In this episode, Gabrielle Richards, Brand Director at Trafilea, an E-commerce Tech Group, joins Kerry Curran to dive into the strategies behind scaling iconic brands like Shapermint, truekind, and Rebel Beauty.

Gabrielle shares her journey of redefining brand positioning to emphasize empowerment and body positivity, taking Shapermint from its roots to over 10 million customers.

From mastering AI integration and multi-channel marketing to building an authentic community, Gabrielle offers insight into creating inclusive messaging that resonates deeply with consumers. Discover how Shapermint leverages everything from TikTok to TV to grow and how you can apply these tactics to your own business growth strategy.

Don't miss Gabrielle’s top advice on risk-taking, community building, and staying ahead in a rapidly evolving digital landscape.

Podcast transcript

Kerry Curran, RBMA (00:01.182)

So welcome Gabrielle Richards, please tell us a bit about yourself and your extensive background and experience.

Gabrielle Richards (00:08.211)

Sure, I'm so excited to be here with you. My name is Gabrielle Richards. I'm the brand director at TrafileaTech e-commerce group. We are a brand that is building an amazing ecosystem of empowering brands including Shapermint, Truekind, and Rebel Beauty.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (00:29.492)

Great. So tell me a bit about what kind of what you're seeing in the industry and kind of with Shapermint in the kind of marketing landscape.

Gabrielle Richards (00:40.471)

Sure. So right now what I'm seeing in the marketing landscape is that a lot of brands are really trying to understand and adapt to this whole AI conversation that's happening and trying to figure out where do they fit in within this puzzle of AI and how can they use it to help enhance their current brands and businesses.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (01:06.472)

Yeah, no, it's definitely a lot of that's what I keep hearing from marketers trying to figure out how to incorporate AI and you want the efficiency, but you still need the human touch to it. Yeah. So I know we talked a bit about kind of building the brand for Shapermint and you've been there a while and had a lot of experience. So talk a bit about kind of the, you came in, what the efforts were around …

Gabrielle Richards (01:19.767)

Exactly.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (01:35.028)

… brand and kind of the activation around …

Gabrielle Richards (01:38.579)

Sure. Yes, I came during a really exciting time where we were going through a revamp of our brand positioning. And I started off as our senior brand manager where I was overseeing more of our community channels and our organic channels, specifically social media influencers. During that time, I really wanted to buckle down on our overarching mission, which is empowering women and tapping into body positivity and making sure that all of our consumer touch points really laddered up to that overarching messaging. And for me, being a self-proclaimed body positive influencer, it was really important for me to truly understand what is body positivity? What is body confidence?

And so during that time, about three and a half years ago, I enrolled in a course to become a certified body confidence coach. At the time it was a body positive coach. And I'm going to explain why the transition there. But it was really eye opening for me because prior to me becoming educated really within that subject matter, I thought body positivity had a lot to do with just how right? And I couldn't have been more wrong, right? It's more so how a woman or how a person feels within their skin. And for me, working at a brand where we create and empower our customers through our shapewear, it was important to say, okay, can you sell shapewear and truly be a body confident or body positive brand? And I would have to say yes, right?

Because here at Shapermint, we're not here to change what you look like. We're here to enhance what you currently have. And so through our comfortable shaping essentials, we're able to achieve that. And so from the course, I was able to help revamp some of the copy that was on our website, in our packaging, in our catalogs, as well as reinforce through our acquisition and retention …

Kerry Curran, RBMA (03:57.47)

Okay.

Gabrielle Richards (03:57.687)

… making sure that we're creating inclusive messaging, not just through different body types, but also ethnicity and age and, you know, body positivity at the time too, tapped into all of the isms, right? So ageism, sexism, racism, and all of that. And so making sure that we could also be the pioneers and leaders in that conversation.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (04:21.586)

Yeah, no, that's incredible that you took that extra effort and step to really get to know your target audience and what they're thinking and the language they're using. I love that you're, I just love the brand being more about accentuating what you love. We all need that a bit more in our lives. So that's great. And so I know you talked about kind of the early days there.

You had some investment in TV, but then it was pulled back and you realized, or actually you were saying the investment in TV was pulled back and you realized that you needed that kind of upper funnel investment to kind of build that awareness. So talk a bit about that experience.

Gabrielle Richards (05:03.319)

Well, what I think many brands and companies they're seeing is that there's so many different touch points for that consumer and what used to be, you know, the linear funnel back in a day where like TV out of home radio is now you really need to be where your customer is throughout the different stage of her day. Right. And so …

Kerry Curran, RBMA (05:17.64)

Yeah.

Gabrielle Richards (05:28.769)

Prior to us going into traditional TV, we were able to scale a lot of our advertising through Metta and Pinterest and TikTok and Facebook and now TikTok. And right now what we're seeing is that there's a huge opportunity for us to invest in those upper funnel channels, specifically in television and really allow.

