What does it take to build a skincare brand that not only survives but thrives for over two decades in one of the most competitive markets? In this powerful episode, Stefan Kalu, CEO and owner of Dr. Brandt Skincare, shares the remarkable journey of how a dermatologist's vision became a $100M+ beauty empire that pioneered the "doctor skincare" category. From surviving the tragic loss of their founder to navigating COVID-19 and a complete brand revamp, Stefan reveals the strategies, mindset, and bold decisions that kept Dr. Brandt at the forefront of innovation while staying true to their core mission: "Take the doctor home with you."

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Sponsored by OMG Commerce - go to (https://www.omgcommerce.com/contact) and request your FREE strategy session today!

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Chapters: 

(00:00) Introduction to Dr. Brandt Skincare

(03:27) The Unique Aspect of Dr. Brandt Products

(07:10) Notes on Product Positioning 

(09:31) Balancing Clinical Authority and Accesibility

(12:21) Longevity and Staying Relevant in the Skincare Market

(16:16) Strategies for Customer Retention and Loyalty Programs

(21:21) Innovative Research and Development Practices

(26:55) Attracting Customers & Storytelling in Marketing

(30:59) Stephane’s Journey to CEO

(36:14) Mental Health Advocacy and The Dr. Brandt Foundation

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Connect With Brett: 

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thebrettcurry/ 
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@omgcommerce 
• Website: https://www.omgcommerce.com/ 

Relevant Links:

• Stephane’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stephanecolleu/
• Dr Brandt’s Website: https://www.drbrandtskincare.com/

Past guests on eCommerce Evolution include Ezra Firestone, Steve Chou, Drew Sanocki, Jacques Spitzer, Jeremy Horowitz, Ryan Moran, Sean Frank, Andrew Youderian, Ryan McKenzie, Joseph Wilkins, Cody Wittick, Miki Agrawal, Justin Brooke, Nish Samantray, Kurt Elster, John Parkes, Chris Mercer, Rabah Rahil, Bear Handlon, JC Hite, Frederick Vallaeys, Preston Rutherford, Anthony Mink, Bill D’Allessandro, Stephane Colleu, Jeff Oxford, Bryan Porter and more

It's so important when

you bring new people,

they need to understand

the history of the brand.

They need to understand the DNA

and what's really the value.

I would say value of the company,

yes, but the value can evolve,

depend on the years, but

the value of the brand.

Well, hello and welcome to another edition

of the E-Commerce Evolution podcast.

I'm your host, Brett

Curry, CEO of OMG commerce.

And today we are exploring

the longevity, the growth,

the innovation,

the storytelling of Dr Brandt

skincare. I love this brand,

I love this category.

You are going to learn a lot as we

explore the story of how this brand has

stayed relevant offline,

online for multiple decades.

And so lots to unpack. We're going

to talk about product positioning.

We're going to talk about r and d,

we're going to talk about storytelling.

We're going to talk about all kinds of

ways to connect with consumers and how to

increase loyalty and retention.

It's going to be a fun conversation and

so I'm delighted to welcome to the show,

the CEO Dr. Stephane Colleu.

And he's got an amazing story,

just a charming individual.

I can't wait to dive in.

And so with that, Stephane,

welcome to the show and how's it going?

Thank you Brett. Thank you for having me.

I'm very delighted to be there and to

be able to speak about our story and our

journey and especially mine with Dr

Brandt because I've been with the company

for 23 years.

23 Years. It's amazing. And yeah,

you guys have stayed relevant

for so long. I'm a huge fan.

I've loved the skincare,

haircare, personal care.

I've loved those categories from a

marketing and business standpoint.

And so excited to unpack

your story. But tell us,

for those that don't know who Dr.

Brandt is or what products you sell,

give us a little bit of the

background. What do you guys sell?

What makes you unique?

Absolutely. So first and foremost,

we've been one of the pioneering doctors

skincare line in the beauty industry.

It was early in 2000 that we can

see the first doctor skincare line.

And we were one of them.

And it was very innovative at this

time because for people who maybe don't

remember, it was very basic.

You used to be the mass and

the prestige and that's it.

And then suddenly there was this doctor

skincare line that came out that provide

very efficient with

instant efficient products.

And also the price point was quite

a very good starting point for

the consumer side. And this is where

we start having our own success.

