Building Brands for Generation Rising: A Conversation with Soyoung Kang

Click here to watch on Vimeo.

Featured Speaker: Soyoung Kang, CMO at eos

Moderated by: Sarah Williams, Partner and Chief Creative Officer at Beardwood

Q&A Moderated by: Crystal Cheng, Associate Designer at Beardwood

Hear how Soyoung and her team at eos have led the way on TikTok and other platforms to connect creatively and authentically with the generation rising.

Discover what the next generation of consumers are thinking and feeling, and what they’re looking for from brands. Take away an approach to experimentation and risk-taking to learn fast and stand out.

Soyoung Kang is the Chief Marketing Officer at eos Products, the iconic beauty brand that has sold nearly a billion lip balms worldwide. Starting in 2018, Soyoung has completed a total reboot of the brand identity, from resetting creative and strategic vision, to dramatically expanding the category footprint and product pipeline, to launching experimental marketing initiatives like influencer collaboration FlavorLab and #eosmicrobatch DTC fashion drops.

Soyoung oversees the brand’s digital-first media plan to reach gen Z and millennial fans, especially through its immense social media presence of 9mm+ followers. She is a pioneer in TikTok, driving billions of video views with the award-winning #MakeItAwesome campaign and organically growing eos TikTok followers to over 500k.

Soyoung has been named a CMO to Watch by Forbes and Business Insider, and a Beauty Innovator by Glossy. She serves on the AdWeek DEI Council, which brings together leading executives to demonstrate their commitment to accelerating change in the industry.

Transcript

Sarah
I want to welcome everyone to a conversation about building brands for the rising generation, a topic that every brand is engaged with. And one that EOS has had incredible success with under the leadership of CMO, Soyoung Kang.

My name is Sarah Williams, and I’m Partner and Chief Creative Officer at Beardwood. We’re a fully integrated branding agency focused on strategy, design, and innovation and delivering powerful and positive impact for brands. I’m joined by Crystal Cheng from our team who will be leading the audience Q&A. Hi, Crystal. There are sure to be some juicy takeaways as we dive into all things EOS, TikTok and gen Z related. And you can add your questions to the chat as we’re going so we can dive in following the conversation. Thank you, Crystal.

So introducing Soyoung, I’m so thrilled to be here with you, Chief Marketing Officer at EOS products. It’s an iconic beauty brand that’s sold nearly 9 billion lip balms worldwide. That’s incredible. Starting in 2018, she led a total reboot over the brand identity, bringing together that creative and strategic vision, dramatically expanding the brand, the product pipeline and launching experimental marketing initiatives, including flavor lab with key influencers, as well as EOS micro batch with DTC fashion drops.

Soyoung oversees the brand’s digital first media brand. And that’s really where they’re reaching Gen Z and millennial fans with an immense social presence of over 9 million followers. She and EOS have been named culture drivers by TikTok driving billions of video view awards through the award-winning, Make-It-Awesome campaign and organically growing EOS’ TikTok followers to over 500,000, no small feat. Soyoung has been named a CMO to Watch by Forbes and Business Insider, a beauty innovator by Glossy and also serving on Adweek’s DEI Council. Personally, for me, she’s been hugely inspiring as a leader bringing together right- and left-brain superpowers, beginning her studies at MIT in architecture, heading to Wharton for her MBA, and then consulting at BCG. So there is truly nothing she can’t do. Please join me in welcoming Soyoung. Welcome, Soyoung.

Soyoung
Oh, thank you. Thank you so much, Sarah. So, I mean, I have to tell … say to the audience, I’ve known … Sarah and I have known each other for so many years. We’ve worked on more than just EOS together, back in our Bath and Body Works days. That’s where we started our partnership and it’s just such a pleasure to be able to grow in our partnership over the course of those years.

Sarah
Yes. Being reunited and it feels great. So let’s get into it. As you mentioned, this is … we’ve been incredibly lucky to work together at not one but two brands on your amazing career journey here, Bath and Body Works and then at EOS. So I’d love to just kind of go back to day one at EOS, and tell us about what you envisioned for your brand when you first arrived thinking about where did you want to invest and what opportunities did you see from the get go?

Soyoung
So day one, I honestly think that, if it wasn’t day one, it was probably day two that one of the first things that we did was we met with you and Julie actually to help us with a very specific project, which is to reboot our entire brand identity, which is like no small feat, especially given that it was within that first week. But, really, I knew coming into this role that I had a pretty big mandate on my hands. The brand had grown over the course of the first eight years of its life. It had grown astronomically, I think far beyond … far exceeding anyone’s expectations of what a lip balm brand could do in terms of being a true trend-driving desirable, must-have brand, and just a part of the zeitgeist among a generation of young consumers who are discovering beauty.

Soyoung
That’s a pretty incredible heritage and a foundation to come into. It also comes with great expectations about where you want to go next. And I knew when I was first coming into the brand, that the idea was we want to keep growing and it’s sometimes brands that have had really astronomical and fast growth have a really hard time figuring out what that next phase of growth is going to be. And we don’t want to only keep growing within this business of lip balm. We want to diversify as a brand and really become a true, multi-category 360 beauty brand. And so that’s a pretty big task. And it’s what actually really excited me about the role. And so coming in, I knew that I had a lot of big shoes to fill in terms of what the team had already accomplished, but also so much to do in terms of what we needed to do moving really quickly in order to hit the right retail cycles, to be able to make the maximum impact within the next 12 to 18 months after my joining.

