Ep 550: Ad Library Teardown: Crown Affair’s Ritual-Driven Growth Strategy

0:00Aves:Our Crown Affair live brand breakdown. Something that is difficult about these brands, what the heck is a three-course ritual for your hair? I always find with brands that are sort of DTC darling, sometimes you click into that ad library and we're like trying to sell everything under the sun. I would bet this product is an easy acquisition win for them. You really have to make the distinction, I think, from like a strategy level. is someone feasibly going to purchase that or is the route get someone to purchase it because the AOV is quite high and then you get them with the ink card upsell. If your focus is trying to like curate a beautiful aesthetic grid you're missing out you've got to go deeper with how you engage.

0:51Aves:It's all killer no filler I'm Eric and today we have a very special returning guest Aves back on the D2C podcast. First of all, Aiz, before we dive into our Crown Affair live brand breakdown or ad library breakdown that we're going to do today, give the listeners who have not started listening to Adventurous yet the number one reason why they should be listening to Adventurous. I would say the number one reason you should be listening to Adventurous is to make better ads by expanding your horizons. I was just reading that The Onion is way up in subscribers because they have started producing a print magazine.

1:33And that kind of like returned to form. I was also, yeah, just reading this article about specifically Gen Z clamoring for like real things in this digital era. That is the kind of stuff that we tend to talk about. The first episode ever of Adventurous was about milk, got milk, my favorite out of all time. And that's the kind of stuff that we tend to talk about. So if you want to make better ads by returning the fundamentals, give it a listen.

1:59Aves:I liked your most recent episode about Cringe Mountain because I think that's like a meta skill when it comes to making meta ads is that ability to sort of get over yourself and put yourself out there and not worry about being perceived as cringe. Totally. Yeah. that episode came from honestly a lot of people internally and externally giving me that feedback they were like it doesn't seem like you care and I was like that's right on the money I would rather do stuff have a good time than be nervous about people perceiving me as cringe and then I started thinking like this could be an episode because a lot of people were giving me that feedback and I was like either I'm the lamest person of all time and so cringe and cringe maxing maybe or there's something here because this is not how most people feel, which is, I don't care about looking stupid.

2:47I feel like looking stupid is like a precursor to having fun also.

2:50Aves:Yes. And nobody cares. Nobody really cares what you should not really care what other people think about you anyway. So whimsy maxing to the max. Totally. I was just going to say, I've never once seen a video that someone posted and then like gone to sleep that night and been like, I can't believe Eric posted that video. That was so lame. Like nobody thinks about you or what you're posting that much. Good takeaway. All right. On to this new format that we're trying out where we basically, I've just been looking around for really cool D2C brands. Ideally want to bring them on the podcast eventually, but for starters, let's do a live breakdown of the Crown Affair, which is a hair care brand.

3:28Aves:Apparently, currently, you can check me if I'm wrong about this. I got it from ChatGPT, but currently between 20 and$30 million in revenue, Series B funded. It's a premium ritual-focused hair care brand built on content, community, and clean beauty principles. So maybe I can do a quick screen share here and we can maybe start, maybe just start on their website and we'll go into their ad library first. Okay. So we are looking at the crown affair. What are your like high level impressions of this brand? First of all, I feel like a good disclaimer is like I have purchased from these guys. I haven't tried it yet.

4:03It's waiting for me in another hemisphere. so good disclaimer even before Eric brought this brand to me like I was interested in them website wise I'm saying that as a disclaimer because I'm going to kind of rip apart what they have going on above the fold it's not super accessible it's not super clear I think that something that is difficult about these brands and again I've already purchased so take this with a grain of salt something really interesting is like what the heck is a three course ritual for your hair it immediately doesn't make any sense to someone coming in from the top of the funnel we don't know how they're testing landing pages we don't know where they're sending traffic but yeah it's like difficult to read first of all white on a light background is just a very tactical bad move but it's also really difficult to understand from the beginning and I know we're all like obsessed with food in the beauty industry specifically right now and like bringing our products to this really like tactile place.

5:03But yeah, from that image at the top, it kind of looks like a mushroom to me. I don't know about you. It's very difficult to tell what we're being sold.