And lucky enough,

we have been scouting at this time

early by Sephora that gave us a huge

visibility and being

distributed with Seron.

And that's where the story started

on the commercial side because

initially the concept started

with Dr. Brandts himself,

with his own medical office, 1996,

he starts selling his own products and

knowing that he didn't want to recommend

certain product, that he don't

feel he was efficient enough.

And then when he saw the potential,

this is why he created a concept

which was very revolutionary.

Take the doctor on with you.

So very simple. What I do,

I'm trying to mimic what I do the best

in dermatological procedures and take the

doctor home with you, with Dr. Brian.

It was the beginning of the

I love that. Take the doctor home with

you. We'll unpack that a little bit,

but do your products, you kind have

like a Botox alternative or compliment,

microderm abrasion some of those things.

Can you describe the products just a

little bit and what makes them unique?

Yeah, really,

and I think I should maybe

highlight this point.

We're still a private company

today, which is pretty exceptional.

Meaning that we, what we want,

and I think in Amir for that

to protect that we try to sell

products that we believe in that truly

deliver the promise inside of products.

And Dr. Ba was so visionary,

it became one of the most well-known

dermatologists in the world. Why?

Because it was the first dermatologist

to use as anesthetic side,

the Botox of the fillers.

And he became the masters and started

being part of the board of the biggest

pharmaceutical company and tried to

develop new ingredients and laser,

new technique of injection. And

he became the king of Botox.

Having big celebrities

now become Evangela.

Everyone used to go in his medical office.

We used to have two medical office,

one in Miami and one in New York.

But also we used to do r and d with the

biggest pharmaceutical company,

which was for me very interesting because

we were working on potentially new

laser new ingredients, new delivery

system that will be approved by the FDA,

which is the food drug administration.

And just because of that,

we can see the future potentially

before even the big corporation.

And it was very inspiring for me

and the team to dig in and to find

news, idea new concepts, new innovation

in terms of products. And Dr. Brian,

like to get back to your question,

was the first kit care line to

bring your Microderm vision.

And if you have told anyone early in 2000,

you would do your own Microderm

vision in your own bathroom,

people would tell you it's crazy. No.

Way. Yeah.

And Dr. Ben, I think what he was

very smart and wise what he did,

he used the same pharmaceutical,

great crystal using his own medical

office and these products became a

masterpiece, became an iconic

bestsellers. And as of today,

this product is still sold after

25 years without changing any

ingredients.

That's amazing because they work and

people is addicted because when a product

course why you would change.

And that was the beginning of

the venture having the micro,

and of course Dr. Van was one of the

first in Caroline to invent Botox like

products. Obviously it was the one we

inject the most Botox in the world,

but we wanted to create something for

people first cannot afford an ejection,

but we love to minimize expression lines.

So also we try to be very

truthful with our promise.

We're not saying that every

wrinkles will disappear,

especially their wrinkle cannot disappear.

But expression lines,

we have the technology in the delivery

system to minimize expression lines.

And that's why we created the

release was our first Botox.

And then a lot of Botox like products

has been duplicated in the market,

but we were one of the first to provide

this new innovation and to be the trend,

et cetera, in terms of

Botox like products.

And it came from Dr Brandt and

that was the proper of the Brandt.

Take the doctor home with you so you

can have your own Botox like products

that could be a continuity of what you

do in a medical office and use that to

minimize expression lines during the day.

And for people who doesn't like the

needles does the wrong process or cannot

afford it,

you can use a similar products that give

you also the kind of similar effects.

And that's why we try to

provide to our customers,

our patients and to the skincare market.

Yeah, it's so good man.

And one of the things that I'm a firm

believer in as a long time marketer,

a long time entrepreneur is that

product positioning and brand

positioning means so much.

And my favorite definition

of positioning is what

a product does and who it's for.

But really bringing that

to life in a visual way,

a way you can really hold onto.

And so this idea of bringing the doctor

home with you, it's awesome, right?

It communicates, hey, these

aren't just standard results.

This is not just your over

the counter moisturizer,

this is doctor grade stuff,

the stuff you'd have to pay big

money for in a doctor's office,

but you get to do it at home.

And so how do you guys

think about positioning?

How do you think about that line and

how that influences other products?