So one of the first things that we did was we met with you guys and partnered on that big brand reboot that really kicked off this journey for me and was my big, first thing that I did as CMO at EOS.

Sarah
That was an incredibly inspiring experience. And literally us getting together in that room, we had our inspiration, our scissors, our tape, our glue, and really thinking about, “How do we create this platform for growth, with all of the ideas that you had in mind for that possibility to grow?” And I think that’s really interesting, because as you mentioned, being known for something right from the beginning, and then how do you kind of start to shift that perception, open the door or to more? EOS has really always been ahead of the game in that early design disruptor as the brand. And also one of the firsts was a massive Instagram following. You’re way out in front of a lot of brands with that piece. So tell us a little bit about that shifting perception, that ability to grow the platform, and then you made that leap into TikTok really as an early adopter. What enabled that and allowed you to jump in so early on there?

Soyoung
I have to pause for a second and just mention that not only were … was all of this new to me, literally, like I said, at day one or day two, but I think that the leadership team was really looking for a true reinvention and a reboot of the brand, which means that it was in some ways new to the brand, as well. So I liken that experience, those first few months of working at EOS as being the anecdote of building the plane while flying it. That’s very much what it felt like. And I would imagine that’s probably what most of us in the world of innovation and creative and marketing, we’re all always figuring it out as we go along, as we’re building it, too. If we’re lucky, we have more of that blueprint in place, and that you were … things are already determined.

Soyoung
But the reality is that most of the world isn’t really set up in that kind of a neat and clean and nicely, tidily packaged way. And so for me, it was a little stressful. It was a little … I had not a little bit of anxiety in those first few months, but it was also a really exciting mandate to have. And what it meant was that I could really form the brand into what I believed that the brand really needed to be. I think that somewhere in the middle there in the latter years, I think that there was a little bit of losing that magic of connecting with a young consumer. The joy, the excitement … I would say the fun and the experiential part of things.

I think we had lost a little bit of that. Not only in our product and our brand identity in the actual physical product itself, but also in our marketing. We had lost a little bit of that thread of joy and being on the leading edge. If I go back prior to my joining, the brand had been a true pioneer in the world of influencer marketing. It was one of the earliest brands to really do influencer marketing on Instagram and on YouTube. And while many brands … while the creator economy and the influencer marketing overall has really exploded and become a lot less efficient for all marketers, there are many other ways to apply that type of leaning into risk.

And for me, one of those ways was TikTok, because it was really taking off just … I joined in 2018, and a few months later it was my first experience, downloading the app, just trying it out. Somebody on the team had said, “Oh, we should check out TikTok. It really is popular with the younger demographic with Gen Z. And so I downloaded it, and I was, “I’m not Gen Z, but I’m obsessed with this app. We’ve read there’s something here that is so addictive, that is so undeniably entertaining that it felt really like fertile ground for a marketer to be able to figure out how do you story-tell? How do you community-build on a platform like this?

So I think that for me, having been somebody who was engaged personally on the platform, and I do believe that marketers, innovators, creators, whatever your role is within that value chain, you really have to immerse yourself in that environment, whether it’s a digital platform, whether it’s … We talked earlier about being in stores, whether it means you have to be in stores and like a shopper like a consumer. You really have to immerse yourself to be able to appreciate the potential of where you could take it for your own brand and for your own initiatives.

So for me, it was trying to recapture that joy, the magic, and understanding of being really focused on a Gen Z consumer combined with … Well, it’s not going to be the same way anymore, because that ship has sailed. It’s not going to be by doing influencer marketing, that ship has sort of sailed. It’s not going to be by doing influencer marketing the way that we used to do it. But look, if we’re applying the same willingness to take on risks and explore new territory in places where younger consumers are living and consuming content, then this is a really great idea for us to be able to test and learn. So we tested and learned and it was a very successful test.

Sarah
That’s incredible. I think what you’re mentioning with that notion of building the plane and flying it at the same time, plus having these emerging new platforms and kind of that test and learn mentality. I think the proof is visible in how you’ve grown and created the brand. But you’ve been able to kind of always inject that new energy. What’s top of mind in terms of flavor, in terms of product, in terms of category and as well as how you’re reaching people in these new and creative ways. So it’s kind of that magic space that you’re kind of able to live in to tap into these things in real time.

So I guess you saw this early success with Make It Awesome and kind of that test and learn experimentation. Did that become sort of this gateway to say, “Okay, now let’s try something else. Let’s do more”?

Soyoung
For us, when I first came in, and with the culmination of the brand reboot work that we did together was really a re-launch across all of our points of distribution. So this is a very big and very important business initiative to reboot everything and then re-support our brand through really, really thoughtful, smart and strategic marketing. Frankly, a significantly higher level of marketing investment, than we had done in the prior year as we were waiting to ramp up to the big ta-da and the big unveil. So the stakes were really high. We had really great resources provided by the company to be able to kind of do that level of marketing invest.

