Unlocking Amazon’s Power for Beauty Brand Growth

What brands do off Amazon is equally as important as what they do on Amazon — “even if you’re off Amazon, you’re on Amazon.”

That was the word from Christopher Skinner, cofounder and chief revenue officer of Front Row, who gave a keynote speech at WWD’s L.A. Beauty Forum. He was later joined by Hannah Beals, chief executive officer, Amanda Martinez, senior director of social media and content, and Jessica Ryan, vice president of sales, at Ouai, as a case study about how the company uses virality to grow through its Amazon storefront.

Skinner spoke about how, over the years, Front Row has built a network of more than 500 experts with deeply rooted expertise and brand demands — with Amazon being the “core engine of conversion.” The company also has a proprietary technology that helps brands track their instrumentality and how it shows up in the various omnichannel.

“We have to knock the blinders off and understand that everything that you’re doing in one part of the ecosystem has an effect across the rest of the ecosystem,” Skinner said. “That level of thinking is what allows us to grow brands beyond competitors and categories, particularly in beauty, health and wellness to areas where we’re deeply enriched. It allows us to have a seat at all of those interactions and exchanges across the entire connected commerce journey — bringing brand, demand, direct-to-consumer and Amazon together.”

Beals, Martinez and Ryan then joined Skinner on stage — Beals recently became CEO in the last year, moving from her previous position as chief marketing officer.

“Understanding your customer and where they shop, how they shop and how you reach them is a key part of growing the business,” Beals said. “Having an innate understanding of content strategy and all the different areas to reach is a core part of leading.”

A notable shift that’s occurred in the last five years is that people are spending more than 90 minutes a day on TikTok, which has, in turn, helped accelerate the creator economy and allowed indie brands and challenger brands to blow up overnight.

“I think people are looking for stuff in different channels at different times in different places for different reasons, but they’re shopping in all channels that we’re available now,” Beals said.

Martinez said that given the massive amounts of content, it can feel overwhelming but there’s more opportunity than ever before — she cited that Instagram just hit more than 3 billion users.

While traditional marketers aren’t as willing to bend the brand, Martinez noted that social-first marketers understand the brand better than anyone; brands need to have more flexibility and fluidity in their content. Ouai has leveraged people mispronouncing its name on TikTok and turned it into their best-performing and viral moments.

“Virality is the best and worst thing for anybody,” Ryan said. “Ouai has been very fortunate in that a majority of our skus that have gone viral aren’t ones that are efficacious skus. They go viral because they really work and they become a core part of somebody’s routine.”

When reacting to virality, Ryan said that Amazon has become Ouai’s best partner.

“Amazon is our fastest-growing channel; it’s become a massive player in premium beauty. I think we kind of saw that coming, but not at the scale — and that’s why it’s so important. It really is a major beneficiary of our brand health more broadly. What we initially thought was gonna be a replenish replenishment platform for the brand, it has really become a destination for discovery,” Beals concluded.