From Startup to Global Brand: Scaling with Strategy and Heart

Are you ready to boost your company's revenue and growth? Join us on this episode of Revenue Boost: A Marketing Podcast as host Kerry Curran dives into "From Startup to Global Brand: Scaling with Strategy and Heart" with Amanda Knappman, a marketing leader with 20 years of experience. 

Discover the strategies Amanda used to scale Peace Out Skincare from a startup to a global brand featured in major retailers like Sephora and Ulta. Learn about the importance of a strong brand identity, community building, omnichannel marketing, and leveraging influencers and user-generated content to drive sales. 

This episode is packed with valuable insights and actionable advice for business leaders eager to elevate their growth strategies. Don’t miss out!

Podcast Guest: Amanda Knappman

Host: Kerry Curran

Topic: From Startup to Global Brand: Scaling with Strategy and Heart

Welcome to Revenue Boost: A Marketing Podcast, the ultimate resource for business leaders eager to elevate company growth! I'm your host, Kerry Curran, and today we are diving into "From Startup to Global Brand: Scaling with Strategy and Heart."

Joining us is Amanda Knappman, a visionary marketing leader with 20 years of experience in the industry, including nearly 15 years in beauty marketing and brand management. Amanda has worked with renowned brands such as Procter & Gamble's CoverGirl and Max Factor Cosmetics, Amore Pacific's luxury skincare, and is currently the President of Marketing at Peace Out Skincare. Peace Out Skincare is a prestige brand known for its innovative acne solutions, including their patented pimple patch.

In this episode, Amanda shares her journey of scaling Peace Out Skincare from a startup to a global brand available in major retailers like Sephora and Ulta. We'll explore the strategies behind their explosive growth, the importance of maintaining a strong brand identity, and the impact of community building and omnichannel marketing. Amanda also discusses how leveraging influencers, creators, and user-generated content has helped them build a loyal customer base and drive sales.

Whether you're looking to scale your business, enhance your brand strategy, or understand the power of community and influencer marketing, this episode is packed with valuable insights and actionable advice. Let's get started!

Kerry Curran, RBMA (00:01.182)

And welcome Amanda. So please introduce yourself and share a bit about your background and expertise.

Amanda Knappman (00:07.481)

Yeah, so thanks so much, first of all, Kerry, for having me on your podcast. Super excited to chat with you today. And as I know some of your other guests, we go way back. But to tell you a little bit about myself, I've been working in marketing for about 20 years now, specifically working in beauty marketing and brand management for almost 15 years, starting my career at Procter & Gamble, working CoverGirl and Max Factor Cosmetics, eventually taking that into some additional digital roles, making a big switch into working at Amore Pacific, working in luxury skincare, fragrance. And then a few years ago, ultimately made the switch to start working on smaller founder -led startup brands. And so today I'm the president of marketing at P South Skincare.

We are a prestige skincare brand and everything is all about offering products for acne prone skin. We're best known for our, what we call our OG, our original acne healing dot, which is the only clean, medicated, patented pimple patch.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (01:25.046)

Amazing. Actually, I was at my dermatologist's office today and the dermatologist was wearing one. yeah, yeah.

Amanda Knappman (01:31.649)

Fantastic, we love that. Yeah, that's, for age, I mean, I still have lots.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (01:37.446)

Yeah. I know. So yeah, it's, I love the story behind Peace Out Skincare. And like you're saying, it is a prestige brand. It's, you know, present at Sephora and other major beauty retailers in addition to selling it directly. And I know there's a lot of story and strategy behind that. So share a bit about what you've taken on over the last few years and how you've really built up the brand and kind of where it's come.

Amanda Knappman (02:15.481)

Yeah, absolutely. So P -SAL was originally founded actually in 2016 by founder and CEO Enrico Frezza. He's still with the company, still founder, CEO. And we first launched into actual retail in 2017. So we just celebrated our seventh birthday on the 4th of July. and the brand was really built around establishing …

Kerry Curran, RBMA (02:37.313)

Wow, very exciting.