As part of that, and part of my philosophy in general, has always been that you always reserve room to learn. In everything that we do, we always reserve room to learn. For me, in the world of marketing what that means is some portion of our time, people’s mindshare and dollars will always be reserved to do something we’ve never done before. Even if it’s something … That might mean in this case, it was being on a platform that we hadn’t been on before, because we hadn’t marketed on TikTok. Frankly, most brands hadn’t marketed on TikTok at that point. We were the first beauty brand in the US to do many, many things with that first Make It Awesome campaign.

But it even means subsequently then when we went back and we actually immediately after seeing the success, because we saw massive success, we launched Make It Awesome. It was through the experimental portion of a marketing plan and budget. We got 4 billion views in a month, which was mind boggling. I know that’s crazy. I can’t even wrap my head around that number. And then we were like, “Oh my God, well, we got to do this again.” It’s like, “Let’s figure out how quickly we can get back into it, but let’s do it a little differently this time and try something else.” And the next time that we went to it, we went back. We said, “Okay, well we can market, but maybe what if we treated it the way that we sometimes that we treat Instagram creator campaigns.” Which is, we contract directly with creators. They have huge organic followings and then we boost it with paid advertising as well. So boost whatever we’re creating with an Instagram influencer. What if we try that on TikTok too? So that was the next part of the experimental phase.

Through that, we actually worked with a number of amazing creators, including we were the first ever brand to work with Charli D’Amelio, who now is famous and the biggest TikTok celebrity that exists out there. So she worked with us that December. It was two months after we launched our first campaign.

So every time we’ve gone back, we’ve tried to mix it up, whether it’s through the creative strategy, whether it’s through the way that we are structuring our metrics and the way that we’re measuring, the way that we’re optimizing the campaign. Whether it’s by working with a creator who hasn’t worked with a brand before and then happens to be an amazing creator. I think we were the first beauty brand to work with Bella Poarch, fairly soon after that, too.

So we’ve really had this amazing, I think, success in terms of being able to lean in where maybe other brands haven’t gone in before. And by doing that, we’ve had sort of first mover status in a lot of the work that we’ve done, which is I think how we’ve been able to build our own community on the platform. How we’ve been able to learn so much. In two years, we’ve learned probably what, most brands would take like five years to learn. Because we’ve just tried so many different things. And that really is just my general philosophy more broadly. But in this case, this is probably the poster child for how it works and how it does deliver value in the end.

Sarah
Yeah. I love what you’re saying, because it’s sort of this dual opportunity, that test to learn mindset, as you’re talking about that, leaning into experimentation. That’s what feeds us as people who are thinking about building brands and shaping brands and setting that vision for how they can grow. But it’s also what can actually feed your community and keep things fresh and reinvented over time. So I love that dually feeding our own souls as well as feeding the growth and inspiring within the brand. That’s great.

Again, kind of going back to some of those early conversations and even knowing you since Bath and Body Works days, I know that your product-obsessed. You really dig into thinking about what are the formulations, what are the benefits? How does it feel? What’s the experience like? I’d love to just hear a little bit more about you have three Ps when it comes to product, product, purpose, and personality for the brand.

So tell us a little bit about why those are non-negotiables for you and at EOS and as, as well for Gen Z, why are those three things so important?

Soyoung
It’s funny because I think there are a lot of more marketers who … There are a lot of folks who touch product, but don’t touch the market, they go to market piece of things. And then there are a lot of people go to market, but then they don’t actually don’t touch the product. So oftentimes in many other companies largely be due to scale and therefore specialization. These are things that are owned by different teams. I’ve had the great fortune to be able to actually own both sides. I believe that both sides are critical in terms of being able to have a true value proposition to consumers. Consumers more broadly, but especially to Gen Z.

So if I start with product, I really believe that all great marketing, the best marketing starts from a great product. Because I think that when there isn’t a kernel of the truth —What it is like, whether it’s a product or service, if there isn’t true differentiation and true product superiority and just excellence in what you are trying to sell to a consumer— consumers are smart and they see through that. You might fool them once through great marketing, but you’re not going to fool them again. So ultimately if you want to have a long term viable brand and business, you do have to have a great product.

Soyoung
Now on the flip side, I also think that you could have the best product in the world, but if you don’t have great marketing, nobody’s going to find out about it. I do have a case in point. I have a case study on that one, which is, if I think about, for example, we’ve had the most incredible year with our shave cream, but our shave cream has existed since the beginning of the brand. Our shave cream actually was one of the earliest products that we ever launched. It really never got its its due, until this year when we had an unbelievable breakthrough moment, again with TikTok. But like we had this crazy breakthrough moment with our shave cream. So great products, I would consider them like a slow burn. It’s like a slow burn. In this case, it was a 10 year slow burn. And then this year was its year.

So great marketing really accelerates that adoption curve, the trial, and really can make a huge impact on your business and give your product it’s fair share of love from consumers. And then for gen Z in particular, personality is a big part of how they engage with storytelling. So if we were a brand that weren’t willing to get super weird and authentically raw and just sometimes uncomfortably weird in the platforms that we market on, I think that we wouldn’t have had the level of success that we have had. I actually have many case studies and examples of that as well.