How do you guys view product positioning?

It's a good point. So

when the story started,

it was with a uniqueness to differentiate

ourself and obviously it was to create

this line, which is ours

called we used to do today.

It's called Needles No More, which is

truly instant gratification products.

Needles no more. I love that. Yeah.

That's truly inspired directly

from the medical office.

That's why we have a Botox, we have a

micro patient, we have an oxygenation,

we got also no more baggage,

which is poof and minimize

inflammation around your high products

instantly.

And these products can be combined with

your current skincare regimen even if

you don't use DR Brandt's products

for the rest of your portfolio.

But as we have been evolving as a skincare

line obviously was very important to

start to create some collection that

respond to the needs of oily and

combination skin.

That's why we got the al line that's

focusing on pores for all in combination

skin. We got also another line called

Bright this way that is more focused on

pigmentation and also brightness

and uneven skin textures.

We got also another one, it's

called DTA dare two edge,

which is more for mature.

We give improved collagen

elasticity and firmness the skin.

So we got a variety of collection,

but also we decided for a good

purpose not to have 6,100 skew.

We barely have 29 skew.

Based.

On different collection.

So it's still very concise and for

the purpose just to really focus on

a very strong products

assortments that allow us to

target the right message with the right

audience and not to overwhelm ourself

and also the customer.

Totally makes sense. And it's all about

all of those products fit that line of

bringing the doctor home with you and

so that they all fit. And one thing,

I know you guys talk about

the tension between balancing

clinical authority.

So this is scientifically backed stuff,

but also being accessible, right? Because

we kind of think clinical authority,

very expensive, very high price

stuff, it's Beverly Hills, is Miami,

something like that.

So this clinical authority but

with an affordable price tag.

So how do you keep that tension?

How do you view that tension?

It's a very good value point because

obviously when Dr. Boy was there,

Dr. Boyn had the philosophy that I'm

trying to respect every day since we lost

our bill, beloved Dr. Fred

And his message was the following one,

I think a product should not exceed

over than 1 50, 200. And why?

Because if you can spend more,

you can come to see me and I can give

you a laser or whatever and I can fix

exactly what you do. Because being more

than 23 years on a dermatological field,

I'm telling you I'm pretty amazed

what the technology and how we've been

evolving. Meaning that today if of

course you see the right doctors,

I can mostly solve any skin disorders

or what you're facing because we

truly have anything that can improve your

skin type or the disorders that you're

facing. So if you need to

find a complimentary products,

because I think obviously

it's very important,

you need to have your skincare regimen

and this is what Dr. We believe it's the

same thing if you go to the dentist,

you want to whitening your teeth. Yeah,

you can whiten my teeth

and I can pay for that,

but if I don't clean

my teeth day and night,

I'm not going to do something

very healthy for myself.

It's the same thing for the

skin. And because of that,

we establish a price point that us

today, if you look on our website,

our price won't go from $35 until one 50.

And sometimes our margin could be lower

because obviously the DNA of this brand

is to provide a very good formula.

And I think if we have something that we

truly achieve over this year is to have

a very good reputation about our

quality of other the products.

And sometimes we spending little bit

too much on a formulation that probably

anyone would do it from the business side.

But that's our way also to differentiate

and that's what we believe as long as

we afford,

we're still pushing into this direction

despite some time might not take a lot

of sense if you want to

get the best of the margin,

but that's not our philosophy and

we're trying to keep it like this.

It always been since day one and I'm so

happy we can still doing that after 25

years.

I love that.

And the price point resonates obviously

with consumers and your focus on

not profit maximization, although

nothing wrong with that obviously,

but you really want to deliver a

great product and delight customers.

And so let's talk about

the longevity for a minute.

So been around for 25 years,

even longer if you consider Dr.

But it's just hard. It's

hard to stay relevant.

Bands usually only popular for a

few years. Products go out of style.

What has been the key to your longevity

and how do you stay relevant year after

year, decade after decade?

This is a very good question and I'm

going to try to answer from my own

perspective and getting the chance being

involved with this brand for now 23

years. I would say first people,

I think if you're lucky enough to have

people who have the passion and make it

pause here, passion could be good

and bad on a daily basis, trust me,

managing people. But truly speaking,

based on all these years that I face,

when you have people and

you're surrounding people

with passion when you need

them the most, when there's

the most challenging time,

you better to be surrounding with people

who are passionate and they really

believe on everything they do every day.

