How to Stay Relevant?

Do you know how hard it is to keep people’s attention? In THIS day and age?

Harder than maintaining inbox zero. 

Harder than ignoring your phone when it buzzes.

Harder than convincing Ari that Dawson’s Creek is quality television. 

It’s the Marketer’s daily fight. At every turn, we’re battling distractions, breaking through the noise, and trying to stay culturally relevant.

The best Marketers don’t just sell.

They captivate, connect, and THEN convert.

Few people understand this better than today’s guest, Tara Loftis, Global President of Dermatological Skincare at Galderma.

She’s the Marketing powerhouse behind Cetaphil, a legacy brand that’s been around for over 75 years.

Tara’s here to talk about how she’s redefined Cetaphil for a new generation, why Gen Z loves nostalgia, and how to market in a world that’s changing WEEK TO WEEK.

Here’s what she said in her own (lightly-edited) words (or listen, here).

1️⃣. Be something to somebody.

“I believe you can’t be everything to everyone.

If everyone wants to buy you, that’s amazing and that should be the goal.

But I believe that you absolutely have to have a design target.

Based on the opportunity that the brand had and the challenge that we had, we decided to do something a little bold, which was to shift the design target to Gen Zalpha. 

(Adding “Gen Zalpha” to my vocab!)

Ultimately what we decided to do is to position the brand with that Gen Zalpha design target, knowing that it would steal appeal to older generations who are looking for what is desirable.

As we were working with our creative agency on our rebrand, we stopped and did consumer testing along the way to ask not just our Gen Zalpha target audience, but Millennials and up too.

“What do you think about this?”
“Do you find this more appealing or less appealing?”
“Do you find it more scientific or less scientific?”

What we found was that although we were using Gen Zalpha as a target audience, the older demographics found the rebrand the most appealing and the most scientific, even more than Gen Zalpha themselves.

That hypothesis proved itself to be true, which is that although older generations might not be like brand agnostic like Gen Z is, they’re more loyalists.

(Marketing to different demographics is the ultimate balancing act. At some point, you have to draw a line in the sand to who you’re going for and see if others follow.)

2️⃣. Walk out of your creative rut (literally).

Six years ago, I moved from San Francisco to Paris, and my life changed.

In Paris, I started walking to work, which was about a 30-minute commute every day. Coming from San Francisco, the hometown of Uber, I wasn’t used to walking much.

But in Paris, I found myself taking in the beauty of the city, walking past people, businesses, architecture, and parks.

I noticed street style, beauty trends, ads on buses, and what was being shown in the Metro.

I had never felt more connected to my surroundings. I wasn’t rushing to get into an Uber or heading to the airport.

That daily walk gave me the space to really observe, and I started getting my best ideas from that [new] lifestyle.

It allowed me to pick up on real, relevant consumer behavior in a way I hadn’t before.

(Anytime I have trouble writing, I take a walk. Just the process of getting away from the work gets you out of your own head in such a helpful way. By the time I get back, I know exactly what I need to do.)

(OH ALSO, an American Marketing executive moving to Paris would make an AWESOME TV show. I’m writing the script now. Anyone know some TV producers?)

3️⃣. Staying Relevant Requires Routine.

I spend probably 10 minutes every hour scrolling TikTok. 

And before I go to bed, I spend at least 10 minutes scrolling YouTube.

And I make sure that I’m on X twice a day.

That is part of my program and I make sure that my team operates in the same way.

And because I am a very old millennial, I also love media and I’m always reading the news as well.

I not only know what’s trending, but I know what’s being perceived as relevant by the news media and by journalists, which is also something we have to take into account when we make these decisions.

But I try to stay relevant by being very disciplined.

We have to know what’s happening out in the world.

That’s genuine. I’m not doing it because I’m obsessed with being successful. I just love human behavior and what makes products sell.

That’s what makes me tick.

(I suddenly feel better about my own screen time but Tara has a great point. The best content creators are often also the best consumers.)

4️⃣. Celeb endorsement? Get chaotic or get out. 

I do believe, as controversial as this may sound, that we’re at a moment where celebrities have diminishing power in Marketing.

I think for celebrity to work for the past few years, it had to be very authentic.

Now, I don’t even think that’s enough.

I think for celebrity to work, the concept has to be right.

You have to nearly break the internet with what we would call a “chaotic Marketing concept.” 

(I’m calling my shot now. We’re gonna see SO MANY chaotic celeb commercials this Sunday *ahem* Dunkin’.)

5️⃣. Take a risk or take a dive.

When I joined Cetaphil, I did a lot of investigating amongst my peer group that came from similar brands, and I also met with a lot of our regions.

One common theme that had become a bit of a saying was to ‘strive to be as common as possible and only as different as necessary.’

I think that says so much about the way heritage brands operate.

To move forward and to shift any of that, I think it starts with a blend of art and science. 

As marketers, I think part of that is trusting our gut and then I think part of that is matching it up with data.

Especially when you’re someone that’s coming into a heritage brand, you don’t want to be a bull in a china shop, right? You want to inspire with your ideas in the art side of it, but it has to be grounded in the science, which is the data.

IN A MEME