How Awe Inspired leveraged its celebrity fan base to become a DTC jewelry powerhouse

0:04Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Modern Retail Podcast.

0:30landscape, how it's gotten in front of celebrities who have shown it off. There have been like Taylor Swift. I know Onspire just did something with Julia Fox. It was on the website. And I think Alanis Morissette was on there too. It's an interesting array of really high profile people, but also we're heading into November, which means the holidays are upon us. And I also would love to just talk about how a higher end, nicer jewelry brand, especially one that's, you know, a few years old is thinking about holiday marketing, holiday sales, all of that stuff. Especially, I'm always interested in different spheres of retail, and so this is more on the luxury space.

1:02And so it's good to just get a perspective about how one executive is thinking about that. But Max, how are you doing? Hey, I'm doing great and honored to be here. Thanks for having me. Well, it's an honor to have you on the show. But let's start a little bit with you. So Onspired, according to your LinkedIn, started in 2018. Is that when it officially launched, or what was the sort of genesis story of how it came to be? Yeah. So in 2018, I was working a very different career at a big telehealth startup, one of the leaders now in the telehealth space doing, I was a product manager, so building like consumer software for telehealth.

1:40And my mother, who has been in the jewelry business for her life, was recovering from breast cancer. She's had cancer three times. And so cancer has just been a big part of our life together. And she had this very simple idea. She wanted to create a piece of jewelry that was high quality, but accessible enough to, you know, a large set of people that could be gifted to a survivor as a symbol of empowerment, something they could wear with them as this badge of honor as they move into the next phase of their life. And she wanted to specifically give it to some of the women in her recovery program.

2:12And I was interested in the idea, but I really wanted to help her and I helped her build a website. And this symbol of strength that we put on this necklace ended up being the motif of the goddess. Coin necklaces were really back in trend. And we decided to take, you know, the motif of the goddess throughout mythology and history and put it on a pendant. And you could personalize if you wanted Athena or Medusa or Cleopatra or Joan of Arc. Like we really stretched the definition of what an inspiring, empowering figure meant. And with my background in telehealth and building these like acquisition funnels, I built us a personality quiz where you could match your personality to one of the goddesses.

2:54And that's really what kind of lit up like our acquisition funnel was that people thought it was delightful to learn more about goddesses and themselves through this like very personal onboarding experience. And they would purchase a goddess and tell their friends about it. You know, it was Me Too movement peak and a lot of conversation about women's empowerment and bravery and speaking up. And I think a lot of, you know, celebrities that we seeded the product to, I mean, all gifting, but all strategic giving to people who we wanted to represent the brand and so many of them wore it. And I think the product itself, like not by such deliberate design, but kind of ended up being like this brilliant jewelry product for celebrity seeding, being that it is a medallion.

3:41It is unmistakably ours. And it sits right here. It's not an earring or a ring. And so whenever a celebrity is wearing it and they're getting photographed, it is just so like in your face. And that's, I think, why celebrity has been just such a vehicle for us is that the pieces are, you know, really high quality enough that they love it and they genuinely want to wear it. It means something and they want to like make statements and express their beliefs and particularly a lot of like more feminist leaning people we work with. And it has really just like grown from there organically. People see it on this celebrity and they send it to us.

4:18Sometimes we didn't even gift it to them. Now it's just like appearing in places and it's pieces that mean a lot to the people who wear them. And I think that's what kept me attached to it and building it this time is just like getting to create a piece that means so much to the people that wear it. So was there a first celebrity or a first moment where you seeded it to someone and then that sort of started a snowball effect of it growing? I'm trying to, I don't know if it was just one particular person who like gave it the sign off. I mean, there is this whole interesting cottage industry, so to say, in LA of like, you know, PR firms where like what they do basically is just gift your product strategically to people, which definitely doesn't guarantee that anything's going to happen.