So I think one of the reasons that

we've been able to do it's to have this

quality of people around this

brand. The second aspect,

I think after it's how you entertain

and you remain truthful with the

brand DNA and the identity of the brand.

And for me it's so important

when you bring new people, they need

to understand the history of the brand,

they need to understand the DNA

and what's really the value,

I would say value of the company, yes,

but the value can evolve

depending on the years,

but the value of the brand and this

needs to be very well explained and I

learned that. And believe it or not,

I was very amazed about Esella order,

Esella order. Every time I heard

someone speaking about Esella order,

they always try to remind themself what

Este Lauder should have done if she

would sit on my chair. And since I

heard that it was 15 years ago, I said,

wow, everyone should think like

that. What Dr. Ben would think,

because Dr. Ben was innovative,

Dr. Ben was very bold.

Dr. Ben was very cosmetic in a very

unique way in so many way a sense of humor

who was very known for and all this

characteristic needs to be maintain.

If you want to make sure the brand

can resist on any challenges,

you need to remain truthful with ourself,

your identity and everything else.

And then if I can say the

third one, we have been,

I would say lucky to

be scouted by Sephora.

Sephora has been one of the major

retailers we're sitting in Alta, well.

Totally, those two are the

top retailers really, right?

But yes, they sell top on the

prestige markets here they are.

Otherwise you have Walmart and

CVS, which is more the mass,

but it's not the case anymore

since the COVID happened.

But just to give you also some

insights working with Phora,

you have to do a market week every quarter

and every quarter you have to defend

yourself. Whatcha going to

launch in new innovation.

And we were a private owned company

and we were not the first year to be

launched.

So every quarter to do that for more

than two decades has been exhausting but

also very rewarding as well because one

of the reason to answer to your question

actually believe getting every

quarter and to reinvent yourself,

making sure you get the best of the

best as being able to keep us in our,

despite challenging time and having

a high competition and such a

congested market environment,

it help us to maintain the level of

high expectation that we should be

able to deliver if we want to be lucky

to still sell through all these big

retailers channels that we

have been selling our brand.

Now things change lately with the digital,

but getting back to your question,

I think for 20 years,

having every quarter to have a

market tweak when you need to defend,

if you go into be able to have

co-eds or marketing or support from

your own main chain of

distribution was a challenge.

And I think he helped us also to

give our best every day, every year,

every quarter.

So good. Yeah, there's no free rides.

It's not one of those things

where once you're in, you're in,

you've got a constantly

show that you can deliver,

that the customer wants your product,

that it's innovative, that it's good,

all those things. And so again,

kudos to you guys for being

so relevant for so long.

I know part of that goes

back to retention of

individual customers.

So that's something you guys have

excelled at getting a customer,

retaining them,

you've got loyalty programs and I know

the Glow getters membership is super

interesting to me. So talk

a little bit about that.

How do you guys view customer

retention and loyalty

programs and what have

you done to increase the

LTV and to get customers

to stick for longer?

So it means first you need to

understand better how you talk

to them. And obviously today

with digital, the beauty of it,

you can segment and get a

better understanding which

one you would like to talk

with based on what you have to offer or

which kind of products you think you'll

like to address that fit exactly

with the kind of profile.

So the beauty of the digital today,

you get the data and the data allow

you to be more specific and more driven

in a way you want to speak and whatever

you would like to speak about the

products or what will be the offers.

So that's not an easy exercise

that you need to master.

The more you master that, more you please

and more you entertain a relationship.

On our side, we're doing that today,

but still we have a lot of space for,

because I want to customize,

I want to personalize more and more and

this is what the doctor Skin Caroline

should do,

being able to personalize everything we

could offer outside the product itself.

Because today you're

talking about resilience,

I don't want to jump to get back

to the first initial products,

but the market has been shifting

a lot and to answer to new

expectation from the customers

and from the retailers,

we decided to revamp the brand during

the COVID, which was a very bold move.

And we did that because we know that

was the only way to answer to the new

expectation from the

consumer and the retailers.

