Ep 630: "The Best Ads Say Nothing" | Ari Murray, Chief Digital Officer at Salt & Stone

0:00In this AI visibility and where everyone is shopping with the help of their favorite chatbot, you really can't hide from real customer feedback. It's hard to show up perfectly everywhere because there's so many channels, there's so many different interfaces, and there's so many different ways to play it. Socially Native Ad Creative is creative that literally looks like it blends into its environment and you can't tell it's an ad. You can't trap a customer into buying you. I'm really excited to shepherd the customer as they move across their journeys to understand and control the halos. If the business can meet the customer in like a more omni-channel way, then I think like really amazing things can happen.

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1:24No scroll, no skip, no little square buried in a feed. Just your brand in front of someone who's paying attention on the biggest screen in their house. Sign up today at ParamountAdsManager.com. Get your brand on TV's biggest shows by tomorrow. Welcome back to the D2C podcast. It's been a couple years since I had you on the podcast and Daniel as well. I've become obsessed with Salt and Stone since I had Dajon on the podcast. a couple of years ago, who has since moved on. But it's become like an absolute staple in my life. The scents, the body spray, the deodorant, I'm starting to see it in men's apparel shops.

2:07It's like, it's really getting out there in such an interesting way. And so when I found out that you had taken the jump to have gone from Sharma Brands, where you worked with so many different amazing brands, and then for you to jump to Salt and Stone, I'm curious, what made you take that leap? Honestly, Nima, who's our CEO and founder, I became friends with him and I just truly started like you to really watch the brand so closely and I became obsessed with it. It's a real brand and I always said if I was going to leave an agency setting and like go back and return to a brand, I had to return to a brand.

2:44And I think Salt and Stone is like a full-fledged brand and also still in its beginning, even though it's become so big and becoming known. And I just really believe that like with Nima's vision, like it's going to be the biggest thing ever. So I want him to be part of it. How has it done? Like I look at the brand and it's like, it's the most basic font. It's the, it's the imagery is, is, is, you know, fairly simplistic, but the product just sort of really works. It really does. How, from you, from you, from someone who's looked at as many brands as you have why do you think salt and stone has worked so well i think it's very beautiful and i think there's something to there's nothing basic about any of the choices because each choice is meticulous and there's a lot of taste behind the brand and so it a we have the best deodorant and so the product is as good as people say and then it's very beautiful and it makes something that no one thinks of as beautiful beautiful and i think that is really cool so it's like the taste level is there.

3:46And then the product is really as good as people say. And it's a great combo. But I think that the brand has been very early and it's never acted like a deodorant brand. And so it just doesn't read like that in the market and people love it. I was going over your feed before this interview and just saw that you are really looking heavily into other luxury brands, Hermes, St. Laurent, Porsche, these kinds of things. I think you've probably always been really interested in these brands that really stand the test of time. But now that you're building one inside of it, what are some of the things you're taking from some of these brands and trying to show up in Salt and Stone?

4:25I've always just had very expensive taste. And so it's expensive taste in everything. And so for me, I'm inspired by brands that do really important things like really well. And I think the brands that I'm inspired by. Not all of them are expensive and not all of them are luxury, but many of them are. I also like Patagonia and brands that aren't, you know, a million dollars. My favorite brand that's not salt and stone right now is Jacque Marie Maje, which is a sunglasses brand. And so like that is very expensive. And so I think for me, not everything has to be expensive, but if everything is done like to the tooth and done like really carefully, then I think the customer can read that and every ad can look you know a specific way every line of copy can be obsessed over and I think the brands that are like brand houses are really important to study because they've stood the test of time and they've been able to command dollar not through discounting and not through promotion but through just being iconic and so those are the brands that I'm inspired by and those are the brands that I buy because I I'd rather have fewer things and like really be obsessed and like researched on you know like I've tried like every product like that's been a d2c darling like I had a cast like I'm always like there and down to like find my next thing and the brands I return to are like typically just like putting a lot of that money into the product but yeah and at core it just works so well I like I've I've been on an absolute deodorant journey until I found salt and stone because it's either something that doesn't vibe with me with the way it smells or it just doesn't work at all.

