DTC founders as influencers—behind the marketing risks and rewards

It’s no secret that founders of direct-to-consumer brands often make the best influencers for their businesses. Take Nell Diamond of fashion and home brand Hill House Home and Nadya Okamoto of period care brand August, for instance: They regularly pitch their products to loyal followers on TikTok and Instagram and see significant results. Before them, DTC founders of the early 2010s, such as Ty Haney (Outdoor Voices) and Emily Weiss (Glossier), did the same. But relying on founders for marketing can come with risks, DTC experts warn, leaving these brands too reliant on one voice. Below, more on how founders have emerged into successful DTC influencers and what brands can do to mitigate risks. Why do DTC brands use their founders as influencers? Weiss, the founder and former CEO of beauty disruptor Glossier, may have been one of the original founders-turned-influencers. She built Glossier in front of her thousands of Instagram followers, many of whom came from the “Into the Gloss” beauty blog that spawned the idea for Glossier, which was founded in 2014 and sells minimalist makeup, skincare and fragrance products. Related: DTC marketing trends to know about now Weiss’s personal social media presence has contributed to Glossier’s rise. Before she stepped down as CEO in early 2022, followers of Weiss’s Instagram account could find her promoting every product launch or company update with personal anecdotes. These posts often garnered five figures worth of likes. Comments like, “I just got almost everything that you recommended. I’m a first-timer customer!” were common. Below is an Instagram post from Weiss while she was CEO. (Weiss currently serves as the company's executive chairwoman.) View this post on Instagram A post shared by Emily Weiss (@emilyweiss) Weiss is just one example of a founder who simultaneously grew their social media following while building a DTC brand. Many of the most successful founders-turned-creators are women, which is likely the case because the majority of paid influencers on TikTok and Instagram—the platforms where many DTC brands focus their marketing efforts—are women. On Instagram, 78% of influencers who monetize their accounts identify as female, compared to 22% who identify as male, according to a 2023 influencer marketing report from Collabstr, a platform that connects brands with influencers. On TikTok, the split is similar, with 76% identifying as female and 24% as male, the report found. Sign up for Ad Age newsletters From influencer marketing to agencies, get the latest news and analysis delivered to your inbox Click here Many of today’s up-and-coming DTC brands have also used their founder’s social media presence to promote the brand. “It’s working right now—and I think it is a trend that we’re seeing,” said Lia Haberman, a social media and influencer marketing instructor at UCLA, in an interview. Take Hill House Home, for example. The company exploded in popularity during the pandemic, when its “Nap Dress” became the foundation of the perfect pandemic wardrobe. It was a soft, feminine dress with a stretchy bodice that was equally suitable for all-day Zoom calls or relaxing on the couch. Diamond, the founder and CEO of Hill House Home, saw her social media following grow as she shared the inside scoop about upcoming product releases and designs on her Instagram account. “I started this brand in 2016, and I definitely wasn't an influencer—I didn't have a following,” Diamond said in an interview. “Any following that I have now is really from the growth of the brand.” She currently has just over 88,000 followers. Since 2020, Hill House Home has expanded into more categories, including shoes, accessories and swimwear. With each expansion, Diamond takes to her personal Instagram account to document why the category is meaningful to her. When Hill House Home rolled out shoes in July 2022, Diamond posted the following video of herself to her personal Instagram with a sentimental caption. The video garnered more than 60,000 likes and plenty of warm, personal comments. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Nell Diamond (@nelliediamond) When Diamond posts about Hill House Home on her personal social media account, the post typically gets more engagement than paid influencer posts, Diamond said in an interview. Case in point: A recent Instagram post promoting Hill House Home products from Diamond’s personal Instagram account garnered more than 2,000 likes and 40 comments, while a post promoting Hill House from influencer Claire Most netted about 700 likes and 11 comments—despite the influencer having roughly 8,000 more followers on Instagram than Diamond. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Nell Diamond (@nelliediamond) There’s a logical reason behind these metrics: authenticity. DTC founders-turned-creators “usually actually care” about the products and companies they create, said Mike Duda, managing partner at creative agency and investment firm Bullish, which has invested in DTC brands such as Harry’s and Casper. “It’s not just a business thing, like ‘I’m going to go to graduate school, go to Procter & Gamble, work for 25 years to get my retirement,’” Duda said, adding that for some DTC founders, “it’s the exact manifestation of business becoming personal.” Now more than ever Okamoto, co-founder of DTC period care brand August, has a similar story: She has amassed over 4 million TikTok followers since starting the brand and often creates content about why equitable period care is important to her. Before starting August, Okamoto founded Period, a nonprofit that distributes menstrual products to people in need and has fought to repeal the sales tax on tampons and pads. From a cost-per-acquisition perspective, it makes far more sense for her to post about August on her personal TikTok than for August to hire external influencers, Okamoto said in an