So getting back to your question,

being more digital driven,

allow us to segments,

bringing some program,

getting the loyalty program

is one of them, the getters,

it's something we want to speak with

them because it's a kind of subscription

program.

And the subscription is very interesting

also because people is willing to pay

to get obviously a better

offer on the long term,

but give us the ability now to speak in

a very different way than I would say

the loyalty program or the

current Sierra meeting.

So all of that is a great way.

Now what you do have also it's

when you work with retailers,

they do have this database,

but unfortunately they're

not access to the brand.

So it's a question of negotiation.

When you can get special VIB,

which is the special people

who spend the most in Sephora,

you can also be part of this kind of

program that allows us to have a different

way to tackle the

communication with this kind

of customers.

Yeah, man, that's so good.

Can you unpack the Glow

getters membership?

What does that cost roughly?

I know that's something that

could be changing over time,

but how does that work and then how do

you get more people to take advantage of

that?

So you pay $49 and you are

part of the program of glow

getters and it give you a very

good way to have a discount of

the products itself. So then

you can replenish yourself with,

I would say a better offer.

And at the same time you get direct

communication from the brand that allow

you to have access or different events

or different package of being aware

and having a products before anyone else.

All these kind of advantages that we try

to build that give you something very

special and very unique that

no one else can have access.

That's the purpose of the locators.

It's amazing.

And then how are you promoting that and

then how are you increasing the take

rate of the membership?

So still how we do that,

obviously it's to use pay media,

pay media to target

audiences that we do it.

And that's what we do with our

agency to target the kind of profile.

And sometime what I like

the most me is to convert.

To convert people already there on data

and to convince them to the Gators.

That's quite not an easy task to do it,

but that's where we're trying to

do and to execute because for me

it's very valuable when you have a

gloated set and it can increase this.

Community. Yeah, totally makes sense.

And I know you made a comment

in the beginning that hey,

if I'm using a Microderm abrasion product

or I'm using this Botox like product

and it works, why would

I ever stop using it?

And you're not constantly

jacking up the price,

you're still saying within that range

Dr. Brant envisioned the products to be

in. And so I know that's a big part

of customer retention is it's a

product that works and it's priced well.

And so that makes a ton of sense.

How do you then view product r and d?

Because you've done a great job

of defining your product position,

staying true to that as

you've launched in new lines,

you got products that just absolutely

work. How do you view r and d?

So the r and d, for us,

it's definitely being innovative because

this is what we've been known for and

for that we need to master

this piece. So how we do that,

there's many way to do it

internally, we have a process,

obviously first 25 years of expertise

that give you a lot of insight that you

can use.

The second one is we're working directly

with the University of Miami since Dr.

Brandt is not involved in the

brand. And we also working with,

we call the Dr B experts.

This is a group of experts that we agreed

to work with and maybe I should do a

step back for the audience to make sure

they understand the full journey of the

DR Skincare. It could be.

Great. We love that. We'd love that.

Because we Dr. KinCare for the people

who joined the show for 25 years and

we were one of the first

p Dr. Skin Caroline.

And what happened is 2015

tragically we lost our bill,

beloved Dr. Frederick

And it was quite difficult.

Imagine a brand that is private

owned that depending on his name,

and that was obviously

the visionary, the leader,

and it was quite a difficult way to

think how we pursue the best way.

We'll have to probably to

replace him with another doctors.

But as I explained earlier,

this guy was a genius,

was very unique in so many way.

And I don't think you can replace

easily a person like this.

And at the same time, I know this

is what I learned with Dr Brandt,

you need to challenge the status quo.

And I saw already the holistic wellness

approach that was studied on the food

industry and also on the

dermatological fields. And this

is what I decided that to pursue.

And he was part of the philosophy of Dr.

Biden already because he always explain

your skin, you need to take care of

the inside and the how you look good,

you feel good and you feel

good, you look good, very easy.

But he works for everyone at the

end of the day. So when we did that,

we decided to become more

than a dermatologist,

Carolina and we call doctor brand.

And today if you see our tagline is called

Integrative of dermatology and integr

of dermatology. For people

who does know dermatology,

it's a branch medicine that would

take care and target skin disorders.

And integrative is the tendency to unify

separate things. And what that means,

it's we're going to combine

non-conventional therapy

and I think it brings all

the different fields of medicine.