But if I go back to first why product, if you look at what this younger generation wants from product, they don’t necessarily want the most perfect, the most beautiful, the most brand name luxury products. They want products that they’ve researched, because this is a generation that researches, that truly digs in and understands whether this product is going to work for them. They talk to friends, they go online, they read reviews. They are unbelievably informed and they’re going to find out if it’s not great products. So this is why, for example, if we’re using TikTok as the example, when you see the product that’s been trending on TikTok, oftentimes it’s not the sexiest product. It’s also not the product that’s necessarily gotten the most amount of marketing love. So you’ll see things like, a favorite drug store brand of mine survey, is also a gen Z favorite brand. It’s not particularly sexy as far as brands go, but it really has taken off because people talk about it and how well it works. So product is really paramount. Like I said, it’s at the core of all great marketing.

On the marketing front, for us, like I said, our shave cream, 10 years of not much, not moving the needle and then this year with great marketing and really taking advantage of this viral moment that happened to us with our shave cream on TikTok, the business doubled overnight, literally doubled. So we’re actually experiencing … To be honest, our limiting factor has been how quickly we can chase into inventory, but we’re experiencing triple digit growth when we are in stock in a category that’s been around for 10 years and really frankly, was sort of flat the entire way until this year.

And then the third piece around personality. I think we have so many examples of how when we are, like I said, just strange and funny and authentic and not perfectly polished, especially on TikTok, we get unbelievable feedback from our community that says like, “This is what all marketing should be like. This is what all advertising should be like. I’m going to go out and buy your product because of this.” And it’s when we do strange things that people really don’t understand and they kind of comment like, “This is weird, but we kind of love it.” That’s really been the personality piece of things that we’ve been cultivating.

So for this particular generation, but I would also say more broadly, the product, the marketing and the personality are so critical to being able to kind of perfect and really take advantage of the growth for us that we’ve had over the course of the last couple of years.

Sarah
Yeah. I think that’s such a perfect way to bring the three Ps together. And it’s literally how it manifests and shows up in the TikTok world. Just thinking a little bit about that conversation and collaboration you’ve had with Carly Joy, product, purpose, personality, all three of those things came through. I remember when this launch and I was like, “Finally, a shave cream that respects me.”

But could you tell us a little bit more about how that collaboration with Carly Joy came about and how you got that product into our hands so quickly?

Soyoung
Yeah. This was like a gift from heaven. So I have to actually go back a little bit. As I said, I think our shave cream, which our purpose is essentially, has always been to take sort of everyday moments and make them more enjoyable. I don’t think anybody would say that shaving your legs or shaving any part of your body is particularly enjoyable. But what we promise is that, our role in your daily routines is to make it as enjoyable as possible and to give you an experience instead of a chore.

So it’s funny, because so our shave cream is actually a fantastic product. It smells great. It feels great. Your skin is moisturized for 24 hours, clinically proven after you shave. You can shave wet or dry. So you can shave inside the shower or outside the shower. If you forgot to shave while you were showering, you needed to do a quick touch up or whatever you can just do that and go. You can leave it on, you don’t have to rinse it off. So there are many reasons why from a product perspective, I truly believe it’s a superior differentiated product.

For 10 years it’s been a cult favorite. You see for 10 years, every so often somebody will tweet something, one of my favorite tweets is somebody wrote tweeted like, “EOS shave cream? that sh*t’s a cheat code.” It’s one of my favorite tweets, I love being called the cheat code. So it’s had this cult following status for quite some time, but I would not say that it has been known at the scale that it achieved this year.

So earlier this year, a young TikToker who is absolutely lovely, she basically posted a TikTok. Somebody had commented on her video that said like, “How do you get so smooth basically? How do you get so smooth?” She posted her in a bathing suit bikini. The comment was like, “My razor bumps could never, how do you get your bikini areas so smooth?” And so Carly posted, completely not connected to us, totally organic, just her own personal testimonial, which is a huge part of what influences a younger audience and in particular on TikTok, posted entire long, unbelievably funny video where she’s dropping f-bombs left and right. And she says that that EO shave cream is the secret to how to bless her f*ing Cooch. And she doesn’t say f*ing, she actually uses all the words, but I’ll just like for the sake of this audience.

And then she goes into extreme, hilarious detail. She literally is like, “This is what you do, you shave to the side, then other side, then up.” And then she’s like, “I swear to God, and now you have a smooth-ass hoo-ha and you’re welcome.” So it’s the funniest video you’ve ever seen. And the thing immediately goes viral. So we get tagged on it right away. We start getting people at EOS. So we see it pretty quickly and it’s garnering millions of views. Our business starts to starts to kind of uptake. This is within days, I’m talking within days. We’re like, “Oh my God, this is amazing. We have to do something with this. We have to reach out to her. We have to partner with her. We have to actually do a paid collaboration.” And the hitch is that, she’s minor. So she’s sixteen team. And this is totally just her talking about grooming and self-care and doing it in this hilariously candid way and people are like loving it.

We can’t reach out to her because she’s a minor. So we’re like, “How are we going to get her attention? What are we going to do?” So this idea comes up through, we work really closely with a creative partner that helps us with these marketing ad ideas. And so they said, “We know what you need to do. You need to take her exact words and actually print them on a bottle and basically duet her video so that we can get her attention. Because the only way we’re going to get her attention is if you duet the video and enough people in the comments start to tag her and then realize that something’s happening.” Right?

