Lara Schmoisman (00:01)
Hi everyone. Welcome back to coffee number five. And I have to say my cup is almost empty. So I, but today I’m ready for a good conversation, like always. And you know what? I was always thinking before we started podcast, what are we going to be talking about? But today’s guest, he told me, you know what? It’s not so much about me. It’s about the industry. And there is a lot of interesting things happening in the industry. So.

I say, let’s do it. And this is fascinating. I’m so happy to have you here, Shampo. Welcome, welcome.

Sampo Parkkinen (00:39)
Thank you very much. Thanks for having me. It’s a pleasure to be here. So happy to have a conversation.

Lara Schmoisman (00:41)
Okay.

And this is so humble from you being the CEO of Revive. I mean, have an incredible journey and tell us a little bit more about you. We want to get to know you and how you get to be where you are today.

Sampo Parkkinen (01:03)
Yeah, definitely. Like I said, I don’t want this to be all about me, I think, let’s make it, let’s have a little short background. So, I started Reveve nine years ago, more than nine years ago. And I think the origin story is pretty interesting because it started from a very personal problem. I moved, I’m Finnish, so I’m native from Finland, and I moved from Finland to Chicago.

Lara Schmoisman (01:08)
Let’s make it a little bit about you.

Sampo Parkkinen (01:32)
for a couple years and and and I started having a lot of skin issues my I Actually wasn’t in the industry. I wasn’t in beauty before that right? I was I was in retail I was working with retailers. I was working with the brands, but I wasn’t in beauty and and I started having these skin issues and my wife was telling me she was like you’ve got to go to the dermatologist you got to get it checked out and you know and Yeah, very good. Why she’s the best absolutely but

Lara Schmoisman (01:54)
You have a good wife there.

Sampo Parkkinen (01:59)
You know, I was lazy as many men are by the way, for skincare and particularly 10 years ago. I was lazy and I was like, no, no, no, no, no, I’m not going to do that. Eventually I did go and, you know, I, I had taken pictures of myself. I spoke to the dermatologist and I was like, okay, what could you tell me about me if I wasn’t here, if it was just these pictures? and I really started thinking about this and I said, how do people really know which products they should be using? And, and particularly how do they know?

Lara Schmoisman (02:02)
Yes.

Sampo Parkkinen (02:27)
⁓ When it comes to digital channels, I mean, I know you can go to an Alta store, can go to Sephora store, you know, and you’ll have the beauty advisor there. They know all the products, they can actually give you advice, they can give you recommendations. But what about things that are happening online? What about things that are happening, you know, in mobile apps and so forth? Like, how do people actually find the right products for them and get comfortable with the fact that, you know, because again, these purchases in beauty, these are really the most personal products.

you’re ever going to buy. These are really the most personal products that you’re ever going to buy. And you can have an allergic reaction, know, can get something can go wrong. You want to be really sure that the products you’re buying are going to be right for you. And that’s when we kind of came up with this idea that ⁓ we can actually use technology and AI in particular to really help the consumer and

Lara Schmoisman (03:01)
Yes.

Mm-hmm.

Sampo Parkkinen (03:25)
I should say even enable brands and retailers to help the consumer buy the right products. And I think that’s a very, you know, very core mission for us even today, you know, that we can leverage technology. And again, we started 10 years ago where I should say AI was not really even a thing. Like, you know, if you would have asked 10 years ago, what is AI? mean, most brands, most retailers, most consumers, you know,

Lara Schmoisman (03:52)
Yeah, ⁓ that’s

what I was thinking. That was really early stages of AI. How did you go about that? Because back then, you’re ambitious these as AI or only were ambitious these about ⁓ photography and some lens on. How did this start? Because did you have the tools of AI or even think where AI would be today?

Sampo Parkkinen (04:19)
Well, mean, to be honest, we had no idea how AI as a technology was going to develop. ⁓ I mean, we did start from AI. did start, you we didn’t call it AI back then. We had machine learning, deep learning, you know, these people use these types of these types of terms. But but in the end of the day, I mean, it was AI because again, like we were we were started very firmly from skincare and we started.

Lara Schmoisman (04:33)
Okay.