So today as we're getting back,

to get back to your question on NPD,

we're taking our inspiration for

dermatology but for nutrition,

for biology, for psychology,

dermatology,

and also we have a nonprofit organization

focusing on mental health and self

care. So we build a different can of

skills of expertise that we call the Dr.

B experts. That was the nickname

of Dr Brandt called Dr B.

So we kept it like this and we said the

doctor B experts and all these people

allow us to find different

venue to come up with ideas and

direction that will be great for the

consumer that allow us to evolve above and

be beyond the dermatology brand.

So getting back to your point,

25 years is good.

We go also on mini show that shows

different kind of delivery system,

raw materials, but we're working

with University of Miami as well.

And last but not least, I think

today that's the beauty of it.

I think we discussed that earlier is

the data, the data today, the data,

it dictates a little bit what

the consumer is looking for.

Obviously our data is not as big,

so I won't say that the data

is dictating me what my NPD is,

but I need to take into consideration

certain parameters and this is what we do.

But the same day, in order

to create uniqueness,

we need to come up with things that no

one heard about it. When we talk earlier,

we said with Microderm vision no one

knows what it was and we're one of the

first Botox likes we're one of the first.

And right now I'm very excited with

bringing a new technology that will be

launched in September.

You will see it's something that

will mimic the micro needles.

I don't think it has been seen

on the retail. It's very unique.

You go on the cream and inside the cream

you have the micro sponges that will

heat your skin and hitch it but in a

very uncomfortable but comfortable way

at the same time. But the beauty of that,

it'll open your pores and you're

going to deliver very deeply collagen

ingredients that will improve quite

drastically in 48 hours. The collagen,

the elasticity and the film nests very

exciting about this new products coming

up.

Amazing, amazing. I love that. And man,

it really shows also in some of the

awards you guys have won. I know in style,

allure, travel and leisure,

did I see that Oprah,

didn't Oprah recognize one of their.

Products many,

many times We've been very lucky and

fortunate that over these years a lot of

people from the industry, despite,

I'm going to tell you officially,

we cannot afford an advertisement.

We never put ads on

magazine and anything else.

And usually when you put ads it's easier

I should say, to get some reports.

So we got so many awards over the

years just based on the products,

on how the quality of the products.

And so very happy that also

continuing because like I just said,

we just launched Rev months ago,

we already received four five awards,

which I was very surprised

to get it so early.

So it's very encouraging and also it's

the beginning of the journey of this new

revamping with our customer.

That's great. That's great.

What have been your primary

vehicles for customer acquisition?

So how have you gotten

the story of Dr Brandt and

your amazing product line?

Have you gotten that out there?

How are you attracting customers?

What's worked the best there?

Few things. First, when you're

lucky to work with retailers,

sometime you get access to things

that they can give it to you.

So they get some data,

they can give you end caps inside the

stores that showcase the products.

And for that you need of

course to be recognized,

you need to negotiate depending on the

terms of the people you're speaking with.

On our side as a brand, there is two

different way. One is the pay ads.

Of course that is very important because

you still need to chase new customers

and the only way to do it is to have a

relevant storytelling with paid media

that can resonate. But that's not an

easy exercise. It's very congested,

it's very competitive. And the cac,

which is the click power

spanning customer getting more

expensive every day. So that's why

we're forced also to make sure the

organic side is very

important. And for that today,

I know I'm sure your auditors knows that,

but the streamline it becoming more

powerful every day and TikTok is one of

them. I know Amazon is already there,

but I think it's going to

increase significantly how

we streamline our products

and having our own shopping inside.

So that's something we're trying to

get much better on a social and organic

because we saw the power of

streamline and the YouTube.

So we try to educate.

Educate is very important because I think

it's a point of differentiation we can

do better than the others.

And the second one is to show a bit that

system money or before and after that

can showcase the quality of

the products are delivering.

So that's be our mantra that we're trying

to push much more than what we have

been doing the past few years.

And now with this neuro revamping,

this is something we're

going to accelerate in the

next months. That's so good.

That's so good.

Yeah. And how do you guys view

any philosophies to approaches

to how do you tell great stories?

How do you bring the benefits

of the product to life?

I know you mentioned before and after

and I know you've got the doctor be

experts and things like that.

But any other thoughts on how do you

tell the story in a powerful way?