So that idea came to us on, I think it was 11:00 AM in the morning. And by 6:00 PM, we were releasing mechanical drawings to create this product, this limited edition product that basically the product is our bottle. But it says, “Instead of saying EO shave cream.” It says, “Bless your F*ing Cooch.” And then instead of our normal instructions on the back, it says, every single, hilarious detail about what she says, including all the f-bombs, including the whole thing. And so we create a small run of product and we do at her in within three days. So we created this whole thing, we duet with her within three days and she finally DMed us back. Because she could reach out to us. We couldn’t reach out to her. She’s like, “LOL. Yes, I’m going to. Let’s talk.”

So we secured the partnership with her through that. And then we created an entire expanded campaign. So from there, it was like we had permission. Because if you frankly, it’s her intellectual property, we couldn’t use her words. We couldn’t do any of this unless we had her permission. So it’s her intellectual property. We took her words, we printed it on the bottles. We sold bottles. We actually sold bottles at three times the price, they sold out within 24 hours. Our business basically took off and doubled. We’re chasing into this. We actually, at one point when we were fully in stock at target, we were the number one shave cream brand across all men and women, because that’s how successful.

So consider that how much smaller the women’s section usually is versus the men’s section, we were the number one brand at Target. So this was unbelievable stratospheric commercial success. But it all started from this taking this wild leap of faith that she would actually respond to us. And then from there we were able to create an entire campaign to amplify her message. But it’s really been sort of an incredible journey. I think it taught us the value of, as if I didn’t already know the value of speed, but I mean this was hyper speed.

So moving quickly, taking some risks and being brave and figuring out, if you yourself, as a brand, can’t manufacture this sort of gift from heaven of a viral moment, figuring out how you as a smart marketer can take advantage of the opportunity and really explode it and create ongoing and lasting momentum for your business. Because this is something now that we could then create a multi month campaign around, now that we actually had secured that partnership.

So it’s been a really, really great case study for us in terms of what kind of a team we want to be and what kind of a brand we want to be.

Sarah
Yeah. I think just hearing that, firstly kind of going back to some of the themes we were talking about earlier. You were all primed to kind of be embracing that test and learn mindset. So when these opportunities come along, it’s like, “Yes, let’s go. Let’s click in and make that happen so fast.” So that is number one, a testament to the power of embracing that approach. And then I think with Carly, she’s just endlessly watchable, as you’re saying, she’s breaking taboos, she’s hilarious. She’s super real. She’s really that product story as well, just in that way that you just want to engage. So well done. That is just, like you said, an incredible case study, but just incredible to witness and see happen unfold in real time.

Thinking about that, I think one of the other things you and brand do so well, it’s really endlessly looking for those ways to flex in the whole total brand experience, with how you’re showing up in TikTok with some of the new product launches. So you’re always thinking about how to flex that brand experience. Yet, it’s always unmistakably EOS, and as you’re kind of having that vision over everything that’s happening in going on, how do you kind of create that right balance as the brand is evolving and growing over time, flexing in the unmistakableness?

Soyoung
Yeah. I mean, it’s definitely a balancing act, because I also think that there are things that you do because they’re just actually right for consumers. And then there are things that you do because they’re right for your brand. Balancing those two things out from a product perspective, I think is sort of a necessity because the marketing story, the stories can kind of come and go. But once you’ve actually invested in what you stand for from an actual innovation product design formulation, all of that stuff perspective. That one’s a little bit harder to walk back and it’s harder to recover when you’ve made a big mistake. Look, I’ve made my fair share of mistakes in my career. I haven’t gotten it right every time you. Which often happens, if you take a lot of risks, you’re going to get some wrong.

But I think this notion of always leaving a little room to do something that’s a little more brave, whether it’s braver than the world, that might be a little overreaching. I think braver than who you’re sitting next to, I think is probably, that’s pretty good. We were out in stores today, as I mentioned to you and we walked Target, we walk Ulta, we walk a bunch of places where our brands are carried. We think a lot about how we’re showing up versus how the competition is showing up. Really thinking about the competitive context and understanding and experiencing what a consumer experience is. So a consumer’s walking down the aisle and they’re making split second decisions. And in particular, if they had something that they were going to go after, it’s very, very hard to grab that little sliver, that window of attention that they may have to look and notice something that wasn’t on their list.

So I think that that’s what you have to always remember is, you can have these like grand ideas and you can have big plans, but at the end of the day, all the decisions are actually being made by people who are in a rush and not really paying attention to many of the details that you might sweat over. Right? And so having that sort of pragmatic lens at the same time that you’re trying to create a little extra magic, more magic than your neighbors on the shelf, I think is sort of that balancing act that we’re all trying to figure out. It truly is a balancing act. It’s always like a bit of a push pull. There are times when you have data and you might have eye tracking studies and quantitative surveys and all of the fancy tools that I’m sure many of us are familiar with.

But then sometimes there’s just a little bit of gut instinct that tells you that it’s the right way to go. I don’t think that anyone had data at EOS before they launched a lip balm that wasn’t shaped like every other lip balm. So you do have to remember that there are some times when data can only tell you what you put in front of people. It can’t tell you their imaginations, what hasn’t even existed yet or what hasn’t been imagined yet. So it’s my long winded way of saying none of this is easy. I’m sure it’s not easy for any of the folks who are here in our day to day. But it really is just a matter of taking all the factors into account and figuring out how much balance and how much push pull you’re willing to accept in whatever you’re working on at the moment.