6:05Whereas Salt and Stone is like the, like not to talk you up too much, but it's the total package out there. It smells so good. It doesn't break down. It's got good ingredients. I'm in awe. I totally agree. I'm a big customer of ours. And like at the end, I'll tell you all my favorite scents for like each format, but I truly, I believe in the product. And I also believe in like the pace that we set internally that allows for everything to be done like really meticulously but like if it feels like the brand is everywhere and it feels like we're growing really quickly it's because like everyone that's inside of these walls is like very driven to do that and it's the best i feel like in your career you've really effectively straddled you know obviously brand development along with the performance side of things and as we know this is a this is can be a false dichotomy between whether you're choosing performance or brand, but it's also true where you don't want to do things that diminish the brand at all, especially when you're working so hard to build it up.

7:06How do you balance brand and performance in Salt-N-Stone and how you guys advertise? In my role, so I lead our D2C and Amazon, and especially in this AI visibility and where everyone is shopping with the help of their favorite chatbot, you really can't hide from real customer feedback. And I think that that is inspired and never going to change. It's only going to get more and more where, you know, like before, like people would search Reddit and get like the truth about a product. And now Reddit is indexing and that is what is showing, you know, when you're going and saying to chat, which deodorant should I buy or asking Alexa for shopping, which deodorant should I buy?

7:48And so I think it just helps eventually, like in protecting brand and in protecting product, you're protecting growth because you can sell something for a long time to someone once. And, you know, especially like if you're auditing your own reviews, like you can really like get away with it. If you really meet someone cold and they just go to your side and you've controlled every piece of the environment. But as it all changes, I think it the performance side of it is going to rest on the experience and I'm glad that I lead our customer experience team because I used to be a customer service agent that was my first role and so I feel like I've always heard and seen that the power is in our customers and so it's all like the worlds are colliding and especially now as like everyone can produce anything that they could even think of a lot of things that are being produced are awful and so that's where you can like cut through and perform.

8:42Are you starting to see a big increase in either UTMs or referrals coming from the these answer engines? 100 % especially to Amazon like the conversion rate of anyone that's interacting with an AI bot before they shop and there's a reason that those bots are now like on the home page of on running and you don't have to be like an AI forward brand to know that that's where shopping is going and that everything's becoming agentic And so it's something that like, we're very interested in being early too. And that my team is, you know, pulling out all the stops to, to do the right thing by. The thing we're seeing, we just did a podcast on it recently was the, the collapse of the middle part of the funnel when, when people are coming from chat or, or Claude or whatever, where the people trust these engines so much that they don't need as much consideration once they've been advised.

9:33Are you seeing that as well? Yeah, totally. And I think it, it all makes sense. And like, that's why I think I have become good at marketing is because I'm such a shopper. And for me, like I had a baby and I feel like every single item that hit our registry, my husband had decided on with chat and had been like, as a baby expert, blah, blah, blah. Like thinking is like a prompting God. And it's just like, so, you know, like it's truly, if you feel like you've been able to cut through the noise and cut through the marketing, and if it feels like this neutral device is telling you the very best bathtub, then you're just going to get that bathtub and like you move on with your day because there's a million decisions to make.

10:15And certain purchases are really fun and really expensive. And those, I think, will still take time. But in deciding which eyeliner to buy that has no chemicals and I'm caring about certain ingredients when I'm pregnant, if it shoots me back a nice brown eyeliner, I'm just going to buy that eyeliner. It doesn't always have to be such a deep decision. So, yeah, I think it's all getting quicker. But it's also just it's hard to show up perfectly everywhere because there's so many channels. There's so many different interfaces and there's so many different ways to play it. But ultimately, like in doing that, you just don't want to also like spend all your time optimizing for something that's still in development and you still need to drive like top line now.