Sampo Parkkinen (04:44)
you know, trying to solve the consumer problem of if I’m going to, you know, a Sephora website, or if I’m going to a retailer’s website or even a brand’s website, you know, a retailer may have 5,000 products, a brand may have a hundred products. How do you know which ones to buy? And I think, you know, we started using AI specifically to solve that problem. But again, we had no idea how big the technology was going to be. But I think for us, what I think is really important, and what’s really important for me is that

Yes, we’re a technology company and yes, we’re proud to work with more than 120 brands and retailers across five continents today, but it’s really never been about the technology. It’s been about what is the challenge that the brand or retailer has? What is the business challenge that they have when it comes to growing their business, serving their customers, ⁓ helping their customers find and buy the right products?

And then let’s just figure out, because we are technologists at heart, let’s figure out what is the best technology to use to solve that problem. ⁓ But we start from that. We don’t start from the technology. The technology is just an enabler. It’s something that we use to help brands and retailers solve actual business problems. ⁓ Which also, I think it’s…

Lara Schmoisman (06:02)
Mm-hmm.

Sampo Parkkinen (06:05)
Maybe even more revolutionary today than it was 10 years ago, because today it seems like everything’s all about the technology. AI this, AI that, AI, know, AI is everywhere. But I still think that, you know, that technology like AI, I mean, in the end of the day, it’s, it’s just technology, right? mean, unless you really use it for.

Lara Schmoisman (06:27)
What I love about your concept is that you say, are resolving a problem that the brands had or the retailer had. But at the end of the day, what you were doing is resolving the consumer problem.

Sampo Parkkinen (06:42)
Yes, yes, yeah, exactly. I think, again, that’s where we started. I started looking at this as a consumer myself first. And I think, it’s, and I would say that when the consumer has a problem, like finding the right products, figuring out what they should buy, where they should buy it from, what’s right for them, that very, very quickly turns into a problem for the retailer brand. ⁓

Lara Schmoisman (06:51)
Mm-hmm.

Sampo Parkkinen (07:11)
because it’s something that limits their ability to serve the customer, it limits their ability to grow, it limits their ability to generate revenue and improve their business. But you’re right, you’re absolutely right. That’s where we started from, is kind solving that issue fundamentally for the consumer.

Lara Schmoisman (07:33)
So. ⁓

Now let’s talk about the beauty industry because you told me that there are very exciting things going on in the beauty industry and now I want to know it all.

Sampo Parkkinen (07:44)
Yeah, definitely. I actually think this is probably the most exciting time, at least again in the 10 years that I’ve been in this business, to really be in beauty. Because I think that the playing field for a lot of brands, a lot of retailers, it’s actually more even than it’s ever been. ⁓ So if I kind of look back and I look at beauty, I mean,

10 years ago or 20 years ago, 30 years ago, you have the massive conglomerates. You have the L’Oreal and the Shiseidos of the world. And obviously, they’re still very big. They’re still very, very powerful. They have a lot of reach and a lot of great brands. But they were really, really dominant. They were really dominant in the distribution that they had, in how they could reach customers, in the awareness that they could generate for consumers.

And I think right now, like that’s fundamentally changed. think, you know, there are so many great brands out there, like so many great brands out there. mean, you know, every, every week I sort of read about a new sort of great brand launch ⁓ and I learn about a new fantastic brand. And I just think it’s, it’s for the consumer. Like there’s, there’s so many choices, right? It’s really, ⁓

you know, it’s really probably the best time to kind of be in this industry. And I think the other thing, which I think is pretty interesting is, again, if I look at like pre-COVID, you know, I look at the beauty industry, I would say, there’s kind of makeup and then there’s skincare and then there’s some other stuff. And now it’s like everything is kind of interlinked. It’s almost like skin health, kind of beauty, wellness. It’s in the mind of the consumer.

Lara Schmoisman (09:29)
And now they’re subdivided.

Sampo Parkkinen (09:39)
It’s all the same, you know, you’ve got multi-purpose products, know, you’ve got ⁓ brands like Imre’s Beauty, for example, you’ve got the kind of the ⁓ beauty products that you can get are kind of edible, for example. ⁓

Lara Schmoisman (09:52)
Let me ask you a question. Do

you think that brands now because of all these subdivisions and there are so many brands, every brand needs to be a little more specialized or having a better target audience?