Sarah
Yeah. I love that. It’s almost that rule of thumb in a way, right? Being braver than your neighbor.

Soyoung
Yeah.

Sarah
It helps us understand, okay, we’re connected to the codes of the category, what people are expecting and what they’re looking for. But we’re also really kind of showing up as that leader and have that ability to kind of drive the conversation and how people start to engage with us. So I love that as a kind of rule thumb for us to think about.

So we’ve talked a lot about how you’ve engaged, how you’ve experimented, digging into the TikTok world here as well. But what kinds of bold moves do you think brands will need to make to keep that connection real with gen Z? There’s so much emerging around building community, gamification, partnering with things like Roblox, NFTs. There’s so much emerging. Where do you think that ripe next territory will be for brands going forward?

Soyoung
I actually, especially for that demographic, I do believe that the metaverse is an inevitable place for brands to be. If I take a step back and I think about the power of social media, social media is obviously not new. But part of what made social media what it is today, is the fact that it’s a virtual borderless, it’s a community, right? It’s what used to be for human beings defined by your first year geographic circle, where can you go geographically? Then where can you go … How do you develop relationships and community via the post and then via the telephone, and then the post and then via the telephone, and then social media really became a place where you can develop relationships with people that you’ve never met before.

Which seems weird, but then look at the past year and a half that we’ve all had, where literally we’ve developed relationships, working relationships and personal relationships, with people we’ve never met before. So, for me then, I do believe that this idea of the metaverse and whether it’s the Roblox world or gaming worlds, or whether it’s different ways of thinking about NFTs, and what role that plays from a goods perspective. I think that that is a natural evolution. Just to be totally candid, we haven’t figured what that means for us quite yet in terms of where we want to be.

But I do believe that if, as a brand, you are best served by being part of the community, not just like, “I’m not just there as an advertiser talking to you and trying to have interruptive ads, I’m there as part of the community.” That’s really been a huge hallmark for how we’ve built our TikTok presence. It wasn’t just, I’m an advertiser, and I’m coming in, and I’m just pumping ads out. It’s yeah, we pump ads out, we do have ads. But more importantly, we’re part of the community, we’re actually… We have at this point, I know you mentioned over 500,000, we have over 750,000 members in our community. We’re engaged with people, we’re commenting, we’re doing all the weird memes, and we are a part of this large, weird community that’s kind of been created.

I think that that’s what a successful brand will be able to do in the metaverse is be part of the community. I was actually just reading an article the other day about how interesting it will is that when Wendy’s first launched their presence on Fortnite, it wasn’t as an advertiser, it was as a player. I think that that’s the difference, it’s one thing to advertise, but when you’re a member of the community, when you’re one of everybody else, it’s just a more authentic relationship that you’re developing. It’s not one-way anymore, it’s two-way.

Sarah
I love that, it’s how you show up, how you come to the table and invite other people to have that conversation with you. So yeah, lots of interesting things to see, as all of these opportunities unfold. So, in addition to leading EOS to massive success, you’ve recently joined forces with an incredible organization called Ascend, launched a new campaign called the other side with other AAPI leaders, like Eric Tota from Facebook, and Sharda Cherwoo from Ernst & Young. Just would love to have you share a little bit more with us about the important work that you’re doing there, particularly recognizing bias and bringing the leadership gap into focus with Ascend?

Soyoung
I mean, I think that for me, my journey as a member of the AAPI community, it’s been a winding journey. I would say that earlier in my career, and I say this through the Ascend work too, I spent more time trying to fit in and not stick out, and trying to sort of erase the otherness in my identity in the earlier phases of my career. I think that it really took… Partially I think I’m immensely grateful for my partners, as well as my leadership at EOS for giving me the space. Just sort of letting me be me, and not have to erase that otherness, and giving me that sort of open space to do that. But that’s really recent for me, that’s only the last few years of my career, so that’s a long time to sort of not be bringing your whole self to work. So, it started sort of when I first joined EOS, but really accelerated during this pandemic when the incidences of race-based bias, and frankly, attacks on members of the AAPI community started to accelerate.

That really happened at the beginning of the pandemic, although, the news didn’t really cover it until I would say close to a year later. So, most of the attacks started in the first quarter, actually, really that February, March timeframe of 2020. When you look at actually the data that’s been collected, because they started collecting the data in February. There were as many incidents in 2020 as there were in 2021, but the coverage, the media coverage, really didn’t accelerate until the beginning of 2021.

So, being a member of the community, and therefore, being more aware at the time, before the media started to cover this, I felt really helpless. I just felt like what can I do as an individual? It’s sort of this is my time to sort of be part of making change, and helping to get us to a better place. But, I didn’t really know how to direct my energies, because there was a lot of what was needed, frankly, in 2020 was grassroots community-based organization, protection, community-based dialogue with other maybe coalitions of different communities of color, that helped it come together, and help support safer communities, and more understanding, and exchange of ideas. That’s not my expertise, even though I desperately wanted to be part of the change and the solution. What I actually discovered through the course of 2020 is I was networking with different Asian leaders. We’re trying to figure out what can we do? Kind of going on the speaker circuit wherever we could, but for me, personally, not really knowing how to gel all of this desire into actionable output until I discovered Ascend. Because the Ascend organization, close to the end of 2020, asked me on a volunteer basis, part of their executive network leadership group, to basically help to co-chair the marketing executive subgroup within Ascend.