5:05Like it has to stand on its own. And you can imagine the amount of stuff people are being gifted. You know, there aren't that many famous people that have the kind of caliber to move the needle in the way you want it to from a sales perspective. So it's competitive, but, you know, there's strategy to it. And so you get a placement, you kind of build off that placement to the next one. You work with a stylist who placed it with one client and, you know, you gift them more to give to their other client. A lot of relationship building, a lot of just knowing when to give the right piece to the right person at the right time.

5:37And I think our brand came at this time, you know, 2018 into the pandemic is really when we had a proper business. And like 2020, our Shopify site launched, I guess, at the end of 2019. So that could be more like when the company started, I guess. But 2020, we were able to, you know, really raise awareness for Black Lives Matter movement with a Harriet Tubman piece that we created with the NAACP. We partnered with the National Federation of Nurses, on a Florence Nightingale goddess necklace for nurses. And like so many hundreds of nurses wear that and the cast of Grey's Anatomy wore it. And like, we've just been finding these interesting ways to plug into the causes that we're passionate about, partner with charities and create these pieces that mean a lot to people.

6:24And I think people have found that to be really genuine. And it obviously goes back to the story of my mom and the reason she wanted to create something like this to empower people and to give back. So it's been really amazing how each opportunity and each placement has opened the door to something else. How do you go about choosing who, which organization, which person to partner with? Because empowerment is a very large word and there are a lot of different causes out there. And you start with ones that are personal to you, but then you obviously have to grow and expand. So did it come inbound?

6:58Was it outbound? How do you choose what works and that it still resonates with the core of what the brand is? Sure. So, I mean, at this point, it just it comes from everywhere. Like, I did not know, I've never owned run a consumer business. And now I find myself running this large direct to consumer company. And I've learned every department of running the business partnerships is still the one to me that is just like a wild west, like the way that those come to be are not linear. There's not one path to doing it. There's like multiple ways in the door and you have to be thoughtful about it. the way you approach partners and who they are and the message you're delivering them.

7:38And I mean, it's very complex. But at this point, a lot of the ideas come from our community. They'll tell us figures or causes they want to see us involved with. We do a lot of serving with our customers. We have a really strong core cohort of VIP customers that we interview and they do focus groups and we understand what they want. And a lot of the brand is built off them. But in some cases, you know, Alanis, the partnership we just did with Alanis Morissette, she had a charity in mind that she really wanted to work with that was aligned with our values, equality now that helps women who are struggling financially and looking to get back into the workforce.

8:14So, you know, I think some of the opportunities find us, we go find some of them. There's not like a clear proven path I found to building partnerships like that. Yeah. Yeah, there's no real rubric. It's just figuring out what works at this stage. Right. Mm-hmm. Can you talk about, you know, starting, I guess, in 2020 when the Shopify launched, it became more of a business. You know, you have more than just the necklaces. You have earrings, you have other types of jewelry, but is the necklace sort of the core product, the one that sells the most? How have you thought about sort of diversifying and expanding what it is that you make?

8:48We're building a charm business, really, where, you know, we have these goddess pendants, but we've expanded into amulets. So every goddess has her matching amulet, be it Athena and her sword or Aphrodite and her shell or Medusa and a snake. And all of those symbols have their own level of like weight and meaning. And, you know, we've expanded into zodiac and into auras and into affirmations. And a lot of, you know, it's all about pieces that have meaning. So we say we're the brand you go to when you're trying to give a gift that's deeply personal and meaningful and speaks to someone and who they are.

9:25And as you collect these charms, it starts making a mosaic of who you are and what you believe in. And we've designed mechanisms so that people can take their charms, their goddesses, their amulets, what have you, and connect them to a bracelet or to an earring or to a necklace. So we're like building versatility through that collection approach, which is pretty novel. You don't see a lot of like jewelry brands where the pieces are that versatile, but we found that our customers, like they're feeling kind of angry today and they want to wear, you know, Medusa and they want to wear like Hecate, the witch goddess, and they want to wear like some black gemstones and, you know, being able to like attach the things the way they want to each day has been really powerful and has built loyalty and people coming back and purchasing more of these charms for themselves, more of it for other people.