10:57So there's still a lot of time spent on performance channels, but like the agentic optimization is it's coming. So much of it is there's so little like hackery to be done there, right? When it comes to the SEO tactics or whatever, it's really just telling a good story. And having great reviews and having a great product, it's hard to hack. Yeah, it's hard to hack. And I think there's ways to hack the AI bots, but those ways are getting more and more known. But I'd say what you can't hack and what we still never can understand enough is what actually was the first time someone heard about our brand that maybe they didn't even clock that they heard about.

11:38or maybe they saw it at their best friend's mom's counter and then they one day got an ad for it and it looked familiar and then they clicked. Like, you don't really know. And like today I was on a call talking about a, like an eyebrow gel that I like. Like four people on the call bought it. And I was like, how the hell is anyone gonna know that I just sold four of these eyebrow gels for a brand I don't work at? Like, it's just the word of mouth of it all is still so important. That's why influencers are so important. That's why the culture is still so important. But yeah, I think it's cool that we can actually see all of the parts of it.

12:12Like, I think that's what makes it fun. And it's like when things work out over cyber, it's because of all those little like combos that happen at the dinner table that you can't see. And people are at Thanksgiving and like, what are you going to buy? And then they go search and then you retarget it and you think it's your ad. But it's just like, it's all interconnected. It's even one of my favorite men's clothing stores in town here has started carrying your deodorants. First, they weren't carrying any other personal care products. They start selling salt and stone. Can you talk a little bit about the distribution strategy and how your retail strategy is going?

12:45So I sit on our digital side. So I'm our chief digital officer. So I lead the channels you can't go into by like Amazon. But our brand started with like indies. And I think Nemo was going into specific hotels and going into the places that would make sense. And over time, the brand's now entered Sephora and has now grown on Amazon and has become international. And I think that there's fewer places maybe that the brand is distributed, but those places have bigger footprints. So I think it's cool that you're able to find it in a store that you love. And I think that those stores are really carefully chosen.

13:27but not by me. So I don't know a lot about it, but it is so cool when people send it to me or see it or see it on a plane or on a yacht or wherever it's going next. I have been looking for you on Amazon for a while now, because that's the easiest place I make the purchase. And I don't think you're on Amazon Canada yet, because I still see some copycats out there. Yeah. I'm going to hang tight until you're there. I'm Sephora Canada. Okay. From our D2C, please. And I can also hook you up. Oh, I continue. I always buy D2C, but I'm curious, how has the Amazon launch gone in the US, launching such a premium product into that environment?

14:06Has it been strong? It's been super strong. And it's also, what's great about Salt-N-Stone is there's many different categories where the brand wins. So we have body wash, we have body mist, as you said. We have creams and lotions and body oils and different scents launching and candles. And the brand has tried so many things and many of them have stuck. So on Amazon, it's really cool just to even watch the mix of business change at Sephora compared to D2C. And a lot of that mix of business is like, as you'd expect, like really high replant items do really well on Amazon. And then on the D2C, there's a lot more kitting and exclusives and it's more premium.

14:46And then in Sephora, there's a lot of trial formats. And it's all really interesting just to watch how each channel behaves. And it's a really good study on human behavior too. And like how you'd expect to shop is like how it goes. But yes, it's crushing on Amazon. Super fun. Give me a sense of the digital distribution footprint about like you guys, obviously, Meta is a big channel for you, I would assume. Maybe break down a little bit about what the distribution structure looks like on the digital side. So I've been at Salt and Stone since October and it's now June. So when I joined, we were pretty well distributed.

15:22We were on Meta, TikTok, Pinterest, Google, obviously YouTube. And then since I've joined and my team has grown, we've also expanded into Snapchat. We've expanded into AppLove and we've expanded into podcast. And each have been really interesting and each serves a specific purpose and helps to fill our funnel in a new way. So I'm just excited for more channels to come. But I'm not one of those people that cares so much about my split between channels as in like I don't feel this desperate desire to leave Meta because there's still a lot of Tam left in Meta. And it's still like I don't need to feed Apple in because I want to move spend out of Meta.