Sampo Parkkinen (10:08)
Yeah,

I mean, I do think that, you know, on one sense, like it’s, it’s, it is obviously harder for brands to kind of get through the noise because there’s a lot, right? There’s a lot of brands out there. But I actually think it’s a good thing because it really forces all brands to really think about what are they and who are they for and why, like who do they serve and, and, and why what’s their purpose? You know, what is their

mission, what are they driven by? So I think, I think it’s, it’s, you know, they have to be very specific about who they’re serving, you know, what, what are they providing and for whom, but I actually think it’s a good thing. It’s really a good thing because I, mean, personally, I think every brand they need to have a, they should have always had kind of a center focus. Like this is who we are as a brand. This is what we represent.

This is who we serve. This is why we exist. And I think, you know,

Lara Schmoisman (11:08)
Yeah, and these are our

values. We don’t need to align with everyone anymore.

Sampo Parkkinen (11:12)
Exactly,

exactly. So I think the fact that there’s just so many alternatives for the consumer, it almost kind of forces brands to kind of come back to their roots and say, okay, these are our values. This is who we are for and this is why.

Lara Schmoisman (11:27)
How do you think that the merging of so many smaller brands and bigger retailers are starting to adopt those brands? How is affecting to larger brands and how they need to reformulate their thought to still be successful? Of course they’re going to be successful, but do you think that they need to make changes?

Sampo Parkkinen (11:45)
Hmm. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, I think that the playbook on how did you build and grow a brand, I think that has to obviously evolve. think, you know, there was a time where, you know, you could just get some celebrity endorsements, for example, you could put a whole bunch of money into marketing and, you know, you could generate revenue. And, you know, that’s probably true still today.

But only for a very limited period of time. If you want to be successful for the long term, you have to really be able to connect and build a relationship with the consumer so that the consumers feel like, whoever your consumers are, whatever your audience is, they feel like you as a brand are kind of on their side. You’re guiding them and helping them with…

better skin, better health, better kind of makeup preferences, whatever it is, you’re not just trying to push product on them. You’re actually trying to help them buy the things that the consumer wants. I think it’s an adaptation, particularly for some of the larger brands who’ve kind of maybe been accustomed to the fact that they can overspend, they can just spend whatever and they’ll get the customer.

Lara Schmoisman (13:02)
Let me ask you a question.

You don’t think that sometimes by having so many options and so many variables, and many of them, those are marketing made as are, are we overcomplicating beauty?

Sampo Parkkinen (13:20)
So I would like to think that we’re not right. I would like to think that I think but I do think that you know, you’re right. I do think that you know, well, let’s put it this way. ⁓ First of all, I think the consumer the beauty consumer is smarter than they’ve ever been. They’re more informed than they’ve ever been. So if you’re just creating another brand or creating another product line, putting some marketing spin on it and there’s no real kind of hard ⁓

know, solid core to what you are as a brand, it’s all just marketing spin. I do think the consumer today is too smart. You can’t fool the consumer. Like, they’ll try that product once and they’ll go, ⁓ okay, but this is kind of not what I’m looking for. ⁓ So I don’t think those brands will have staying power. I do think that, you know, the brands have to have…

Lara Schmoisman (14:11)
At

the same time, we’re all these… I’m a truly believer and a marketer in performance, that a brand needs to work for a person or a client or individual, otherwise I cannot sell it long term. But at the same time, you have all these celebrity endorsed brands that it’s all about the celebrity. So how can we justify a smarter consumer

Sampo Parkkinen (14:18)
Mm.

Mm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm.

Lara Schmoisman (14:40)
when we are, we have all the celebrities that is who is behind the product.

Sampo Parkkinen (14:40)
Mm.

Yeah.

Well, think like if you, if you think about kind of the celebrity and there’s a lot of these celebrity driven brands, you know, there’s a lot of, mean, you’ve got the Fenty Beauty is by Rihanna. You’ve got, you know, all the Kylie cosmetics and all these things. think in the end of the day, like if it’s really just about the celebrity and not the product working or performing, you know, for the consumer, you can get a boost. Like you can get a one, a short time boost by a celebrity and

The bigger the celebrity, bigger the boost, right? One hit wonder, right? And you can always do that. I mean, you can always do that. But I think, again, the consumer is going to find that out. Like the consumer is going to find that out. Like if the quality of the product doesn’t match up to the kind of promise, again, if you have a really big celebrity, like if you’ve got, I don’t know, if you’ve got ⁓ Taylor Swift.

