Under the direction of Alexis Tedesco, who joined Living Proof earlier this year as Chief Marketing Officer, the brand is leveraging its credibility as an MIT-founded, science-backed brand with a campaign called Science in Action. Yearly sales of the brand are up more than 32 percent since 2019—the biggest year ever for the brand. Living Proof Perfect Hair Day Dry Shampoo is the number-one dry shampoo in the prestige category, according to industry data. Here, Alexis discusses what attracted her to Living Proof, the brand’s new marketing efforts and why TikTok is so influential—and impactful to the brand.
Beauty News: You were most recently at Beautyblender where you helped grow the brand from a tool category to a full cosmetics line. What attracted you to make the move into hair care and Living Proof?
Alexis Tedesco: I have loved this brand long before I was given the opportunity to work here. But hands down the most special thing about Living Proof is the company’s quest to innovate from a completely unique perspective. At its core, Living Proof is a technology company that happens to make amazing hair care products. Everyone here has a passion for innovation and the teams operate in this unique space where it’s not about trends – its only about science and how that science can be applied to make products unlike anything else out there. After 15 years, they haven’t slowed down or gotten complacent. We still have three labs in our offices in Boston, we still own the entire research, development and testing from start to finish in-house. This allows the brand to evolve as quickly as the science does. And it ensures a level of performance and ingenuity that is bar none. It’s amazing to see and so much fun to be a part of.
BN: Why is the Science in Action positioning so important?
AT: Science in Action is at the heart of how we work and behave as a team and as a brand. It is also what sets us apart. We don’t take a ‘one size fits all’ approach to our formulas and staying at the tipping point of technology requires us to never stop developing new formulas that improve upon what we thought was ‘the best.’
BN: Can you use an example?
AT: A great example of that is Dry Shampoo. We took one of our best-selling products and challenged ourselves to develop the ‘next generation’ of what a dry shampoo could be. That meant coming up with new technology that literally mimicked the process of washing hair without water, have it care for your scalp so it isn’t itchy and dry, protect against UV damage and leave no residue. That’s a tall order but that’s science in action. When we talk about repairing damaged hair without covering it in silicone, strengthening curls with our patented complex, tame frizz without weighing it down, add volume to thin hair with our patented molecule that literally puts space between strands…. that’s all science in action. And how you feel when you trust that the products you used delivered the best version of your hair, that’s also science in action.
BN: Discuss the new campaign and how the brand looks to get maximum impact without breaking budget.
AT: The new campaign is really about putting the brand’s ethos front and center and focusing on our consumer as ‘the proof.’ We approach each hair challenge differently with one-of-a-kind technologies that are designed to actually solve the problem instead of just masking it. The result is brilliant, healthy hair. And since we are all about performance, we wanted the new visual ID to have that same presence—a clean, modern look that allows us to simply show off the proof without a lot of other distractions. When it came to making an impact within budget, it was about taking a slightly less conventional approach to how we market this campaign. Yes, there are beautiful visuals to kick this off, but then the plan was to quickly turn to our community and real people to show off their proof, their hair.
BN: How do you approach online and physical store sales? What’s on tap for international expansion?
AT: We started as a retail-first brand which, when we launched, was not the norm in prestige hair care. So, we are extremely passionate about our brick-and-mortar business. Nothing can replace the experience in a store to do dry styling or meet with a representative to learn about a product first-hand. It’s a place to discover and that has continued to remain a priority for us. But the online business is where we can be a little more nimble, bring the customer on a journey and showcase the ‘proof’ in a more immediate way that lends itself to faster trial in a lot of cases. It is also where we spend a lot of effort to build buzz and awareness. The online and DTC business have been a great success for the brand and campaigns like this are designed to keep driving that forward.
Internationally, we have taken a very controlled approach and focus mainly on the U.K. and China markets currently. The philosophy has been to go ‘narrow and deep’ so we have the ability to be effective in the market while growing brand awareness. We have our eyes set on some other international markets come 2022 and beyond but more to come on that.
BN: TikTok is gaining traction with beauty brands and igniting huge sales gains. How important is it to Living Proof, how will you use it? How were content creators picked?
AT: TikTok is super important to us. I come from makeup where education, transformation and influencer advocacy drove the business. I feel the same opportunities are there for the hair category and TikTok is a platform where so much discovery can be done in a fun and engaging way. We are taking an ‘edu-tainment’ approach to our TikTok strategy—a little bit of education mixed with a level of entertainment that the platform is famous for. We partnered with the amazing team at Movers + Shakers to create our custom sound for this campaign and picked creators that spanned hair influencers, comedy creators, natural hair enthusiasts and experimenters.
BN: What are different approaches for YouTube, Facebook? Instagram?
AT: Facebook and IG have historically been the bedrock of our campaigns and where we have typically done the most engagement with our online community. Looking forward, our strategy here has really shifted from a content perspective. We see this as the home of less branded content and much more UGC and community derived content. Its where we get to constantly show ‘the proof’ from our fans. YouTube is continuing to be a big priority for us. It is a channel that can help bring some of our amazing science to life through reimagined video content that demonstrates the products’ performance level while demystifying how the science actually works.
BN: How are you using podcasts?
AT: Podcasts are about meeting our customer at different moments throughout their day. It was important to work with podcast hosts that had some previous connection to the brand. Their personal testimonials and product recommendations were key here – what can’t they live without from Living Proof and why? The brand love is so strong for these amazing products, and we wanted to showcase that within this medium.
BN: How has the business changed in the past few years?
AT: There is definitely a lot more noise being made in the hair care space – which is always a good thing. I think the customer’s demand for transparency and passion for knowledge around how their products work, fundamentally, is a welcomed shift for us and we are thrilled to now have a captive audience. I think the demand for innovation is at an all-time high, across all beauty categories, and with our digital ecosystem moving so fast priorities internally have had to shift to best support the growth.
BN: Why are we seeing such growth in premium hair right now?
AT: I think the way the consumer shops for prestige hair care has fundamentally changed. Because of the pandemic, everyone that was used to buying their hair products in a salon, from their stylist, for the most part had to shop elsewhere. There are also more places for her to find prestige hair care now, so it’s become a category of exploration and trying new brands. Couple that with getting into a cycle of self-care that involved your hair during the pandemic and you start to see this massive growth.
BN: What are your goals for 2022, business and personal?
AT: Living Proof in 2022 will be all about continuing to build off of the momentum we have seen this year. With so many exciting projects on the horizon my goal is to help Living Proof open new doors and reach a wider audience in an engaging and impactful way.
Personally, like most, I don’t think we are really over all that happened in 2020 just yet. In 2022 I’m really looking forward to staying present and enjoying the moment. There has been so much change in the last two years that I’m looking forward to a little stability, hopefully, so I can take a second to look around and enjoy.