Ascend is the largest Pan-Asian professional organization in all of North America. There are tens of thousands of members. It starts all the way from on-campus groups, all the way up through to board service, retirees, things like that. So, it’s quite a massive organization, and really the whole purpose of it is to help to support Asians along their professional journey, and help them achieve success. In order to, starting from corporate America, create more change, more representation, and more equity across all other aspects of life, not just in corporate. So, this campaign is really an awareness campaign, it’s the first time Ascend’s actually doing an awareness campaign to shine a light on to show the great work that Ascend is doing by highlighting all of these executives who didn’t have an organization like this to support them through their journey. So, it’s an immense honor and privilege to be part of the campaign.

The campaign’s been shown through things like we had a billboard in Time Square, and blog postings, and through social media, and through paid media. So, it’s been really an incredible journey, and it’s been a great way for me personally to be able to focus and say like, “Okay, I might not be able to do everything, and I might not have frankly the skills or the expertise to do everything, but this is something that I can do. This is something that I can support and really dedicate and focus.” I think that that’s for anybody out there who wants to help in any sort of cause, but doesn’t really know how to, you don’t have to do everything. You just pick a thing, and you do that, and if you focus on that, I think that, for me, that’s how I’ve really felt that I’ve been able to maximize my impact for good.

Sarah
That’s so powerful, I think that notion that this organization is one that brings in and works with people from even before they’re starting their careers, and becoming that resource all the way through that journey, we need that support all along and all throughout our careers. Then also, really kind of saying, “Hey, we need to change the landscape, and change the game of how we’re thinking about leaders and leadership to create that greater representation and inclusion.” So, really, really important work, and definitely want to encourage organizations and brands to look into what Ascend is doing, and get involved, and support that initiative. Thank you for sharing that, you are an incredible leader inside and outside of EOS, so I love hearing all of these facets of the conversation. I know we have a lot of folks who are very curious to ask some questions as well, so I’d love to open this up to some audience Q and A, with Crystal coming back. Hi, Crystal, and getting into some of what we’ve been hearing rising in the chat.

Crystal
All right, so you talked a lot about failures and kind of learning as you go. We would love to know, what is a big mistake that you’ve made in the past and how can we learn from it?

Soyoung
Oh my God, I literally feel like I make mistakes all the time, and it’s sort of if you don’t try…. If you’re trying, you’re always going to make some mistakes, because that’s essentially… It’s inherent in trying something that might not be the sort of the steady, safe, and the well-trodden course. My biggest mistakes I feel like that I typically regret the most aren’t actually related to the business. They’re not related to things that are in my day-to-day, like a product decision I made, I’ve made plenty of those. I’m not saying that I haven’t made those mistakes, but they’re not the ones that keep me up at night.

My biggest mistakes, I feel like that I regret, and I continue to think about, are times when I feel like I missed an opportunity to be a great leader. Those are really the times when I feel like, “Crap, I could have shown up better, I could have reached out to this person who maybe was stressed out, or didn’t know how to do their role,” or whatever it was. Those are the things that honestly keep me up, and they kind of haunt me for long periods of time afterwards. Where I really think a lot about what I could have done differently, what I could have done better, and trying to kind of make sure I kind of catch myself so I can learn from the mistakes, instead of repeating them. But those are the ones that I think hurt the most. I’ve made a lot of business mistakes, I’m sure I have, but those kind of, they come and go. It’s the people that I think those are the ones that hurt

Sarah
It’s that ability I think that you naturally talked about throughout this conversation, that self-reflection, that learning, and continuing to move forward in light of those experiences. So, I think that’s something we can all relate to, so thank you for being honest and sharing that. Crystal, what other topics do we want to dive into?

Crystal
How do you encourage and support your team to take risks?

Soyoung
Well, so I think that in order for people to take risks and bring you risky/scary ideas, you have to make it a safe space for people to do that. You have to actually make sure that, number one, your team knows that you’re looking for scary ideas. Then number two, when you do make the decisions to go with the scary ideas, you’re all in. Meaning, as a team, you’re all in. This wasn’t one person’s crazy idea, this was an idea that we all endorsed, and got behind, because people need to feel like they’re supported and protected. If something goes sideways and they feel that… You can’t have people feel that it’s their mistake. Because, guess what? That person is never going to come to you with a brave idea ever again. So, you really do have to give people cover and create a safe space to allow for people to be brave.

Sarah
That’s so true, I think it’s… The one team, one dream mentality, and then really kind of truly sharing in those goals. You’re sharing in the learning, you’re sharing in the success. You’re lifting each other up when you’re hitting those roadblocks, so that’s so, so important to embrace. Crystal, what else do we have?

Crystal
Are there ever challenges in preserving time and budget, and how do you ensure that you keep it as a priority?