Lara Schmoisman (15:13)
Like one hit wonder.

Sampo Parkkinen (15:39)
And I don’t actually know if she has a beauty brand already. She may, but if you think about Taylor Swift creating a beauty brand, I can guarantee you a lot of people would buy that. Now I put it in the universe. Now she’s going to start a beauty brand if she doesn’t have one already. But I do think in the end of the day, if you want to succeed long-term, you know,

Lara Schmoisman (15:47)
Now you put it in ⁓ the universe.

Sampo Parkkinen (16:04)
you have to have a solid foundation and a solid purpose and the product needs to really work. And you have to find an audience and you have to be able to connect with that audience as well. Not just push product, actually, I would almost say build a relationship. The consumer needs to feel like you as a brand, you actually care about them. So not just trying to sell to them.

Lara Schmoisman (16:25)
Well,

how do you feel? I’ve noticed that there are a lot of brands that they want to defound their story. The other ones are the founders’ values. The others are saying, ⁓ we have a philanthropy. At the end of the day, are, think sometimes brands might be losing the focus on what the brand is for and who is our consumer and what problem we’re resolving.

Sampo Parkkinen (16:32)
Hmm.

Hmm.

Mm.

Lara Schmoisman (16:52)
Because you’re resolving the problem. In addition, as a brand you want to make later on a donation, I think it’s great. But are we confusing the messaging of the brand as, okay, this is the founder story. This is our philanthropy. I feel like sometimes it’s too much.

Sampo Parkkinen (17:08)
Yeah.

Yeah, I think you’re right. And I think this is, I think that’s also part of why it’s an exciting time to be in beauty because I do think that messaging needs to become really clear for the consumer. mean, a founder and a founder’s story. And if you have a brand that’s really built around the founder, that is a very powerful story to tell.

It can be a very powerful, it can be something that consumers, customers relate to. It can be something that kind of brings them together. It can be something that forms a community around your brand. So that can be very powerful. ⁓ And if you have that, that’s something to focus on. I would rather see brands keep it simple around a core topic like that rather than…

Lara Schmoisman (17:54)
Mm-hmm.

Sampo Parkkinen (17:55)
you know, convolute that by, I don’t know, adding things like, philanthropy is great, but you know, you don’t have to add that into the same thing. Like you can, you know.

Lara Schmoisman (18:02)
And also with the brand

that almost is making no money, that philanthropy is not going to help anyone. I prefer that the brand, helping a brand grow a lot and they say, no, now that you grow, go and give a donation.

Sampo Parkkinen (18:06)
Yes.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And I think like you can layer on a lot of things, you know, once you are kind of successful, like you can do a lot of kind of things, a lot of positive things, a lot of good in the world. But I think that, you know, you’re absolutely right that, you it is a time. And I think the fact that there are so many brands for consumers, it acts like a forcing function because you have to focus the message. You can’t be all over the place. Like you can’t afford it because the consumers, I mean,

I’m sorry to say, but the attention span that you get from the consumers, that’s getting shorter and shorter. So you’ve to be very crisp on the message so that it really clicks.

Lara Schmoisman (18:53)
And also your consumer is everywhere, but at the same time, it’s not everywhere. So you need to see where you’re going to get the same, the best conversion from your consumer and hone in more content in that space and interaction in that space. Your consumer is, it might be everywhere because everyone has accounts in every platform, but every consumer has a favorite platform to buy. And I always say that, and this is a big controversy with a lot of people.

Sampo Parkkinen (18:58)
Yes.

Mm-hmm. Yes.

Yes.

Lara Schmoisman (19:22)
but I know I’m right. You need to be in platforms and marketplaces like Amazon and other places, because if your consumer is a lawyer, a consumer of Amazon, they’re going to be buying there anyway. They’re going to go and see you in social media and then go search for it in Amazon.