Mia?

I think I love to show when you can

show a drastic result before and

after.

I think that's the best way because a

visual will tell more than anything that

we try to tell then after

how you can tell the story,

which is very interesting is today I

would tell you this is what is so unique

and the time we're living,

I think there are no really rules because

you can see a mic whole influencer

that is going to resonate with not

really a big audiences and she's going to

have a better a I than potentially

someone who get to million.

Why sometime I don't have the

explanation to be honest with you.

So I think today I think it's

to have a good understanding of

who can talk about your products and

how you're going to select these people.

It's not an easy exercise,

it's a conversation I'm having every

day with the team and then can translate

the story that could be customized in

the way that where we're going to see the

channels because we all know that TikTok

request a different kind of content

that if you do.

YouTube it does, YouTube does

totally, totally different.

So it's much more work

for the brand nowadays.

You need to customize constantly and

adapt the content based on YouTube,

based on TikTok, based on

Instagram, based on the pay ads.

And that's an exercise that you need to

do mostly every day and build all the

content that you should be enough for

you to make sure you can capitalize and

get the Hawaii. So I think that's

the challenge of any brand lately,

how you do that, how you push, how far,

how much money you spent to make sure

that is relevant. At the end of the day,

I don't think there's a kind of recipe

and I think the more difficulty is when

you're not at $100 million company,

how you navigate with all this cotton and

spinning and that's an difficult task.

Yeah, well said. And then I think yes,

sometimes it's finding

those micro influencers,

sometimes it's finding lots of

different people to tell the story from

their own perspective and that's going

to resonate with certain audiences and so

you guys are doing a great job of that

as well, which is really impressive.

So that's great. And then I

would love to hear the story,

so you've been with

the brand for 23 years,

you're the CEO been the CEO

12,012. And so talk about that.

How did you rise from helping with the

European expansion and things like that

to now being the CEO and CEO

for a long time of the company?

So here's the true story, 24 years.

I joined the company in 2002

and I studied on the US markets,

I became market manager and

I became pretty fast and

been very key to become the

national sales director and then

a new management came on board.

It was a very kind of nice way to ask me,

but I took the challenge because

international expansion did not exist.

It is a true story. And I studied,

I came with my small luggage in France

and I have no clue what I was doing.

And it was the beginning of SE to scouting

international brand to bring it back

in Europe and I was one of them. I think

I was very, very lucky to be French.

So I understand the French

style and the demands and I can

smooth the American branding with how

it will fit with the European market.

And it was at the time that Ceara was

willing to do anything to push all this

more brand. They were doing extremely

well in us and this is where jojo started.

And I've been very key to expand in

2008, then after they

gave me the far east.

So I was still managing all this

international expansion from Paris until I

became the new president and CEO in 2012.

So during this time it was not an

easy also for our brand for people to

understand who was aware

about the skin. Carolina.

I went through five different

C meaning every two years,

two years and a half. Management

and president was mostly dismiss.

And I survived because I was the cashflow

of the company to be honest with you.

So when I came it was a big challenge.

It was not an easy task and I was very

happy to find a way to bring a vision

and to explain to Dr. Boy and

you're acting in be like a startup,

but you're already a brand

and you don't realize that.

And I realize how big it was

with the two medical office,

the RD and the skincare line.

And I put all these entities as a

trilogy and I put a vision that the

vision and from the consumer,

the consumer and from the goods and

we can go that with the practice.

And it was a very virtual

positive circle that put us

to explore ourselves and our

and 15. This is where something very

unexpected. We lost our bill of founders,

Dr in 15.

And just to get back and being

completely truthful with your audience,

because I know this is a question that

has been asked for me for so long,

I became by coincidence,

the owners of the brand and it was

the only way to save the company

because at this time there was no one,

the bank didn't want to backups. It was

a lot of people and a lot of praise.

And I think I wanted to

keep on what we were doing.

It means the legacy of the brand and no

one truly cared this time there was no

backup, nothing was anticipated.

So I decided to figure out how to convince

people from the estates and becoming

the new owner of the brand. I was lucky

that everyone has been backed me up.

I mean my team in skincare

line, but also the bank.

And this is where I

became also the owners.

And then after a new

adventure study for me,

I needed to prove the rest of the world

that this brand can survive without Dr.