16:08I'll feed the channel that's working that day and I really don't care. And so it's really fun, though, to have more places that you can win. And even in the same way, like in the channels, in terms of retailers, like there's different mix of business. There's also like different channels where different products work better and different stories and new customer percentages are changed. And it's just really, it's fun. And it's, there's still a lot more to do, but I also try to like move with like incrementality and we're not trying to launch everything all at once, but it's fun when the new channels hit for sure.

16:39What do you guys use to measure incrementality? We use a lot of different things. we are currently using statless and we're running holdouts but we also have in the past used work magic and then in my past i've used house as well and then we also are using north beam we use triple wheel it's not incrementality but it's like we try and delete everything and then we're also shopping for an mmm so there's a lot to do but i think too we look at our post-purchase data we you're looking at like specific codes, like there's a lot we can do to triangulate it back. And on podcasts, it's really interesting too, because there's like such a black box between what we can see in our ad channels and what we know is also haloing into Amazon and into Sephora.

17:25So we have a lot of tools and projects and teams and it's like the question of our time. But I feel like incrementality is also a word where you can't just like say something's incremental just because you like want to, like you really do have to like hold it out and, and really measure it and like have a hypothesis. And that's, I'd say like my pet peeve in life is when like non-digital or like growthy people like claim incrementality. And I'm like, what do you mean? You can just like put a little eye. So, um, that's my question. And then specifically digging in on meta, you know, you've been a meta pro, you know, in that environment for such a long time now.

18:03Andromeda has been around for, I guess, a couple years now, but it really feels like over the last six, you know, eight months, it's really kind of locked in. And there's been this debate on DTC Twitter about creative volume versus creative diversity about the value of iteration. And have you had to evolve your tactics when it comes to meta advertising much over the past year? I'd say for sure. And I think what worked a month ago doesn't work now in the sense that And each of these channels is just more creative hungry. And I think there's still the winners that can carry you for a year or for even a couple months.

18:39But I think it's time of year and seasonality is so much at play. And even especially as the brand becomes more omni-channel. And if you look at how you're reading in your MTA what's working on Meta, It really depends on like if also the product you're advertising on meta is exclusive to the D2C because then there's no halo. And like there's so many different factors. But yeah, I'd say there's so many types of creative that we're trying. There's so many different creative sources that we are pulling from. And that's a big part of my job. and it's, I think my agency training has been helpful because we used to have to make ads for so many different brands and to have like those formats ready to go and like to help round it out and to be able to judge it that way.

19:25But it's interesting too, because like what works on Meta doesn't work on AppLovin in the same way. It doesn't work on Snap. It's like, it's all to be socially native is what's really working. And that means something really different for each channel. So there's never enough time to like make as many ads as you'd hope. Especially when the vibe is each ad has to be its own thesis in a way, right? Like each ad has to fit a certain part of the customer journey or fit a certain customer's journey. And it can't just be, you know, change the button color or add five variations. That was annoying. And even like the naming conventions on that and building all those ads.

20:02And I am excited that it's about what the ad is doing and saying as much as it is about like, is the hook exactly perfect? Because also to each ad, like if you give it their respect, if you like write tailored ad copy, if you manage your ad comments, like if you are landing page testing, like you could really like stretch each of these creatives without having to like split the hook into like five. Like it's a little played out. And then with a brand that is at a lofty place and has even loftier goals, do you find yourself or people on your team proposing ads and having them rejected because they're not within brand kind of thing?