Sampo Parkkinen (19:34)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Yeah. mean, and I think that, you know, the key there for me is that you have to be where your target audience is. Like you have to meet them where they are. Like you can’t force them to go to, to, to, and the other thing is like, you know, this is again, a very controversial topic. And maybe even some of our customers will like me saying this, but even if I think about platforms like tick tock, like, you know, I think particularly last year, I went to a bunch of conferences and everybody’s saying like tick tock shop, tick tock shop, tick tock shop.

Okay, that’s great. Like I’m sure it is a great channel for some brands to generate revenue. There’s a lot of influencers there, but if your customers aren’t there, like, are you doing there? Like, you know.

Lara Schmoisman (20:17)
Exactly. Exactly.

Like ⁓ we are TikTok shop partners and I can tell you building a TikTok shop, takes time. It’s not that it happened overnight and to me it’s, and it takes a big investment to start seeing results, but you need to be really known if your consumer is there. If it’s not there, like for example, I have one of our brands that it’s for more mature audience. Yeah. The consumer might be there, but it might not be feel comfortable buying on TikTok.

Sampo Parkkinen (20:22)
Mm.

Yes.

Mm-hmm.

Mm.

Yeah, exactly. And I think that’s also where I think a lot of the brands like going back to their roots and they’re like, who are they for? What is their purpose? Who is their customer really? I think that’s really sort of healthy to have a really conscious sort of think about that because otherwise you end up in this game where you’re just trying to chase the next marketing channel. You’re trying to chase the next trend. And again,

Lara Schmoisman (21:13)
Yeah.

Sampo Parkkinen (21:16)
⁓ I would much rather see brands just stay true to who and what they are and kind of stay in their lane as opposed to ones where they’re kind of trying to catch every wave possible.

Lara Schmoisman (21:28)
Yeah.

As a marketer, and I’m very data-driven like you are, but something that I’ve been seeing in the last few years is the market was starting to be divided and it’s something I’m old school, but at the beginning it was brand and growth and branding. was all together part of marketing. Now there are a lot of

Sampo Parkkinen (21:42)
Hmm.

Hmm.

Lara Schmoisman (21:53)
branding and then growth. And it’s like the message is diluted because we make a branding, everything about the packaging, the looks and not about the consumer.

Sampo Parkkinen (22:03)
Yeah, no, I do agree. think it is a time where, again, we have to bring the consumer back to the kind of center of the equation, right? Because fundamentally, and just like we do with technology, for us as well, mean, again, yes, we sell to brands and retailers and we help them create this personalized AI-powered experience. But at end of the day, the consumer doesn’t

Lara Schmoisman (22:15)
and

Sampo Parkkinen (22:32)
If their consumer doesn’t use it, their consumer isn’t engaged by it, if their consumer doesn’t love it, well, we lose too. So I think at the end of the day, the consumer has to be at the center. That’s why we’re in this business. We’re in this business for the consumer.

Lara Schmoisman (22:41)
Let’s.

Yeah, one of the…

Sorry, go ahead.

Sampo Parkkinen (22:55)
No, I was just going to say, it’s one of these kind of so boring thoughts that I don’t think we should ever lose. But sometimes it’s kind of forgotten along with all the noise.

Lara Schmoisman (23:08)
Yeah, it’s the same

that I have this conversation so many times a week that people, when they think about SEO, they think about finding the brand. And SEO is so much more than that. Not only because SEO is about being discovered. It’s about finding who is your target audience and what they’re looking for. But now also SEO is across all the channels, even in social media.

Sampo Parkkinen (23:21)
Hmm.

Yes.

Lara Schmoisman (23:38)
And even you have for AI technology, need to do structure the SEO differently. SEO is so, and I see when I do audits all the time and I see brands that only are ranking with their name and their products names. And that’s such a big mistake. It’s not about our brand only. That’s our DNA and it should be there. Exactly.

Sampo Parkkinen (23:44)
yeah.