Soyoung
Oh, my God, I mean, every time, who doesn’t want more time and more money? Every time, and so I do think that… I have a tendency to always want a little bit extra, it’s sort of like the cherry on top, and then you add one more, just one more, just a little bit more. So, I think that we have… It’s like that old saying, your eyes are bigger than your stomach. Oftentimes, my eyes are bigger than my stomach when it comes to both time and money. But you just have to obviously at the end of the day make those tough choices, where you sort of have to get real about how much time and how much money you actually do have.

Soyoung
I think that in anything that you do, whatever the output is, if it can look like it took more time, or look like it cost more money. But even if it didn’t, that’s ultimately sort of the goal. To be honest, for us, where we operate, because oftentimes, we operate in channels of distribution that maybe… Where the level of investment from a cost, a budget perspective in product or design, or whatever, it doesn’t seem like it’s super premium or elevated. So, a little bit actually goes a really long way, just a little extra goes a really long way in the channels in which we sell.

Sarah
I think that stretching a little further, being a little bit braver than your neighbor, and then using within that. That mindset of being really smart with the resources you have, so it’s kind of that magic recipe.

Crystal
So, we have another question, you mentioned the magic of connecting with your customer. How do you keep those connections fresh and genuine?

Soyoung
It’s so important, so it was actually so much easier when I worked in retail, because basically, you own your own channels of distribution. So, we actually used to be out in stores, I would say during the high season, pretty much every week. Then during quieter seasons, maybe once every three to four weeks, or so, but that’s actually… Well, that’s a lot. We would be out in stores and there was a period of time, several years, where I would actually work, sell and work, in Bath and Body Works stores every four weeks, without fail. So, a day every four weeks, you learn so much, you appreciate so much. That’s where I say I think all of the things that you sweat over, and you’re anxious about as a marketer, as a designer, whatever, you realize what matters and how many things don’t matter.

So, and you learn that, because you see it, you viscerally see, you see that what consumers are experiencing is totally different than what you experience as the creator of the stuff. Yet, at the same time, you also gain this unbelievable appreciation for the people who make your job possible, because these consumers make your job possible. So, you have this unbelievable respect for their opinion, and what they think. Today, I don’t have that anymore, so I don’t have retail. I can’t go out and just tap someone on the shoulder and ask them a bunch of questions, they’d be really annoyed at me. What I do is actually, I spend a lot of time in our social media and just reading, I spend a lot of time reading.

I do try to talk to people too. I mean, we have things like we have a closed Facebook group of our super fans who… They give us a lot of insights, so we have different kind of instruments in place that are sort of structured ways for us to get feedback. But when I’m actually just looking for every single day, kind of staying on the pulse of what people are saying, I actually find that people are sharing way more on social media than they would maybe even in my prior life. So, I go deep into the comments section, and try to get a sense of what the sentiment is. That’s a huge part of, for me, where I find some of the best insights.

Sarah
I think that mirrors a lot of what we find as well, just in terms of people are willing to tell you a lot more of their kind of deep secrets when they’re talking into their phone, or kind of sharing a story like that. But I love that sense of whichever kind of phase you’ve been at in your career and brand, it’s finding and going to the source of that community. So, whether that was being in stores, in that exchange with the customers, or really kind of diving in and understanding those conversations on social. It’s really kind of going back to that community, and then they really help kind of shape and fuel what goes forward. So, I think we have time for one more question, Crystal.

Crystal
Another question is how did you convince everyone else in leadership to take the risk?

Soyoung
I have to give credit to my CEO, he really has a lot of trust in what our team is doing, and sort of lets us go and kind of do what we do without really putting a lot of constraints on us. Now, we’ve earned that trust over time, and generally speaking, we’ve gotten more things right than wrong. I think that that does take a little bit of time to build up that trust. But I’m really fortunate that I have that sort of confidence from the rest of the leadership team to be able to let us do what we’re doing. In fact, when we did that whole, what we call our cooch blessing shave cream, I actually didn’t run it by anybody.

Soyoung
I just slapped those words on our product, and just did it, and I completely… Because we were moving so fast, we had no time to just stop and run it up the chain of command and all this. We just basically were like, “Go, go, go,” and it ended up being amazing. But I kind of, at the time, was like, “Oh shoot, should I have asked somebody if I’m allowed to do this?” I kind of forgot to ask, I’m like, “Hope it works,” and it did. But, it is amazing how when you have leadership that really gives the team accountability and ownership over their own areas, and lets them actually do what they do, what you get back. How great the work is, how brave it is, is actually multiple times more than if you’re kind of managing everything super tight as a leader.

Sarah
I love that, being brave, and flying the plane, and making it happen. Well, I just wanted to say thank you so much for joining us tonight, and thank you, Crystal, for helping us go into all those great audience questions. You shared a ton of inspiring insights, and dropped some serious knowledge, so this really can, I think, give us some great learnings of how to connect with that rising generation. You truly do make it awesome with everything that you do, so we’re so looking forward to seeing what you do next.

Soyoung
Thank you so much, this was so much fun, and you know how much I love chatting with you, Sarah, so it was such a pleasure.

Sarah
Well, thank you, and thanks everyone for joining us this evening, and the great questions. We’re sure to be back with some inspiring events coming up in the future, but I personally feel very fueled up and inspired by what we’ve discussed and talked about tonight, and looking forward to taking that into 2022. So, thank you again, Soyoung, and we’ll see you all soon, good night.

Soyoung
Good night, everyone.