interview. Founders like herself, she said, have “an incentive to post without any immediate cash pressure on the business,” meaning they post for free, as opposed to paid influencer marketing. Okamoto recalled a time when this was especially helpful for her brand: In November 2021, she was posting content about August and gaining more than 100,000 followers per day, leading to more brand awareness for August, she said. DTC brands are typically built on cheaply acquiring customers through social media, Haberman said. In what she called “the golden era” of DTC around 2016 and 2017, it was easier to acquire a lot of customers both very effectively and inexpensively via paid Instagram and Facebook ads. Then, as digital privacy concerns increased, many DTC brands shifted to influencer marketing. As influencer marketing has become more saturated and expensive, DTC brands are increasingly turning to their own leaders for influencer content, Haberman said. Having a leader who’s presentable and comfortable in front of a camera representing the brand is “a really smart, cost-effective way” to cheaply acquire customers, she said. That is true for August, which “has not leaned into paid influencer marketing” and “probably won't,” Okamoto said. “In the world of direct-to-consumer brands in general, cost of acquisition is such a key metric because I think we have seen the direct consumer bubble burst. And a lot of that bubble bursting is saying, ‘hey, consumers are sick of just being around brands that are in a pay-to-play model,’” she said. Perhaps now more than ever, DTC brands are focused on getting their cost of acquisition down, Okamoto said, “which means that paying an influencer like, six figures for one TikTok that you don't know will convert” makes a lot less sense than her posting to her 4 million followers, many of whom are already invested in her story with August. Ad Age Best Places to Work Recognizing employers in advertising and marketing Enter here All that glitters is not gold Revolving a social media strategy around a DTC brand's founder also comes with some inherent risks, according to experts. “If a DTC brand does go all in on their CEO as influencer and forgoes all other marketing solutions, I think the problem there is when somebody leaves or when somebody is pushed out … that’s when you get into problems—when you’re solely dependent on this one person as the entire representation of your brand,” Haberman said. “If anything goes wrong, you’ve tied everything to this one person. And, you know, founders can be pushed out, founders can leave. And then the backlash of having everything tied to this one person who might no longer speak favorably about your company, could be potentially really damaging for the company.” Earlier this year, Haney, the founder of Outdoor Voices, began calling out the brand on Instagram, three years after she was replaced as CEO. (Haney previously said she was “removed” from the position after an anonymous letter sent to the company's board of directors labeled her as “mercurial,” according to the New York Times; Haney and Outdoor Voices did not respond to requests for comments for this story.) Haney posted comments ranging from, “Yikes! Y’all have lost your way,” to detailed notes on how the brand’s signature garments were, in her view, being made incorrectly. Although Haney, who has over 91,000 Instagram followers, has since deleted her comments, one tweet about them was viewed more than 500,000 times, with various news sources writing articles about her comments. This type of incident isn’t common, but it did start a conversation among DTC marketers about the inherent risks that come with a founder-centric marketing strategy. There are other risks, such as when founders get into trouble. After DTC fashion brand Reformation’s founder Yael Aflalo (who currently has roughly 22,900 Instagram followers) was accused of workplace racism in 2020, she stepped down as CEO and publicly apologized. Soon, there were widespread calls for retailers such as Nordstrom and Net-a-Porter to end their relationships with the company; both retailers still sell Reformation products. See all of Ad Age's 2023 Leading Women here Risk management tactics Of course, some founders are so linked to brands that it's hard to imagine them without them. “It’s such an existential question,” Hill House’s Diamond said, when asked about the brand continuing without her, and her roughly 88,000 Instagram followers. “Hill House is my life and my soul—it’s everything to me,” she continued, adding that she can’t imagine the brand without her. “It’d probably be fine,” she eventually quipped. That’s partly because she has safeguards in place that diversify Hill House’s marketing strategy beyond her personal brand. For instance, Hill House still pays other influencers to post, despite Diamond’s posts always being the top-performing ones. “I’ve always wanted to be sure that people don't think that the right way to wear Hill House is the way that I wear it,” she continued. “I want to provide a ton of different options.” But having more than one familiar face on a brand’s social media account could come in handy if Diamond ever decides to step down. Glossier, too, has focused on diversifying its marketing strategy since Weiss stepped down as CEO. Ahead of its roll out with its first big box retailer, Glossier hired Kleo Mack, a L'Oréal alum with significant retail marketing experience, as chief marketing officer. The brand’s signature millennial pink signage was soon a fixture in Sephora stores. Haberman said founders-turned-influencers should be a robust part of a larger integrated marketing strategy, rather than “the only solution for all of your marketing issues.” “While some DTC brands might decide that that's their solution ... I would caution them that it should never be the only solution,” she continued.

DTC founders as influencers—behind the marketing risks and rewards

Featured Stories