More women to know and learn who Shapermint is, but don't forget those other channels. So a good example, right, our customer, she's multifaceted, right? She's a mom, she's working, she's out running errands, she's shopping. And all of a sudden she gets a phone call and she looks at her phone and maybe she goes into TikTok and we wanna make sure we are there wherever she is, right? And …

Kerry Curran, RBMA (06:19.976)

Yeah, yeah.

Gabrielle Richards (06:20.701)

… on social media, on television, linear and NCTV, all of those channels are important and we have a really great strategy to support it, …

Kerry Curran, RBMA (06:32.52)

Yeah, no, definitely. I think you bring up a good point that the customer journey is no longer linear. You do need to be in so many touch points and really understand. So you've got the understanding, the language that you need to use to resonate with them and being where they need to be. And you talked about, you know, how you're using that to really build a community of customers, not just a one way transaction, but really trying to use both of those initiatives to really connect with your target audience.

Gabrielle Richards (07:04.983)

It's really important. Right now, we're incredibly proud to say that we've surpassed 10 million customers. And that's been through, you know, not just having a great product, which is, of course, important, right? But also making her feel that she's included in our community. And we're here to support her through every stage of her journey.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (07:26.024)

Yeah. Great. So I know you mentioned TikTok and that's a hot, hot topic these days for a lot of brands. But you know, when I talk to brands, they're not always sure it's the right channel for them or their audience, but talk about how you kind of built into that and how you would recommend brands kind of, you know, I guess how you've been successful and how you'd recommend other brands kind of chest into … 

Gabrielle Richards (07:53.417)

Sure, so I think it would be smart for brands to use Facebook, and I'm gonna say Facebook, right? Because back in the day, that's what it was called as an example of where it's like, you better get in now, right? While it's growing. So with TikTok, it's the fastest growing social media platform out there. I know in the early days it was coined as like, okay, this is just for Gen Z, …

Kerry Curran, RBMA (08:00.2)

Yeah.

Gabrielle Richards (08:19.903)

I've been able to see specifically during the pandemic how that demographic widened, right? And in terms of trending news, topics, events, it's happening on TikTok first, whereas you would have seen it happening on Twitter or in Meta, right? And so for us, we love tapping into new things and we saw a lot of excitement in TikTok specifically.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (08:30.196)

Great.

Gabrielle Richards (08:48.567)

As you know, we've built a large creator community, right? And a lot of our influencers and brand ambassadors, they're on TikTok. And so it behooved us to also make sure that we're doing all of the advertising opportunities through TikTok, as well as building the organic channel in itself. And so with that customer who is consuming TikTok, right? She might discover you through an organic post, maybe that post, you know, by a happenstance went viral, right? Because it's super difficult to, you know, create that morality in the same age. But we want to make sure that if she discovers you through the organic side of TikTok, that we are able to also double down through the advertising side of TikTok. And now with the new TikTok shop, it's even better. They don't need to leave the platform to purchase, right? 

Whereas if you were to discover a brand on television, you either need to scan a QR code or go to the website, right? It's like you have to leave. Whereas if...

Kerry Curran, RBMA (09:53.8)

Right. Or go to search for it and then as the brand you hope they find the right thing.

Gabrielle Richards (09:59.539)

Exactly. Whereas on TikTok now you can purchase everything directly through the platform and I spent too much time there, but you, once you made that one purchase on TikTok, all of your information's locked in. So it's very easy for that customer to purchase in a matter of minutes. And also too, it's a small window of them like changing their right? They see you, they discover you, they go to the TikTok shop, they see the creator's content promoting the product at the same time. It's a win-win.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (10:32.338)

Yeah, for sure. And so what types of content you mentioned, user generated content is valuable for you and your audience. So what types of content are you seeing working, resonating the most? Is it your creator influencer content, more user generated or brand? What are you seeing working?

Gabrielle Richards (10:53.111)

Sure, so I would say it's a medley of both, because of our positioning and our product and the fact that we are encouraging all women of shapes and sizes to celebrate their shape, it's really important for our customer and end user to see real women, right? In all different body types, not your typical size, or medium.

So for us, UGC is incredibly important. also to having a woman really talk about and speak about the attributes of the product. And so we like to use that type of format. And you'll see a lot of different body types in our ads. And also to us highlighting a lot of those attributes. And then calling out the pain points at the end of the day, which is incredibly important.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (11:22.942)

Yep.

