Earned: Unlocking the Power of the Creator Economy

In our sixth Earned episode and second virtual interview, Conor chats with Divya Gugnani, co-founder and CEO of Wander Beauty, a digitally native beauty brand launched in 2015. Divya earned a B.S. at Cornell and an M.B.A. at Harvard, but claims her “hardest degree” was from the French Culinary Institute—though these reflect just a few of the serial entrepreneur’s many impressive endeavors. We dive into Divya’s “accidental” journey to entrepreneurship and the valuable lessons she’s learned along the way, before hearing how a chance encounter with Lindsay Ellingson (Wander Beauty’s co-founder and creative director) at a party led to the brand’s conception. Divya reveals how COVID-19 has forced a shake-up in the Wander Beauty’s “on-the-go” messaging and marketing strategies, and emphasizes the importance of listening to your community in difficult times. And of course, we also get to hear Wander Beauty’s approach to building long-lasting influencer relationships.

In Earned’s first remote episode, Conor (virtually) sits down with Sarah Lee and Christine Chang, co-founders of cult-favorite skincare brand Glow Recipe. We dive into Sarah and Christine’s unique backgrounds, as they unpack what they learned growing up across different countries and cultures. We then learn about their time working together at L'Oréal Korea, and what it was like to transition from the big corporation “bubble” into a two-man band at Glow Recipe. Christine and Sarah detail their close-knit co-founder dynamic, and reveal why they decided to pivot Glow Recipe from a curation business to an in-house skincare line of fruit-powered products in 2017. The founders also share their 360-degree approach to brand marketing, their personalized and authentic influencer outreach strategy, and their journey to building the Real Glow Gang, a passionate and highly engaged community of skincare—and Glow Recipe—enthusiasts.

In Earned Episode 4, Conor interviews Mehdi Mehdi, chief digital officer at Selena Gomez’s highly anticipated beauty line Rare Beauty, and former VP of Digital at NYX Professional Makeup. We learn that Mehdi, who spent most of his childhood in Beirut, attributes much of who he is—and where he is—today to what he learned growing up in Lebanon. After moving back to the States to study political science, Mehdi explains how he eventually found his way into the beauty world, and walks us through the early days of NYX—revealing how he helped turn a small name brand (at the time) into a social media powerhouse and influencer marketing trailblazer. Mehdi talks about the importance of understanding your consumer’s perspective and leveraging your influencer community, and shares his most-used marketing strategies, including a thoughtful approach to building long-term influencer relationships.

In episode 3 of Earned, by Tribe Dynamics, Conor sits down with Evelyn Wang, CMO of cult-favorite masstige cosmetics brand Milani. We dive into Evelyn’s unexpected path to the beauty industry, beginning with a degree in Psychoanalytic Thought from a Toronto university, to a business degree at USC (with her sights set on the entertainment industry), before an internship at L'Oréal Paris eventually led her to senior leadership positions at major beauty corporations like Estée Lauder and Johnson & Johnson. Evelyn unpacks the transition from working at these large, publicly traded companies, to leading the marketing departments of smaller, independent brands like Wet n Wild, and, since 2018, Milani. We find out her core marketing philosophies, including the importance of a compelling brand story and the necessity of details, plus her thoughts on the influencer marketing space and Milani’s personalized approach to working with content creators.

In Episode 2 of Earned, Tribe Dynamics co-founder Conor Begley chats with Jordynn Wynn, co-founder of rising hair extensions brand Insert Name Here (yes, that’s the name!) and marketing director at ColourPop. Raised in a small Montana town, Jordynn reveals how she wound up becoming the first official hire at ColourPop at age 21, and pulls back the curtain on the brand’s humble beginnings. Jordynn also shares why she, alongside former Pepperdine classmate and ColourPop colleague Sharon Pak and entrepreneur Kevin Gould, decided to enter the hair space and found wig, ponytail, and extensions brand Insert Name Here. We unpack how Jordynn’s learnings from ColourPop inform INH’s marketing strategy, and discuss the active role social media influencers have played in the hair brand’s initial success.

Welcome to Earned, an influencer marketing podcast by Tribe Dynamics! In this insightful first episode of our new show, our co-founder Conor Begley sits down with Ashton Wall, director of performance marketing at ColourPop—one of today’s most popular beauty brands in earned media. Ashton talks about her background (which includes both a business degree from Santa Clara University and a product development degree from FIDM) and takes us on the journey that led her to landing her “dream job” at ColourPop. We dive into her career role models (including her former boss, Tracy DiNunzio, founder of Tradesy) and favorite marketing philosophies (“magic happens in real time”), before Ashton reveals some of the key strategies behind ColourPop’s coveted success, online and off.  We also cover the evolution of brand-consumer relationships in the social media era, with advice from Ashton to young professionals looking to build careers in marketing. And keep listening for Ashton’s answers to Conor’s rapid fire questions, like her favorite book, the shows she’s binge-watching, and her *interesting* celebrity crush.