In this digital-first world, being in charge of digital at any company sounds daunting. But our next guest makes it look easy.
In Ep. 142 of Earned, Conor Begley sits down with Chris Chesebro, Chief Digital Officer at Wella Company, an innovative global leader in the beauty industry with a portfolio of winning professional and retail hair, nails, and beauty tech brands.
To start, we delve into the seismic shifts occurring in the beauty industry through digital innovation. Chris shares how his team harmonizes digital marketing strategies with MarTech and AdTech solutions to build beloved consumer brands while catering to diverse, country-specific needs. We hear how transitioning from a B2B to a B2B2C model and implementing innovative strategies on platforms like Amazon and Ulta have driven significant growth for Wella. Chris also emphasizes the importance of upskilling staff in digital tools like Google Analytics and Adobe Analytics. Switching gears, we dive into the vital role of social media in cultivating relationships within the professional hairdressing and nail art industry, and hear how Wella leverages affiliate partnerships and celebrates individual excellence. To close the show, Chris opens up about challenges and triumphs of navigating corporate spin-outs and digital transformations, before leaving us with his passions for cooking and wine.
We’ve included a couple of highlights from the episode below, but be sure to check out the full video above, or tune into the podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen!
The following interview has been lightly edited for concision.
Conor Begley: So one of the things that's really interesting to me about your role is that it says digital, but honestly it seems like there’s a heavy crossover with marketing. Talk to me about how your role interacts with marketing and just generally what your role is for people who aren’t as aware.
Chris Chesebro: I think the thing I would start with is that, especially in beauty, brands are what drive success. All of the operations around the way that we deliver messages obviously contribute to that, but you have to have a brand that matters, with products that work, with consumers who love them.
So I really see the role of digital in supporting the marketing teams and the marketing leaders with the right types of tools, the right types of processes, the right types of content delivery mechanisms—the list can go on and on—to be able to help them build brands in the most effective way that delights consumers. So, at least within Wella and within my role and my team's responsibilities, we're really there to help enable amazing brand building wherever those brands need to be built, with whatever consumers those brands are relevant for.
So that informs the philosophy and the way that we're organized and the way that we work really closely with the marketing teams. I work very closely with our CMO, but even more so with the brand leaders and with the marketing teams that are in our markets, in the countries, on the ground, because our business is very much a country-led business. The retailers are in the countries, the brands come to life with consumers in the countries, so we work very closely with them as well.
And then to your question about, “What is Wella Digital and what does the CDO do?” We're really looking at it from an enterprise level. We cover all the support for digital marketing, all of our MarTech and AdTech. We work very closely with the e-comm leaders in the markets, and then we also focus on enterprise data and measurement. Digital at Wella is a reflection of what Wella's business needs are, and that's something that I find really consistent with digital roles and CDO types of roles:digital means something different for every single company, based on what their business needs are and what their transformation needs are. But we really focus on how we are helping the company from end to end achieve its transformation goals and really capture the types of growth that we're seeing in digital channels, especially in e-commerce channels.
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