Brandts, which I know we do because

it's difficult. It's difficult.

Without the founder and with the

name, the namesake of the brand.

And this is where we bring this new

vision, the integrity of dermatology,

how we should evolve. And I think

we'll try to do as best as we can.

And then in 1920 the COVID happened,

but we're mainly driven by brick

and mortars, motor distribution,

which was so hard for us. So

I'm not going to lie to you.

For people who sometimes

saw our brand much less,

we suffer a lot because of the COVID,

because we shut down our brick and mortar

and we were not as strong as a digital

as we should have been.

We knew that we were in a process of

building our digital and during this

process and the COVID, this is

where the study to do the revamping,

which was crazy,

but I think there was the only way to

make sure we the ability to pursue the

next 10, 15 years. And I'm so

happy because I'm telling you,

the past two years we have been shifting.

We're mostly driven at digital at

65% now. It's amazing. It's amazing.

The Rev thing is it just ending this year?

So now we mostly revamped the whole brand

and a very happy that we multiply by

twice for the past two years, our website,

which show me that the consumer

has been very well welcoming,

this new revamping on top of chasing

new customers. So this is where we are,

but there's been my

journey with the brand.

It's an amazing journey from kind of

getting pushed out to saying, Hey, okay,

I'll help you in France. And then you

became the cash cow of the business,

five CEOs come and go. Finally

you become CEO become owner.

And yeah, it's tough to lose

the face of the brand for sure.

You stepped in there and then COVID

for a retail focused brand. Come on.

I mean glad you had some

digital focus already,

but I know that accelerated

things and was not a welcome news.

And so kudos to you man.

Entrepreneurship is hard,

running a brand is hard and you guys just

seem to answer the challenge no matter

what the challenge is. So

kudos to you guys for that.

And then one thing I want to kind of

close with because I know this is near and

dear to your heart, and it's a

really cool thing you're doing.

You guys talk a lot about

mental health and mental health.

It's popular now or it's

acceptable to talk about now.

You guys really leaned into mental

health before it was popular.

So talk briefly about that.

Why did you decide to do that and why

did you decide to do that at a time when

it wasn't all that acceptable?

But thank you for letting me know to

speak about it because it's very close to

my hearts. When I lost Dr. Brown, as you

can imagine, I was very close with him.

He was like a motto, was a friend.

He was the godfather of my kids.

And I just tried to

educate myself and educate,

understanding what depression means,

and I have no clue. And when I dig in,

I realize what people start knowing today.

This is a dramatic statistic and I

saw how many people are depressed,

but no one used to talk about it.

And.

At this time I decided I

cannot hide how he passed away

because internet was already everywhere.

And it was at a time where

also company needs to chase. How are

you giving back to the community,

how you define yourself? And I told

everyone, no guys, it's very easy.

This is part of our story.

We should not be ashamed,

but I think we should find

a way to embrace it. Let's

correct the doctor Brandt,

foundation, and we're going

to focusing on multi life.

And at this time it was very bold

because a lot of people told me,

and I did my checking, if you

look on the beauty industry,

you got Mac who did an incredible

job about HEV eight on the

nonprofit organization is the one

who raised more money every year.

We got also a state order with the

breast cancer and we got over causes that

also is discussed. But at this time in 15,

no one talk about health and self-care.

So I decided to create the Dr. Brenton.

Our first action was to do what we

knew the best is mostly doing marketing

action to s the conversation

around health and self-care.

And this is what we have been doing.

And now we're going to celebrate out

10 years of the Dr. Brand Foundation.

This year of 2025, this is where we are.

So 10 years that this foundation has

been created. Great. So great man. And.

Yeah,

some people could have hid from the

story or run from the story or just hope

people would forget about it.

You guys leaned in and said, no,

let's honor the legacy. Let's

do something about this.

And so he started the foundation

and kudos to you guys. So with that,

we are out of time, Stephane, but really

thoroughly enjoyed this conversation.

Thank you for being transparent.

Thank you for talking about all the great

things you guys have done through the

ups downs, the twists and

turns of building a brand.

And so kudos to you guys

and keep up the good work.

Yeah, thank you. And thank you for

having me, Brett. Thank you so much.

Bye. Absolutely. And as always,

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