Intermixing Products and Social Media

David Booth, Vice President of Global Marketing skin care and color at philosophy, began his career in the beauty industry at Lancôme. Booth has had a fascinating career that includes 10 plus years in beauty marketing, eight years in fashion design and relocations to Paris, Amsterdam, Arizona and now, back to New York. philosophy is an ingenious brand that approaches personal care from a skin care point of view, while simultaneously celebrating the beauty of the human spirit.

2 Questions with David

Do you have specific rituals for re-setting your team to be creative?

We encourage each other to take a moment and disassociate from the office. As well, philosophy is a brand that encourages open innovation. We are always looking to connect and interact with each other in creative environments. A great example is cooking classes we take together. These opportunities allow us to have fun, ignite inspiration and kick start creativity together.

How do you identify trends? What resources does your team use to spot trends and consumer insights?

Identifying trends can happen anywhere. For instance, for our recent launch of ‘time in a bottle’, our ambition was to not only deliver an amazing skin care product, but also to go further and question the concept of time and people’s relationship with it. The insight was that most people never have enough time and therefore, see it as the enemy. We wanted to challenge this convention and to try and get time back on our consumers’ side. Using social media platforms and a polling app, we gathered feedback about our consumers’ relationship with time and what they would do if they had more of it. The responses were very candid and often endearing. This engagement continued on Instagram where our fans created collages themed around what they would be doing if they had more time. It was a fun way to dream a little and experience the brand in a more holistic way beyond the great products.