10:19On our quiz now, you know, It started with just like you got your goddess recommendation, but now you also get your power amulet and your affirmation and your zodiac and your initial and the color of your aura in a gemstone. And all of these charms build like this custom collection and piece for you that, as I said, like brings people come back and builds a deep connection between them and us. You know, when you have a business that has celebrity tied to it, I imagine so much of Inbound comes from that. and there's probably a decisive, like I saw Sarah Jessica Parker wearing this. I want to wear what Sarah Jessica Parker is wearing.

10:58How much of your business is with people who are taking the quiz? And how much of it is people who say, I know exactly what I'm buying and I want to get that specific thing? And does it lean a certain way to a certain product or a certain amulet or a certain goddess? Yeah, that's interesting. I think we've found, by and large, people are going to buy what they want. And so we're able to use like celebrity and these moments of heat to like drive people to the site. And sometimes they buy the thing that we are like marketing, but most people will just buy what they would have liked otherwise, which is great.

11:34You know, there's people like Taylor Swift, who she wore one of our necklaces in a music video recently. And like that piece sold out immediately. And people, I think, with particular fandoms like that, I think that's a very different story. I think the bigger use case is people hear about the brand maybe through a celebrity placement, and they think that's a signal of quality. They trust this person's discernment. They like the way they styled it. They like the proportions of it, what have you. And then they come and make their own choice, I think, is usually how the consideration process works.

12:07That makes sense. Actually, I wanted to ask about the fandom because I'm really, really interested in especially consumer products and fandom. And we've had other we've actually had another charm company that had a Taylor Swift placement that led to insane sales. And they said something interesting, which was like it led to a big spike in traffic and some sales. But then it kind of all went back to normal where it's like you see that blip and then it's like they might not be returning. They get that one thing Taylor had. Is that something that you saw or like what do you see when you see someone who has a placement in a music video who has millions, if not hundreds of millions of followers who want to wear what she's wearing?

12:43Does that lead to return sales or some type of funnel behavior? If it's the right placement and the right product, I think. And at a higher luxury price point, I think we are already weeding out certain customers who may not be right for us. So I don't know the other brand you're referring to necessarily. But I think once people invest$200 in a brand this way, we've seen higher retention with people who spend more money. Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. Let's go into, because I let off talking about this, but I wanted to pick your brain. You know, we're going into November. It's the holidays. How important are holiday sales for Inspired?

13:26You've been around, this will be pretty much your fourth year, it sounds like, where you've been at a solid business. Is this one of your big times? We'll do 40 % of our annual revenue in November, December. Really? Okay. And so how do you approach that? Do you discount? What are you thinking about when you go in? How are you thinking about the marketing side of that? You know, we are a pure D2C brand for better or for worse. And the wholesale landscape for jewelry is really in a period of transition. Let me say it that way. That's a very, that's a very kind way to say. Yeah, in a period of transition where like there's not necessarily a place for jewelry right now.

14:03And so like the importance of having a really successful D2C channel for a brand like us, I mean, it is our whole business. So we come to play when it comes to big promotional periods. Like we have, obviously, there has to be a discount. There has to be a way to accelerate the purchase. I mean, we know how much each eyeball costs, especially during this time of year. So we want to convert that sale once people are coming to us and learning about us. And the goal is to drive basket size. You know, we want people to be buying multiple gifts for people on their lists. We're going to incentivize you to fill up that basket with multiple gifts.

14:42That jewelry, pretty amazingly, like everything gets packaged in the same size box, more or less. So if there's eight items in there, you know, that's great because it still only costs that one packer to pack it and that one set of packaging and that one shipping label. But it's eight times the revenue. So filling up that box and encouraging bundling and add-ons is a huge part of the strategy going into this season. We want to see AOVs go up, despite the fact that we're running a site-wide discount. Has bundling always been a major part, or is that something that you're focusing specifically on this year to get AOVs up?

