How do you bring the so-called “beauty marketing
playbook” into the baby category? And not just for any baby products, but for organic, non-toxic, “wellness-focused” ones?
That’s the task facing Stephanie Davis
Michelman, named this morning as the first-ever president of HealthyBaby, which began five years ago with diapers and wipes and has since expanded into such areas as prenatal vitamins and cleaning
products. The company has been on a roll of late, with sales up 60% last year, and its presence in brick-and-mortar Target stores growing to 1,100 stores this month.
Michelman, in charge of
sales, digital, and portfolio development in addition to marketing, comes out of the beauty industry. She was most recently CEO of skincare brand The Inkey List, and during her 20+-year career was
also global CMO of Benefit Cosmetics, vice president and general manager of Bobbi Brown Cosmetics, and CMO of fragrance company Nest NY, after starting her career at L’Oreal.
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So I asked
her how the beauty marketing playbook (which I admittedly know very little about) could apply to HealthyBaby.
“Beauty leverages so many different voices outside of just the brand,”
she offers. “It’s using influencers and content creators, and gifting and event-ing within the community to really drive engagement and drive reach.”
Social-first thinking
has been key, she said. “During my time at Next and Inkey, we developed robust strategies that really brought influencers and content creators into the community. The other part is tapping into
real consumers who care about what you’re talking about and involving them in the conversation. So, at Inkey, we were really big on doing a lot of consumer events, where you could talk about why
you formulated products differently, why you thought about packaging differently.
“We have the same opportunity within HealthyBaby,” she adds. “People have millions of questions about
the products they’re using, how to use them, how they should think about their baby’s development….There’s no better way to connect and to bring engagement than these in-person,
physical meetings and events with consumers, and then following that up with social-first content that reiterates everything you were saying about your mission and your products.”
It’s too early for Michelman to name any specific activities the brand is planning but the whole concept of marketing that focuses on experiential backed by social followup is new to Healthy
Baby. The company’s previous marketing approach? “It was more through word of mouth,” she says.
One outside voice already
being used effectively by Healthy Baby is its chief innovation officer, actress Hilary Swank. The title was given to Swank two years ago with the promise that she would collaborate with HealthyBaby
founder-CEO Shazi Visram “to shape the future of the brand” and “co-create product innovations across categories.”
Swank “found us because she was looking for the best
possible products for her twins,” notes Michelman, who says Swank will continue to play a key role in HealthyBaby’s marketing.
Michelman is also looking forward to collaborating
with Visram, whom she cites as a key reason why she changed industries.
Visram, she explains, has been on a 20-year crusade “to ensure that babies and families have the best possible
foods and the best possible essentials to ensure healthy outcomes.”
That mission began in 2003 when Visram founded Happy Baby Organics, later called Happy Family, and sold to Danone 10
years later.
Fast-forward a few years to the launch of HealthyBaby, which resulted from wanting safe products for her own baby with autism.
“Health is the new luxury,”
Michelman states, citing how people in general are increasingly looking for organic, non-toxic products.” “Beauty is going in the direction of wellness,” she notes, but “when
you talk about babies, it’s a whole other level.”
Turning back to the beauty marketing playbook, Michelman sees a couple of areas where baby marketing has much in common:
Transparency. “Parents and caregivers want to understand what materials are being used in their products, what they’re feeding their children, what preservatives
are included,” she says. “The same thing happened with beauty, where there was this movement [toward] greater transparency and people started going towards cleaner brands.”
“Challenger brands” leading change.“A lot of startups in beauty were just thinking differently about how they started brands, the sort of ingredients they
used,” she relates. “The indie brands in baby are doing the exact same things.
She points to HealthyBaby being the first in its category to seek and receive a certification from
the Environmental Working Group for a diaper. To get that, “they had to go through rigorous testing of all ingredients and materials,” she explains, “something that had never, ever
been done before.”