5:11Aves:I think you're right. Like it doesn't if you don't know the brand, you don't know that it has anything to do with hair except that she has lovely hair when you get here. I do love the positioning of ritual at the highest level of brand strategy. I think that's like actually like one of the, it's the cardinal rule of hair care, which was you doubled sales by saying wash, rinse and repeat by adding and repeat. So this idea of like forming a ritual and building that into the core of your brand at the highest level strategically, I think makes a ton of sense. And there's maybe a reason for some of their success.

5:44Aves:I see what you mean though, tactically about some of their aesthetic choices. I used to like see them tie the ritual to a benefit. So it's like healthy hair for our ritual where it's like, you're not really getting that immediately, but that would be because I think like rinse, wash, repeat, the like immediate benefit is like silky hair, I guess, when we're boots on the ground coming up with that. So this one is like, what is the, what is the benefit to a ritual? Well, it's used twice as much as product. That's the real genius of it because it gets you to go through your product twice as fast.

6:18Aves:Um, but tying it to, yeah, to a ritual that you're, and I think you need at least three steps in a ritual. I don't know if that's true. Um, but very clean, minimal design. I really liked the brand aesthetic of it. Yeah. Below the fold, very like consistent, clean. This is kind of a read, I guess, but something that is for some reason not always happening, I guess, is like showing models with hair that is kind of aspirational. um i think it was blake lively launched a hair care brand and her thing is really messy hair and kind of dried and it just doesn't look the healthiest so i love seeing like actual imagery that i feel like is really like connecting the dots we've got like images of really healthy silky hair and then we've got the product in like what looks like my nightstand to be honest in a very in its natural home environment so it's cool cool branding okay let's jump over to their ad library.

7:18Aves:And we can take a look at the way that they're presenting themselves on ads. I just got the fact that the crown affair is a pun because you're crown the crown affair. It's got a lot going on there. It's got that regal air to it. It's got the air of drama. You know what I mean? If it's got the affair, there's some drama there. And here we've got some of their ads. Of course, you can watch our live stream of this on our Spotify account or on our YouTube page, or you can just listen to us describe these wonderful ads. What do you think of what you're seeing in their ad library? I'm seeing like an immediate pretty good mix.

7:56So if you're listening, something that's really coming through with Crown Affair is there is a mixture of CGC content. So you see a lot of organic style, some very branded like testimonials. We're looking at one right now with like the Allure beauty badge, which has specifically motivated me to buy previously. And then we've also got like a ton of press reviews with very branded photography as well, which I think for beauty specifically really matters because we're so oversaturated. So differentiating ourselves from both like a ad type point of view. So like I said, we've got greater content representing kind of more organic, accessible, and then really aspirational stuff.

8:38So that's always a really good sign to see in any ad library means it's like a healthy mix.

8:44Aves:I like these, uh, these bolded statements here that really sort of go right to the, your pain point, right? Like so much healthier than spray. Everyone's worried that their products are not healthy. Second day hair that feels clean, not coated. It just like evokes that feeling that if I had hair, I would imagine what it felt like. Totally. Yeah. I think like something to, to describe if you're listening is, um, there's a a lot of ads focused on a like dry shampoo product that is very atypical in how you apply it. So usually you spray that onto your head, but this is like a powder that comes with a brush.

9:20So it's very simple and already like a differentiator, I feel like. So they're really, I think, leaning into the visual differences with this as a dry shampoo versus like that aerosol filled cans, which is also really cool.

9:35Aves:And really focusing on, it looks like, and it's hard to tell just from a cursory glance at the ad library, but focusing on that dry shampoo as a hero skew. Yeah, that's really interesting. Like coming from the website to here, I always find with brands that are sort of DTC darling, sometimes you click into that ad library and we're like trying to sell everything under the sun. So it was really cool to see like probably a fine tune strategy. Like I would bet this product is an easy acquisition win for them compared to like maybe a serum or something that's a little bit more evolved in that ritual.

10:12Like most people with hair, that sounds like a read to you, Eric, but it's not. But a lot of people with hair do use dry shampoo. Like it's a common product to own. So I like that they're not trying to immediately sell someone on a three-step routine or whatever it is. Like they're focusing on something that's accessible, doing that through meta. And that's kind of like the secret sauce, the winning formula most of the time.