Hmm

No, it’s about the consumer, right? It’s about the consumer,

right? And that’s true. I think that’s where, you know, this is also, I again, I do think there was this, you know, very recent announcement, you you mentioned AI there with kind of OpenAI and Shopify, and then kind of partnering up and so forth. And I think that is a big wake up call because, you know, they wouldn’t be doing a partnership like that. ⁓

Lara Schmoisman (24:13)
MMM

Sampo Parkkinen (24:24)
if they wouldn’t be seeing a lot of consumers actually looking to discover things through chat GPT through kind of LLMs. And I do think it kind of demonstrates to a lot of brands and lot of retailers like, Hey, you know, we have to be discoverable. Like we have to be, and the consumer is not going to go and find us on our brand or on our products name.

Lara Schmoisman (24:47)
They’re not gonna

find us if they don’t know that we exist.

Sampo Parkkinen (24:49)
No,

like they’re gonna say, like, I want a red lipstick or it’s like, what’s the best moisturizer for me? Like that’s what they’re trying to find. It was like, I have a wedding, like I want a wedding look, like that’s what they’re trying to find, right? And you have to be discoverable.

Lara Schmoisman (25:04)
Yeah, it’s all about, yeah,

and this is about, I think the search terms change a lot, but it changed more. ⁓ It’s about the intention. It’s an intentional search. So what we need, all the algorithms have changed. Even Amazon has changed, Google, when they go for the search intention, they don’t go for the search terms anymore.

Sampo Parkkinen (25:18)
Mm-hmm. Yes. Yes.

Yes.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. I do think that’s, and this kind of goes back to what I was mentioning earlier, which is about kind of brands sort of rethinking how they’re serving consumers, saying, OK, it’s not about us. It’s not about our products. But it’s about how can we help the consumer? How can we help the consumer buy? How can we help the consumer find the right products? How can we help the consumer?

solve whatever thing they’re looking to solve, like whether it’s a wedding they’re going to, or whether it’s, you know, I don’t know, whether it’s that summer’s coming and they need, you know, they need something, you know, know, a skincare product with SPF, whatever it is. You know, I think that, you know, that’s, that is, is I think a fundamental opportunity for brands as well. that’s, that’s also part of, part of yet another part where I’m kind of excited to.

to see how this industry evolves because I think there’s a lot of opportunity for brands there to just say, look, we exist for the consumer. We’re just going to help the consumer. And if we help the consumer, they’re going to buy from us. And that’s it.

Lara Schmoisman (26:36)
Yeah, absolutely. I

always think about being a giver. You need to give, give, give, and at some point people are going to come back to you. It’s like karma. It comes back.

Sampo Parkkinen (26:41)
Yes. Yeah.

Yeah,

exactly. And I just think it’s never been as important as it is today because I mean, like I said, there are so many great products. There’s so many great brands. you know, just because you are natural or just because you have a great founder story, just because you have, know, you’re organic, you’re sustainable, whatever, that doesn’t, that’s not enough anymore because there’s so many.

There’s just so many great alternatives that you got to really speak to the consumer and say, hey, tell the consumers like, hey, we’re here to help you. We’re here to help you find the right products. We’re here to help you buy. And if you can instill that into your target audience, like you’re going to be successful. ⁓ You’re going to be much more successful than the folks that are just going out there and just saying, okay, we just thinking about what’s the next marketing channel. What’s the next customer acquisition channel.

you know, how do we get more consumers? How do we, you know, how do we sell more? So, so yeah.

Lara Schmoisman (27:46)
And I think

also there is a confusion. Everyone talks about a pretty word out there called ROAS. And at the beginning of a brand, it’s not about ROAS, it’s about brand awareness.

Sampo Parkkinen (27:55)
Mmm.

Yes, yes, it’s exactly that. think, again, I mean, I do think that, you know, if I think about, you know, and again, I don’t want to put kind of, you know, I always like to think of the example of the luxury brands, right, again, which again, are not, you know, not all beauty brands, but but the luxury brands, right? I mean,

Lara Schmoisman (28:19)
Mm-hmm.

Sampo Parkkinen (28:27)
The reason that they are long-term successful is because they’ve been very consistent, ⁓ very thoughtful about this is who we are for, this is what we represent, these are our values, and we’re going to continue doing this year after year after year after year. It’s not about the quick win. ⁓ Return on ad spend, that’s the quick win, right? But again, it’s not about the quick win, right? It’s about…

Lara Schmoisman (28:45)
No.

this.

