trying to create a content strategy, a more upper funnel content strategy, like, that's the place to, kind of like, experiment or do things that are unusual. And you see this with luxury brands all the time making these high production videos. That kind of make no sense, but they get a lot of shares. And it's that's like, how people are engaging. They're they're engaging with a piece of entertainment and media, rather than like a piece of advertising. And I think so it's like, as brands are growing, as they're growing beyond eight figures, how do you not only have marketing that drives a transaction, but media that drives like entertainment and engagement

William Harris 1:10:24

that's so good, I have to ask you now about early Cherene, going way, way back to your punk rock days. I think you said you were selling art at punk rock shows. Tell me a little bit more about this. And then, you know, how does that version of you show up today?

Cherene Aubert 1:10:43

Yeah, it's really funny. I mean, I was always like a math person. I went to school for math. I, like, double majored in business and math, but I was always also an artist. And I think that's like, the the marketing thing, like, it's truly like art and math, but I was very into punk and hardcore, and would go to shows and would do art, and was invited to, like, go across the country to show and sell my art, like festivals and magazines and make clothing and yeah, it was is, like, such a funny little yeah, now I'm a now I'm a total sellout.

William Harris 1:11:26

Oh no, okay, wait a minute. So like, top group, like, what was your favorite band that you were following at that time?

Cherene Aubert 1:11:33

I mean, when I was, like, when I was in high school, I loved the Sex Pistols, like, that was my favorite band. But, you know, throughout my life, I've had so much, so many different musical genres that I've delved into and enjoyed. And you know, like, have had, like, goth music phases and hardcore music and just like, I think the discovery, like you said, it's the discovery and experiencing new things.

William Harris 1:12:01

Have you made it to the polka phase yet? Because that's a very fun phase.

Cherene Aubert 1:12:05

I haven't made it to the polka phase. That might be next.

William Harris 1:12:09

There you go. There's always time. But you said you're a sell out. What does that mean? Like, who are you now?

Cherene Aubert 1:12:14

Then I mean, gosh, I just I I'm a DR goat, and I print my with fat margins and lean team.

William Harris 1:12:24

Love it. Yes, that's so good. Yeah, still printing on demand, just a little different stuff, right? Okay, I didn't realize the math thing. Though I love math, I didn't realize that you had a degree in math. What is your favorite number?

Cherene Aubert 1:12:41

Oh, my gosh. Well, yeah, that's a good question. I guess my childhood favorite number was four, but I don't know they're all good. I like all the numbers. I literally, you know, the spreadsheet speaks to me. I open a spreadsheet, and the numbers just talk to me.

William Harris 1:12:57

And then, why four? Why four? Though,

Cherene Aubert 1:13:00

no idea.

William Harris 1:13:03

Do you still like the number four?

Cherene Aubert 1:13:05

I mean, I still like it, it's, it's, it's cool. What about what's your favorite number?

William Harris 1:13:11

Well, I mean, I always, I'm so weird. I would say something like Oilers number or something. I'm like, Ooh, I want to be, you know, super smart. I like Oilers number, you know, like, if you're going to go, like, one to 10, I'm usually gonna go with, like, three or seven. I don't know why I like the odd numbers. That's why I'm like, oh, four. I feel like I don't hear that one is like the number as much. I'm like, Oh, they went even.

Cherene Aubert 1:13:33

I mean, I have no idea. I just know that when, when I was in elementary school, that was my favorite number, and there was, like, I won a prize for guessing, for using my favorite number. And I was like, sticking with that one, it's good.

William Harris 1:13:46

You'll appreciate this. Then, when I took my oldest daughter to kindergarten, first day of kindergarten, you know, we're walking her in, she's a little nervous. And I had already talked to her about this at the time, but I was like, Hey, babe, hey, give me a high 4.9 repeating right? For those of you who do not have a math degree, that is the same number as five, they are one in the same it is not approaching the limit of five, 4.9 repeating. And five are the same thing, just different ways of writing it. And so she gave me a high point for nine repeating. And it's like, all right, I'm starting it off on a good foot. She's gonna be math nerd. She does do really well in math, but she's not a math nerd.

Cherene Aubert 1:14:17

I love that. I love that so much. Yeah, cool.

William Harris 1:14:23

It's been so fun getting to learn about you and learn from you. If, let's say, let's give one more if, if a $25 million founder is listening right now, they can only fix one thing this year. What is it likely that they should be focused on?

Cherene Aubert 1:14:42

Ah, understanding how much money to spend to grow the business. I feel like that's the the thing that most businesses don't understand. And I've worked with so many sizes and stages, pe backed, Bootstrap. Up to eight figures, nine figures, like they just don't know how much money to spend, and it is just a math calculation, and it's like a let's take our variable expenses, our fixed expenses, let's build a matrix. It's so simple. Just take all your expenses, categorize them, build a matrix and understand how much you need to spend at what like return to achieve the profitability that you want. And there's likely many scenarios, many different outcomes at different spend levels and different efficiency levels that get you to your profitability. And yeah. Just feel like not enough brands know or are doing that.

William Harris 1:15:46

That's wise, though. I mean, it's not as difficult as it needed to be. So we make it out to be, and then you just multiply it by the square root of negative one, and everything works out fine.

Cherene Aubert 1:15:55

You throw an imaginary number in there.

William Harris 1:15:57

Ah, yeah. Cherene, again, I really enjoyed talking to you. If people want to work with you or follow you, what's the best way for them to do that?

Cherene Aubert 1:16:06

You can follow me on Twitter. What's Twitter? Twitter is this website that is a piece of garbage. You should follow me on okay? You know, Aubert if you want, if you want to follow my slop posting. It's great. It's really, I'm really funny on Twitter, if you want to you really are very serious, tactical professional wisdom. You can follow me on LinkedIn.

William Harris 1:16:33

Very good. Well, Cherene, thank you for your time today and sharing your wisdom with us.

Cherene Aubert 1:16:38

Thank you, William. It was so good to be here. I had so much fun.

William Harris 1:16:42

Yep, have a great rescue day. Everyone. Enjoy your day.

Outro 1:16:45

Bye. Thanks for listening to the Up Arrow Podcast with William Harris. We'll see you again next time, and be sure to click Subscribe to get future episodes.

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