With its hot pink packaging and “extremely online” marketing, Futurewise went all-in on slugging, Gen Z and a cartoon slug mascot. Now, the vegan, hydration-focused skin-care brand from Starface and Julie founders Julie Schott and Brian Bordainick is expanding its retail presence into Walmart on Aug. 10.
“Walmart is everywhere, and it’s all over the world, and we really want to be in those pockets where we can’t reach consumers that we normally would be able to reach,” Priyanka Mathew, Futurewise’s head of marketing, tells Fashionista.
Along with its direct-to-consumer website, Futurewise’s four-product lineup — comprising a hydrating mist, barrier-repairing moisturizer, occlusive balm and overnight lip mask — is currently available on shelves at Target, CVS Pharmacy and Urban Outfitters. But its expansion into more than 2,000 Walmart stores nationwide now offers the brand a clear growth opportunity for further market penetration.
Photo: Courtesy of Futurewise
Futurewise is also celebrating its Walmart expansion with a new product launch: its first cleansing balm, Face Melt, which will be exclusive to the retailer on Aug. 10 and available at futurewise.world starting Aug. 20. With DTC’s limitations in an increasingly omni-channel world, Mathew notes that Futurewise’s goal is to become a household name like its sister brand, Starface.
“We’re not Starface, but we’re trying to get to that kind of meteoric rise,” Mathew continues. “In a way, we have kind of gotten our foothold, but we haven’t done the full thing, full gamut, and… I have the opportunity to tap my counterparts at Starface to see what works for them, where they’ve worked, where they’ve failed, and use those learnings for ourselves.”
Starface soared in popularity among Gen Zers and pre-teen Gen Alphas looking to stylishly conceal pimples with the brand’s multicolored star-shaped patches, and Futurewise is also zeroing in on this younger consumer base. With its finger on the pulse of Gen Z’s latest TikTok trends and memes, Futurewise focuses on speaking the digital insider language of its customer.
“I think our biggest strength there is just being able to talk like our audience talks, and that is how we build our team as well,” Mathew says. “I can tell you the marketing team is very online. We’re always talking in our Slack channels about the latest trends and what we need to be talking about.”
That said, the brand’s in-store presence and foundational skin-health product offering also attract a slightly older demographic of consumers in their 20s and 30s, as well as a group the team affectionately refers to as “the moms.” “We are so young in our packaging and our messaging, but we find that our in-store customers tend to be the moms of the kids that we’re talking about,” Mathew shares. With Futurewise arriving on Walmart’s shelves, Mathew predicts this retail expansion will deepen the brand’s relationship with an older audience that is discovering the brand in-store rather than through its virtual channels.
When it comes to growing the brand and its product offerings, Mathew notes that Futurewise is interested in differentiating itself from competitors through original formulas that focus on quality over quantity. “We just want limited products that really work into your skin routine,” she says. “So if you have a favorite serum, please use it. If you have a favorite sunscreen, please use it. But this is just meant to work within your routine, and we’re not trying to launch a one-to-one to what exists in [the] market… I’ve been in the beauty industry a long time, that’s what normally brands do.”
Futurewise’s partnership with Walmart also represents a symbiotic relationship: This expansion offers Walmart a chance to further tap into the Gen-Z skin-care and beauty market, while Futurewise can now reach its online consumers in the physical stores they frequent. Mathew points out that though consumers may discover brands through DTC, purchasing (and repurchasing) often happens at the store level. As Futurewise prepares for its future of brand building, it’s focused on achieving “a lot of growth, but in the right way.”
“We’re very cognizant of our audience, and we want to stay true to the weird, quirky, edgy brand that we are, but definitely bringing it more to a commercial audience,” she says. “That’s always difficult for doing only DTC, and that’s part of why we’re so focused on omni-channel growth, but that’s also our strength that we’re able to be this weird slug mascot brand online, and then really capture that cult, dare I say, ‘It’ girl audience that’s ahead of the trend, that knows what brands to have before everybody else.”
Never miss the latest fashion industry news. Sign up for the Fashionista daily newsletter.
Source: Fashionista.com
Be First to Comment