20:41Are you guys more open to letting the data tell you what works? I think it is very brand protective. And I think that that is good. So we don't do many things that many people do, especially like if we think we're a TikTok shop. There's a lot of ways to play TikTok shop, like the going out of business sale ads that I get hit with by brands that I absolutely love and buy. I'm like, how is this happening? Who is letting this happen? I think we very much have a line. We also have different types of ads and the ads that our in-house creators and designers are making are really different to, you know, man on the street ads that we have or podcast clips or influencer or there's a lot of different rules that can be bent, like depending on the type of content if it looks like we created in-house but I like a brand that has a boundary and I think it's like so depressing to just see like I actually when we had the clients like back in the day at the agency it's like not actually fun to have all of your ads approved all the time and have no one like thinking back and like pushing you and like demanding another iteration like on the edit things often do get better so we we definitely like keep it pretty tight but we do try like some very very very interesting things and some of the formats that I've been able to test have like definitely been new to the brand and have been really fun when they win sad when they don't but when they do it like hits really well and they are we are like always evolving can you point to a format that maybe either surprised you because it worked or that it didn't work I would say like in the way that I think of socially native I feel like to me socially native is like absolutely like stripped down but it's very fun I think it's becoming more and more popular but like the way to make influencer content into like a socially native static like a video where maybe it's your best influencer and you strip it back and you like screenshot a static or ask for a static or negotiate in the static that is really interesting to me because ultimately like not everyone is actually on reels all the time and people I love like I go on Instagram and I'm there for stories like I'm just trying to see like people's lives and I think that in finding new ways to like stretch creative you're already paying for there's a lot of interesting things you can do so that's like one format that also can work like so well like in socially native on snapchat is literally to me like opening your phone like making a snap like writing the caption like that's like you don't take like an instagram story into Snapchat.

23:17You do if you want to test it, but you also do it for Snap. So like, I think that's really interesting now. Can you expand on the term socially native? Because it sounds like that's absolutely critical to your perception of like how to grow a brand in 2026. Talk to me about exactly what you mean about a socially native brand. A socially native brand versus a socially native ad creative is creative that literally looks like it blends into its environment and you can't tell it's an ad by the way that it looks it doesn't have like you know a massive cta it's not in your brand font it's not it's not like using also the language of your brand it's not using descriptors that normal people don't say it's not like above anyone's head it's really casual and that looks really different for every platform every brand and i think it's when you strip it all back and it's sometimes too like the best ads say nothing and it's just a picture and it's like you know looks like it's from someone's from someone's iphone or it's a partnership ad and i actually saw a brand do this that i really liked this week where it's for a protein powder and the ad is just like there it's like a picture on someone's counter and it has the recipe that this girl made in like a really cute instagram font and it's like how I'm like gonna be hot for summer and it's like one scoop of strawberries one scoop and like the product is like the seventh ingredient and it's like not even like at the at handle and it's just like I'm gonna read that girl's recipe because I'm like oh my god like what is this like little skinny bowl and it's just there's the product like it's just very much sneaking in and then people don't skip it because everyone's getting way smarter and agitated by ads it reminds me I I think I just, I'm trying to, I'm Googling it right now and I don't see exactly what I was talking about, but it was Heinz was launching an ad that was originally pitched in the Mad Men show.

25:11It's called Pass the Heinz, but it was basically just all these images of fries and burgers and things that didn't have Heinz. And so it's like you didn't even have the brand on it, didn't have the logo, but it's just like when you see those things, it's like it lets the consumer's mind do the work a little bit rather than you pushing it on them. Totally. That's exactly a great example where it's not like, this is me and my perfect language and my perfect photo shoot, my perfect font, saying things in my exact controlled way. It's like the same way that the best influencer ads are like not when they're reading a script and when they're just talking as they exactly would in their own way to their own people.

25:45So I think there's that side of the house. And then there's the really sick cuts that are really fun, too, where you're, you know, like pacing and you're the music hits. And those are really fun to mix in. And I use some like AI templates and all of it combines. But the socially native influencer is quite a hack. You mentioned AI and creative. Where do you draw lines about how you use AI and creative at this point? Are you using Higgs field? So it's funny. I think we used to, I think I have like a license to it from like my predecessors, but I don't personally use it. I think it depends on time of year.