Sampo Parkkinen (28:53)
finding that audience who you are for, whose problem you’re actually solving and sticking with that and just kind doing it over and over again consistently. you know, and I think that’s where this is also where, you know, you have these brands that kind of have these moments where they just blow up, right? They just absolutely skyrocket. But what you don’t see is that usually if you really look at those brands very closely and you look at the stories behind them, they’ve been at it for years.

They’ve been working on it for years and years years and years of consistently same message, same thing, very thoughtful, very targeted. And at some point they blow up.

Lara Schmoisman (29:32)
⁓

I’m put it out there and I know that people won’t like what I’m going to say, but launching a brand is expensive and it’s not only about the product. It’s the cause of launching a brand, your marketing to do things right is expensive. And if you don’t have that budget to do it consistently, it’s going to take more time. But what is really important that you are very choosy and exclusive.

Sampo Parkkinen (29:40)
Mm-hmm.

Hmm.

Mmm.

Lara Schmoisman (30:00)
Don’t be that brand that tries to be everywhere for this quick sell because that’s the only thing that it’s going to do is going to dilute their brand.

Sampo Parkkinen (30:05)
Yes.

Yeah, absolutely. do think that it’s, you know, it’s, I would say that, you know, it’s, it feels kind of very easy to, to kind of start a brand. But I think it’s, it’s more difficult than ever to, you know, to be long-term successful because like you said, I mean, it takes capital, it takes persistence. takes, you know, it takes

takes a lot of consistency over a long period of time. it takes a lot of focus to be successful. And that’s how you see these overnight successes, 10, 15 years in the making. yeah.

Lara Schmoisman (30:49)
Yeah.

So

Shambho, I cannot go without talking to you about this because I think it’s important. I think that in the last year or two, we were having like an overload of AI. Five years ago, I remember going to conferences and there were some talks about the AI and we were like 10 people listening to it. And because people thought that we are not that close, we are not that ready and then…

Sampo Parkkinen (31:03)
Yeah. Yeah.

Lara Schmoisman (31:17)
Two years ago, it exploded and people are trying still to catch up how to prompts to ChachiPD. But anyway, I think we had an overload and ⁓ a huge and fast learning curve. So do you think that this stop that we got to a point that is going to slow down? And what do you think that is coming for the AI world in the beauty industry? What’s next?

Sampo Parkkinen (31:30)
Mm-hmm.

No, that’s a good question. I do agree with you. think in the aftermath of of, know, chat GPT sort of launching where, I mean, like I said, we’ve been using AI for 10 years. So we kind of knew what it could do in the background. But I think what chat GPT really did is an open AI. They really kind of opened it up to everybody, to the average consumers. Like, wow, this thing is actually real. And obviously the technology has gone really good.

you know, in the last couple of years. But I do think that what kind of happened were a couple of things, which is, first of all, I do think that technology is here to stay, right? I do think it’s here to stay. I don’t think it’s just a fad. But I do think that what happened there for a couple of years is like, everybody went crazy over kind of all things AI, like from the boardroom of the brands, like people are talking about

Lara Schmoisman (32:35)
I was talking crazy

about the internet bubble or are we going crazy a little less?

Sampo Parkkinen (32:42)
Well, I mean, maybe not as much as the internet bubble, but I do think it was it was kind of everything was AI. First of all, all the all the companies wanted to brand themselves in AI. Like all the messaging was AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, that. And I think that really did suffer in the boardrooms of brands and retailers saying, OK, what are we doing with AI? We’ve got to do something and so forth. ⁓ But again, the reality is, I think what we’ve seen is

A lot of things that have been implemented by brands in the last few years, ⁓ a mad kind of AI rush, maybe weren’t that successful. And I think the reality is that…

Lara Schmoisman (33:24)
Do you think that

they rushed into it?