10:34Aves:They're also running a lot of ads that drive you to retail to shop with their partnership at Sephora, which I think is worth a shout. That is interesting. I feel like it's revealing a lot about myself. If someone loves buying things from Sephora or an Australia Mecca, that is a real signal of quality almost in the marketplace, I think. and a way to just prove that you're a legitimate brand. And I already said this, a very oversaturated market. There are so many different beauty brands popping up all the time. So it's so competitive that if you just get the shelf space in Sephora, it already gives you some social proof, which is really cool.

11:19Aves:And they're launching lots of ads. They've got really good velocity, it seems. We're getting down more into some UGC ads for their Air Moose product with many diverse kinds of hair. as you were saying. Yeah, I was just going to say it's really like cool to see how many different hair types are popping up. Because that's another concern, I guess, with brands like this. Like if you're just using people who have the same hair type and it's like an aspirational hair type, then I'm probably not going to buy it. I have sort of thin hair. I'm always using heat. It's a little damaged. You want to see like actual hair, not super edited.

11:57Aves:I'm not seeing, oh, founder-led content. And I actually, like in my analysis of this brand when I was using ChatGPT, I think this is the founder here, actually, I believe. And I think once you get into their retention program, they really lean heavily on the founder angle, but it doesn't appear to be as prevalent in their ads. Interesting. I wonder if they just haven't tested or found the winning way to present the founder across like more top of funnel channels. And I do see a lot of reference to that idea of a ritual in a way, right? Where, because once you have people locked in on those rituals, they pay out cash.

12:32Yeah, something I really like that I'm seeing here is that they're like referencing building your own ritual, which I think is really important. It's sort of like, I'm jumping into this, like I said, as someone who just bought stuff from this brand, didn't do as much research as Eric. But something that's really interesting about like hair care, for example, is trying to sell people on maybe just like a specific system for their hair isn't going to work because most people have different hair so I like this idea that it's like the products inspire a ritual is what it feels like they're kind of getting across but you can build that

13:08Aves:ritual to really complement your own hair care journey or whatever you would call it really complement whatever you your hair goals are they're not like boxing you in by saying like Like this is the, you know, here's the hairbrush. Here's the shampoo conditioner. It's like, maybe you need an oil. Maybe it's dry shampoo. There seems to be some flexibility within the idea of building a ritual based on the ads. One of the piece of commentary from chat DTC here was that it leverages founder-led storytelling, I believe in their email, which I was seeing when I did the research. Created by Diana Cohen, Crown Affair leans into deeply editorial, almost media brand aesthetic.

13:44Aves:Every product is part of a ritual rather than a routine. Think Glossier for hair. What do you think of that statement that it has this sort of editorial quality? Do you think that's made up or what are we saying there? Let's say maybe from the website, yes, which is what I love to see from the website. There is this like sort of higher brow quality to the brand compared to what you might get at like a drugstore for your hair. and I think just the word ritual invokes this idea of like repurchasing building habits some very specific type of person instead of just being someone who goes to the drugstore picks out whatever shampoo there is like you're being really intentional when you build a ritual around something so you're kind of speaking to people who take hair care seriously I guess is the way to put it the glossier comparison is really interesting to me i feel like glossier has really fallen off um which is something that i'm not going to talk about right now because i feel like i could do a whole podcast episode about it but the way that that brand just nuked was really interesting to me but i think what's really interesting about um that comparison here is glossier was like really specifically targeted to a very young person but the idea of building a hair care ritual speaks to me as a like woman in my now late 20s I guess like that's something I'm doing you're not building a hair care ritual if you're 19 years old and just kind of figuring out where you want to spend your money like they're really defining who their persona is and how they're presenting their products rather than I think again the Glossier comparison is really interesting because that was like I'll buy one product I get this tote bag I'm part of a cult But this is sort of like way more specific to their persona, which is, I think, a really good strategy in this era.

15:34Aves:They're also running, I just clicked through on this ad here, bundle three products for 15 % off. Get craft your haircare ritual, get 15 % off. When you click through, it goes to an interesting PDP that's just literally asking, you know, pick your favorites, choose recommended favorites, save up to 20 % when you bundle. So it's driving to a bundle builder that like, you know, gives you this content upfront about how you should be rethinking, you know, what your ritual is. So, yeah, like this, this, do we do a lot of driving direct to bundles from ads as well? Or is it more of an in-cart choice?