15:20Always a very core tenet of the strategy. all year long we're testing different sets that we're putting together, full jewelry looks that we're styling, or necklace sets, or charm sets, what have you. And we're basically beta testing the best performers for holiday, right? What are the sets that, at every price point, that people are going to want to buy? So we can make sure people find the gift that they're looking for. When you say bundling, is it just like two different charms? Or how are you doing this? And are you doing buy one, get one free? like I'm always interested, especially for something that's at a higher price point, how you're able to make the bundling work when it's adding hundreds of dollars for each piece.

15:58Yeah. So some of it is like pre-made sets. So I'm wearing right now, this multi-charm necklace that retails for$1 ,200, but it's valued at like$1 ,800. And we're presenting that to you. So you know that like, you could build it yourself, but you could take this pre-made one that we've pre-styled for you. And we put some marketing around it. We do some storytelling around the charms that we chose and what this piece means. And it's a compelling offer, I think, in that sense. We do some other add-ons. We have a layering tool for if people get three chains, we have a tool that you can connect them all to so that when you put your necklaces on and off, you don't have to do all these different clasps.

16:45That's an easy upsell for people who have three chains in their basket. So we're thoughtful about the different customer journeys and how people are building their basket and what to intervene with. I guess, how are you approaching forecasting? I talk with founders every day, and they all are telling me different things. Some are saying it'll be fine holidays. Some saying people are pulling back on spending. They're not buying as nice of things. What are you seeing, and what do you think it's going to play out to be? Yeah, it's super interesting. I mean, we're up 45 % this year, which is kind of, you know, it's been a really challenging year in the marketplace and we've had luck.

17:24We're, I think we're a bright brand in the right place and culture at this moment in time. So we have like some forces propelling us forward. So I'm planning to have a great holiday. I'm definitely thinking about what's going to happen in a little less than two weeks and like how that's going to impact consumer sentiment, but I don't know how anyone can make a prediction there. I think at the end of the day, like people still want to celebrate. They still want to buy nice things for themselves. It's very speculative to try to think like, are people, you know, going to trade down from like vacation to buy then a piece of jewelry?

17:57Are they going to trade down for a piece of jewelry then to just buy a t-shirt or, you know, a t-shirt just down to a candle? Like, I don't know. We sit at a really interesting place in the jewelry market. We are affordably priced fine jewelry. So it's made of gold and sterling silver and natural gemstones, but definitely priced at the entry-level side of fine jewelry, which goes into solid gold and platinum and diamonds and rubies and emeralds. And so as the price of gold has really gone up, we have seen a customer, we think, trading down to us. We are direct-to-consumer, more affordable alternative to like more premium, premium, fine jewelry.

18:35And so we've interestingly seen our AOV go up this year as we've positioned the brand higher to, I think, capture a customer that's trading down, if that makes sense. And I think everyone probably has an opportunity to do that, to meet your customer where they are. And so this is the customer that we're meeting for this holiday. And I think, yeah, they still want to buy nice things and they still want to have a nice holiday. So I don't know. I I don't know. Everyone tries to be speculative of it. Everyone in retail, I think, knows that if you look back, that election year is always a down year for retail.

19:07But retail is very different now than it was when department stores were doing those kinds of projections. And let's see. Yeah. No, I wanted to ask you, and you brought up the election a few minutes ago. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I imagine given that you're a product that's tied to so many movements and organizations. Has the lead up to the election actually helped your sales, would you say? We have a Kamala Harris necklace. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. We have a Kamala Harris necklace. So yes, the election has been a big part of our fall, particularly since August when she was announced as the nominee.

19:45We made a Kamala Harris necklace in 2020 for her vice presidential run. And so we were like, oh, well, I guess we have to get this back. We weren't necessarily planning on it to do it again. But once she became the presidential nominee, we felt a responsibility. And I think it's pretty rad that we get to, you know, take this stance and make it. And I'm very proud that like my mom and I get to do that. I know a lot of other brands, for whatever reasons, aren't able to do that. And I'm just, I view it as a privilege that we can make a statement like this through our work. So you said you were 45 % up this year.