Amanda Knappman (02:45.613)

… fun, easy, simple solutions for acne prone skin, starting with that Oatly pimple patch. Over the years, the brand has expanded to many other products, continued with a huge amount of acne products, but also started expanding into some other areas, pores, eye products, even age -delayed products.

Last year in 2023, one of the things that we realized was really going to be important for us because we had had such insanely fast growth. Like you were saying, it started selling in Sephora in 2017. Now we're in Sephora in the US and all over the world. We sell in Ulta, we sell on Amazon, we on our own DTC. We also sell at a number of beauty retailers. Such fast, explosive growth, I think, is very exciting.

Sometimes you need to take a pause and say, hey, are we still kind of representing who we are, you know, really being true to our brand name? So, it was very much about let's take a moment and really make sure we are clear on who we are, what we stand for. And so, it became a laser focus for us last year to say, we're a little concerned, you know, we really see an opportunity to increase …

Kerry Curran, RBMA (03:42.378)

Mm-mm.

Amanda Knappman (04:10.349)

… the number of new users coming into the brand, we still see that there's tons of opportunity to drive brand awareness. And the answer to that was we go back to our roots. We focus on acne -prone skin. We focus on making sure that we're providing education, information, and expertise on products for acne -prone skin. And we make sure we're really highlighting and hearing our original and hero skew product, the OG Dot, because that has …

Kerry Curran, RBMA (04:30.656)

Mm-hmm.

Amanda Knappman (04:39.401)

… always been the number one trial vehicle to acquire new users into the brand. So that was the entire kind of focus last year. And what's really exciting is having that kind of North Star basically go back to our roots, go back to our DNA as the path for how we continue to grow is now we're seeing that pay off in a big way, not just from kind of your kind of marketing metrics, …

Kerry Curran, RBMA (04:47.626)

Mm-hmm.

Amanda Knappman (05:09.027)

… from sales metrics.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (05:10.666)

Yeah. No, I love that story and example because you're right. It just reiterates the importance of having that strong brand and branding voice and identity as your foundation to scale. it brings it back to, like you were saying with Enrico and his own kind of story and why he started the company in the first place. definitely.

Definitely love that aspect. And I think it was so smart and strategic. you know, like we were saying, it's because of a lot of the marketing that your team, you and your team have done, it's that it's really become more normalized. Like you're saying to see the dots, people wearing them. And it's, you know, I think a lot of that is connected to the, you know, the marketing and branding strategies that you've.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (06:06.275)

… that you've undertaken. So definitely, you've definitely driven a cultural shift.

Amanda Knappman (06:09.081)

Absolutely.

Amanda Knappman (06:13.667)

Well, I mean, yeah, I think hopefully we feel we've been part of it, but we've also been from it. So, I mean, when Enrico started the company, it came from the fact that he struggled with acne so severely when he was younger and didn't have anyone at the time to help him understand what to use. He didn't have an easy solution. And it was a little bit, you know, kind of a stigma to go out in public. I mean, when we were younger, I didn't want to go out in public.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (06:39.69)

Yeah. Yeah. Or if you did, I was thinking about this today, you would be caked on with like an inch of foundation trying to hide it, which doesn't hide it. So it's like, yeah.

Amanda Knappman (06:43.221)

I think ...

And now, I mean, people feel very comfortable going out with no makeup or with acne patches on, or even with stickers on. it's become a form of self -expression. It's very accepted. It's this kind of acne positivity or skin positivity we're seeing, which is fantastic. When was the most important thing to worry about? Yeah, when you're younger.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (07:01.482)

Yep.

Yeah, no, I love that. Right? Definitely. I know. So talk a bit about your omnichannel strategies. I know you have a lot of experience in the media side of this as well. So tell a bit about what you kind of led for your team.

Amanda Knappman (07:37.537)

Yeah. So, it's funny, Pissout was historically actually a very strong brand, especially during the pandemic, like I'm sure many others on the online environment and the online store. And especially coming out of the pandemic, there's been such a dramatic shift of sales going back into the store. And we have an overwhelming percentage of our sales actually coming from brick and mortar. However, …

Kerry Curran, RBMA (07:46.962)

Mm -hmm.

Amanda Knappman (08:07.713)

I think actually what the pandemic woul