16:08Yeah, interesting question. I would say it's entirely up to like product AOV and the way that products function with one another. one of the brands that I work directly with or a soft goods brand it doesn't make a lot of sense for people to be purchasing many of the same product because it's just like not that type of thing and so we tend to do a lot of in-cart upsells instead of building a bundle but say you are like a jewelry brand and each piece is around 70 that's your retail price starting to layer in like running to a bundle builder where people are stacking necklaces and like putting together coordinating sets that makes sense in my opinion and that is something we do a lot of at pilot house but you really have to make the distinction i think from like a strategy level is someone feasibly going to buy like you could bundle anything you know what i mean but is someone feasibly going to purchase that or is the route get someone to purchase it because the aov is quite high and then you get them with the ink card upsell really depends on like single skew pricing.

17:12And also, like I said, what does the product actually do? It doesn't make sense to buy multiple things from that brand at once. Yeah.

17:19Aves:The framing of it as a ritual allows you to go into like the jobs to be like, broaden out through like the jobs to be done kind of theory and offer things like towels because part of your haircare ritual, you know, you know, brushes, whatever, all these different areas that you might not think of initially as haircare. Let's take a quick look at their, just at their Instagram feed. I saw an interesting post the other day that was about just how you really like if you're I think it was basically saying that if you're now if your focus is trying to like curate a beautiful aesthetic grid you're missing out you've got to go deeper with how you engage and we're gone we're sort of beyond the pure aesthetics of the of your grid into deeper things so these guys definitely have a beautiful aesthetic grid I don't think that should be a knock what are your thoughts yeah I've actually been seeing a lot of the same where it's like the focus now is more on like niche and interests um so something that's interesting to like think through as an exercise with these people is like what are the surrounding interests and like building a hair care routine like boom that picture right there of like a very aesthetic breakfast plate I think that makes a lot of sense for a brand like this to post because if I and I am I can't disclose this enough I am the type of person who wants a ritual for all things in my life.

18:34I also have a very specific way that I eat breakfast. So showing those other rituals, I think is a really smart choice for them. Instead of just hammering home like aesthetic pictures of the product, like bringing in different interests, because that's what people really want to see and why they're going to follow a brand because something with that brand and their ethos connects with them. So you can kind of hammer home as many like aesthetic pictures of the product and photo shoots that you want. But I think to build actual community on your organic channels right now is about doing sort of what they're doing with those like breakfast pictures or maybe showing like a workout class or something like that.

19:13Like other instances of building rituals and showing up in a consistent way would make a lot of sense for them.

19:19Aves:I love that, but you're still not sold on the butler mushroom tray situation they have going on here. It might be that I don't have my glasses on, but like it looks so much like a mushroom to me. It does. Or it's like... But it does have a white glove at the top of it. It wouldn't fit though. Like it's just sort of, it's interesting. It's an interesting, it has us talking, so. Yeah, that's all you can hope for. I think what's really getting me is the lack of glasses and also the way that this image is like lit. It's a very dim lighting. You can't really see the text on the product. So it's making me heart.

19:54Aves:Well, next time wear your glasses, We do a visual brand breakdown, but this was neat. I think maybe unless you have any closing thoughts on the brand, maybe we'll leave it there. If anyone in the audience knows Diana or anyone who leads the founding team or executive team at Crown Affair, we'd love to have them on the D2C podcast. But we hope you found these insights valuable. And if there's a brand that you think you'd want us to look at, shoot us a note and make some suggestions. What do you think, Aves? Yeah, that sounds fun. I love doing this for a newsletter or audits. So looking at ad libraries is kind of my job.

20:34Aves:Nice. And this was our first one. So we just sort of gripped and ripped this one. But I feel like we've got something here and we will continue to refine this format. And yeah, thanks for coming on the All Killer No Filler podcast today, Aves. Thanks for having me. It's retro. It's fun. It's like coming back home. And go subscribe to ad-venturous. Just search that in your podcast finder, subscribe to it and leave it a five-star review because that really helps grow these podcasts in the beginning. And leave DTC a review if you haven't left us a review. If we've ever given you any value, go there, leave us a review.

21:08Aves:Thanks very much. Thanks, Aves. Talk to you again soon.

21:17Aves:Thanks for listening to today's episode. If you're not getting the DTC newsletter, you can subscribe for free at directtoconsumer.co. And if you want to learn more about Pilot House's all killer, no filler services, take off to pilothouse.co. I'm Eric Dick, and this has been the DTC Podcast. We'll see you next time.