Sampo Parkkinen (33:27)
Well, I do think that they did rush into it a bit. I think, again, AI as great as kind of chat GPT is, as great as kind of, think our AI technology is and so forth, it’s still just a means to an end. Like, you know, if you’re a brand, if you’re retail, if you’re any business, like you really have to think about, okay, what are the things that we are looking to solve for? Like what are the…

the most pressing business problems we have either towards our customers or internally, like what are the things that we need to improve as a business in order to grow? what’s keeping us awake at night? And then you see, okay, is the technology AI, is that able to help us with those things rather than kind of starting with the technology? And I think

Technology companies are actually at fault here because I see this in our industry as well. you know, a lot of people, ⁓ you know, a lot of the, the, the CEOs, of, of, companies in our space, I see them talking about the technology, like AI AI, how, great all this technology is. And I’m thinking to myself, I’m saying, well, yeah, the technology is great. But again, like in the end of the day, it’s just an enabler. Like, and if you’re just deploying the technology.

for the sake of the technology, it’s not going to have the impact that you want it to. So I think, again, you have to be really thoughtful of how you do it. Now, I will say that, again, I think that there’s a lot of potential. There’s a lot of ⁓ promise in AI for beauty. And it ranges from everything. It ranges not just, ⁓

from the customer experience side of things where we work, where we actually think it can kind of fundamentally change the experience that you’re able to offer to the customer. ⁓ But also in the background, like if you think about analyzing data around trends and new formulations and what consumers care about, if you think about inventory management, if you think about how… ⁓

you quickly you’re able to kind of ship products to consumers, the convenience of shopping, all these things. There’s a lot of promise, but I do think that, you know, you have to, instead of rushing into it, just because something is AI, you really have to say, okay, this is a bottleneck for our business. And if we sold this bottleneck, this is what I think is going to happen. And this is by the way, whatever, whenever I speak to, you know, an executive of ⁓ one of our customers.

That’s the question I always ask is like, let’s say you have this AI powered customer experience in front of your customers, in front of your audience. What’s going to be different? What’s going to change? What’s going to happen? Because, you I don’t want, you you just to deploy a piece of technology because it’s the latest trend. want to deeply understand what is it that you, you want to change in your business. And then we can talk about, is it something where.

AI can’t even help or should it be something else? ⁓

Lara Schmoisman (36:41)
Yeah. And behind

every good AEI tool, there should be humans.

Sampo Parkkinen (36:50)
absolutely. Absolutely. And I think that’s the other thing where I would kind of caution brands, you know, in the sense that, you know, beauty is a very, an executive of a major retailer told me that, you know, that, you know, that they, they don’t want to kind of lose the romance of beauty is what they call it. And, and I actually think it’s a very good ⁓ analogy because it, because

Lara Schmoisman (37:16)
I like that. I really like

that.

Sampo Parkkinen (37:19)
I just think it’s such a great way to say beauty is very romantic. And I think there is a certain kind of elegance and certain kind of human touch that you need. And we need to be very mindful that we kind of retain that because that’s part of the beauty in beauty, right? mean, it’s… And again, AI is an enabler, it’s not a replacement.

It’s not a replacement, right? this is the same thing we tell everybody who’s kind of saying, we want to use AI in stores. say, think about AI in a physical store. ⁓ Think about it in a physical store in a way where it kind of gives superpowers to your beauty advisors. It’s not meant to replace them. It’s meant to empower them and give them superpowers.

Lara Schmoisman (38:08)
Yeah, actually

that’s super interesting because one of the biggest challenges that I see that the young brands have is educating people in the floors, in the stores.

Sampo Parkkinen (38:19)
Yes.

Yes, exactly. Exactly. I think, again, that’s, think a perfect use case for AI. And it’s not about those, those beauty advisors in the store getting replaced by AI. And it’s really about how do we make them 10 times as good as they are? How do we really supercharge them? How do we make sure that every interaction that they have with the consumer ends up wowing the consumer? And I think that’s where AI can help them, certainly not replace them.

And I think that’s a very important distinction.

Lara Schmoisman (38:55)
Thank you so much, Shampo. This was a great talk. I really enjoy every minute and I could keep talking to you for hours.

Sampo Parkkinen (39:04)
Thanks for having me, Lara. It’s really been a pleasure. And likewise, I’ve really enjoyed the conversation.

Lara Schmoisman (39:10)
And to you guys, I will see you next week with more Coffee Number 5.

 

The Darl (36:58)

Thank you so much, Shampo. This was a great talk. I really enjoy every minute and I could keep talking to you for hours.

 

Sampo / Revieve (37:06)