26:22We, like for cyber, for example, like we would use some AI to like find like a billboard that we could drop into and like put our message. And I think that's like a really cool use of AI, but we're not like very successful with AI or with, you know, the services that is like all AI based. Because again, part of the discipline for Solidstone is that it's a real brand. And if it's all AI based, it wouldn't look as fashion as it is. So AI is not a big part of our creative experience. But we use AI across our org and across growth, across our reporting, across copy, across so many places. But it's like a thought starter or like a proof of concept, I'd say.

27:08And then there's not a lot of AI creative that's ever shipped out of Solidstone. which is good. I'm on your site too. And the other thing I realized with your brand is I don't think there's any people on it. It's one of the few brands I've sometimes are, but it seems like a, like a choice in a lot of ways where it's, you're really letting the product stand starkly for themselves. You don't have a lot of people in, in the brand. Does that carry through the creative or do you use more people in the creative generally? I think it depends on the shoe, but there's always like the brand is unisex and it's super important to the brand.

27:38And our founder is an ex-snowboarder, ex-surfer, that's the salt in the stone. And so we have always had people that like, if there's a person, there's typically like a man and a woman, which I also think is really cool. But there are sometimes people, it just depends on the shoot. And the brand though, is very much not like meant to be a brand that has a face or a celebrity. It's meant to be like the brands of Hermes and, you know, Nike and all the brands that are iconic that last longer than like a certain, you know, person. That's refreshing to me because I come from influencer brands and I used to work at a Kardashian brand.

28:18I used to work at Halsey's Beauty Brand. I used to work with so many influencer brands and celebrity brands like within the agency. And so it's cool that the product like sort of stands on its own, but there are totally models in many of our shoots. But on the site, there's definitely an emphasis on product photography and packaging is taken very seriously and lighting and all those things. But sometimes there are people. Depends. So I'm a santal and vetiver guy. I didn't even know what either of those things are to this day. But the way they smell. Again, I love the fact that it's for both men and women.

28:53Is that, sorry, you said that's what salt and stone means? That refers to the man and the woman? What does the actual salt do? So Nima, our founder, is a snowboarder and he grew up surfing. So the salt is from the ocean and the stone is that that's the surfing and the stone is from the snowboarding. Very cool. Wow. I didn't realize it was so X Games. Yeah, he's really, really talented. And again, and the other thing too, you guys are so fragrance forward. And this is something I was just at the Whaley's and there was a bunch of, first of all, everyone smells fantastic now and people didn't smell bad before, but the attention that people are putting into scents now and how much I'm enjoying in integrating scents into my personal care routine?

29:31Is that a big trend you guys see continuing to grow? A hundred percent. Like the slogan of the brand is iconic scents and active formulas. So it's very, very critical. And I think the brand is successful because it does smell so good. And when we launch a new scent, like that is taken very seriously. We don't launch many. And so the scents that we launch are amazing. But yeah, And like everyone I feel like is very attached to the scent. Like the way that you're a Santal, I'm a neroli and a saffron depending on which product we're in. And I think that that, and we had a collaboration with Cherry and I'm obsessed with our Cherry scent.

30:08And so is my husband. And my husband also loves Black Rose. Like everyone has a different scent that they're drawn to and it smells different on everyone. But it's like very fun when people, even if they say like, oh, I like the gray one or I like the blue one. people really pick a line, which I think is cool. How do you guys approach collaborations? What was the one with Cherry? And then how do you guys think, being so brand focused about collaborations? So I wasn't here when Cherry was chosen, but I think it depends. There just has to be alignment. And every collab, there aren't many the same way there aren't many launches of sense.

30:44Every collab is timed specifically that both brands can shine and it works really well for both brands' customers. But Cherry was so fun. When I was here, it was for our November launch with Cherry and it was pre-holiday. It was red. It was like a Western shoot. And it's a really, I'd say, male-leaning scent, if I can say that. So it was really, my husband is obsessed with it. And so that like helps to like play on like the male side. And then maybe the next collab might favor like a sweeter scent or whatever it might be. But they're all like cooking, but there's not many, which is really fun.