20:21Do you attribute that kind of zeitgeisty thing as being part of why you're up this year? What do you think has led to that? I don't know. I don't think it's Kamala single-handedly. It's not our top product of the year. There's a particular customer that wants that product. It's the same customer like when Ruth Bader Ginsburg piece. And when she passed away, that piece had a whole new meaning to it. And that customer, I think, is similar. and it's a different customer that's buying more like Aphrodite and pearls and hearts. So in terms of what I attribute to the growth, I mean, I think we've been really thoughtful about our media mix.

20:57And I've done a lot of learning this year about how to build a really healthy media mix that is training the algorithm to be first order profitable and is cutting out junk channels and junk spend and not targeting the same people too many times. You know, there was a lot of talk coming out of 2022 when people were saying iOS 14 is having this grave impact on the way people are able to target customers. You need to diversify onto more digital channels, you know, more brick and mortar channels. Like diversity is like the name of survival. And lo and behold, everyone's back to like meta and Google.

21:34And we've really spent this year like nailing those channels. We have four different assets right now with like celebrities running. in vertical video format that are killing it for us and just building awareness and hitting people at different moments in their purchase journey. So I think we learned through just trial and error how to build that acquisition funnel that's first-order profitable, that's helping us build a profitable business and have invested in ourselves. That was exactly what my next question was in B, and you kind of hit on it, but I'd love to go a little bit more. What are the channels that you're hitting on the most?

22:10It sounds like it's Meta and Google. Have you decelerated from other channels? Especially as we're heading into Q4 and the holidays, where are you putting all of your eggs in what basket? I mean, definitely percentage-wise, those two, like Meta and Google, that's where we're seeing first-order profitability on acquisition. And so until we're not, it's kind of hard to make the argument for other channels. We do a lot of brand marketing that we measure organic traffic and other signals of awareness to make sure that that engine is moving. But in terms of other paid acquisition channels, I'm not going to say specific ones, but we've been on other paid acquisition channels that in platforms say they're performing a certain return on ad spend.

22:57When we remove them, there's no discernible impact to the business, which leads us to believe it's just like duplicate impressions of the people we're already serving to. But I'm down whenever we find that next channel that's going to get us all these net new people and that new awareness. I'm down to do it. And I have like a lot of interest in TikTok and everything that's happening there and growing. I haven't really seen luxury brands be able to figure out the TikTok shop yet, which seems to be where like consumer brands are having success since the offsite in-app like native browser shopping journey isn't so great for consumers yet.

23:33And it's not really part of the TikTok experience. I think the TikTok shop is where we would need to make that sale. And people just aren't really buying like$200 items there yet. But I think that'll happen. Yeah, I feel like that's the big thing with TikTok shop right now is that brands are having success, but it's very specific brands. And it's definitely on the cheaper side of things where they will make that instant purchase while they're scrolling. But I imagine for a product like yours, that's a more difficult sell to someone. Right. It's a longer period of consideration. And so TikTok then needs to be more of like an awareness channel for us when we use it.

24:07But I'm always looking to test into new channels. And I love learning about new marketing technologies. That's something that I've learned along the way. I take a lot of calls with people who send me cool technologies and want to pitch me their deck or something. I always want to know about what's next. You got to just stay ahead. And I've seen so many evolutions just in the years that I've been doing this of our own tech stack. and new players coming in and out of the tech stack, helping us have a more performant business. And it's one of my favorite parts of building this is learning about all that technology.

24:41You talked about earlier how this year has been really focused on tweaking all aspects of marketing so that you're first order profitable. Has your marketing budget increased? How much are you spending along those lines? Or how are you thinking about paying for marketing with revenue coming in? Yeah, I mean, it's a more measured pace of growth that everyone I think is learning to target and it's fewer people coming to site like traffic isn't necessarily up so much organic traffic is up a lot and like you know direct traffic is up a lot but paid traffic is not while paid dollars are up which means we're finding more qualified people and we're being more discerning in like competing for just better eyes and training the algorithm them to find our people for us and bring actually qualified people to site.