Gabrielle Richards (11:41.373)

In an industry like ours where shapewear has been known to solve a solution or solve a problem, we're here to say, hey, we have targeted compression zones or we have items for different occasions. You don't have to just only limit shapewear for that wedding or that birthday. And so it's important for them to see a woman being able to talk about that in …

Kerry Curran, RBMA (12:03.283)

Mm-hmm.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (12:08.926)

Right, right, yeah. And so with your, we talked a bit about the organic content or the influencers that you're working with. Talk a bit about how you're finding your creators or what your strategy is for building out those relationships.

Gabrielle Richards (12:26.675)

Sure, so word of mouth is really important for us, not just for growing your customer base, but also growing your creator community. So we actually have a few different types of creators, so to speak. So we have your traditional brand ambassador who could be our customer, right? Which we're able to reach out to our customers through surveys, through our private groups that we have on Facebook let them know that they could also become an ambassador for us, right? 

The criteria is to be number one, love our product. Number two, be willing to post about it, right? And so we have our brand ambassadors and then we have our content creators who you don't necessarily need to have a large following on social media because we allow them to create the content they give to us. We use that in our ads. And then we have the traditional influencers.

Women that have a decent following on social media, they range from at least 10,000 followers up to the millions. And we have them in different tiers. So you will have the low to mid, the high tier, and the celebrity-like influencer.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (13:39.344)

And are you using paid amplification to further promote the content to broader audiences?

Gabrielle Richards (13:48.745)

Yeah, so you'll see on our social media, we definitely like to amplify some of the content through that, as well as using fan pages through Metta. That's also important. But you'll see a lot of our influencers and brand ambassadors are posting directly on their channels and using the influencer affiliate links and coupon codes. And that's incredibly helpful, too.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (14:11.742)

Yep, yep.

That's great. And so yeah, it sounds like they, through the community and through your branding, you're really building up that following of loyal customers that are, want to talk about your brand and share their experiences.

Gabrielle Richards (14:29.715)

Exactly. Yeah. And for me, you know, being a brand director here at Trophylia, being able to see that organic growth. And most recently I was at an Essence Festival and, you know, I ran into a young lady and I was like, my gosh, I love your style. And, you know, we started chatting and she was one of our influencers and she's like, you know, I worked with you guys and I did that. And so it was just really cool seeing this in real life and knowing too.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (14:50.525)

No way!

Gabrielle Richards (14:58.131)

you know, the women that we bring on to represent our brand are multifaceted, right? Dynamic and at the end of the day, truly love …

Kerry Curran, RBMA (15:03.292)

Okay.

Yeah, no, it's, you know, what you're talking about just makes me think it's more than a brand. It's really a, you know, it is a community. And we've heard that, you know, I think we spoke with Amanda, the president of marketing at Peace Out Skincare last week, and she said the same thing. Like, it's really about building your community of brand loyalists that they're there because they're there. You've changed their lives. You're important to them and they want it's organic that they want to kind of spread the word and evangelize your brand. So you're definitely doing something right in that perspective.

Gabrielle Richards (15:46.263)

For sure. We love to say that we are that brand for, you know, that modern woman. And, you know, again, through our consumer touch points and our social media and email and all of that, you really see that we tap into that their everyday life and, you know, the trending topics and, you know, again, for me, it's been really exciting to see that growth and also to.

Now we just turned six years old this past June, right? So we're considered like the new kids on the block. However, you know, our results prove that, you know, we belong here.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (16:23.506)

Yeah, no, for sure. it's, I see it. I believe I can see from what I've seen online and just your passion as well. And so you talked about it being successful. So can you share a bit about how you're tracking for success and measuring beyond just the feel good sentiment?

Gabrielle Richards (16:43.479)

Yes, yeah, for sure. So right now we've just surpassed 10 million customers. We have over 250,000 five-star reviews. And like I said, we also too have expanded into wholesale. So that's been a really fun channel for us to tap into. So shameless plug, you may see me and Laura Kamenir and Janay Saina on QVC representing our brands.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (16:50.228)

Amazing. Congrats.

Gabrielle Richards (17:12.919)

which has been so much fun. So you'll see Shaper Men Essentials and now True Kind also on QVC. And we're also in Belk. We're on Macy's.com and we're on Nordstrom.com. And so we've gone beyond just a D to C brand and now we're in traditional retail. And there's so much more exciting things that are going to occur that I can't say just yet.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (17:12.936)

Incredible. Yeah.

Gabrielle Richards (17:40.183)

But you're going to see more of Shapermint and be able to have access to Shapermint . Now, in terms of measuring success, we exceeded $200 million last year. We're on the road of exceeding 300 million this year. And we're international. So Shapermint is sold in the United States and we're now available in Canada, the UK and …

Kerry Curran, RBMA (18:05.524)

Yeah, great. And one of the aspects of brand measurement that's so hard to measure is that just the brand left an awareness. So you talked a bit about kind of using technology to track against your competition and kind of the aided and unaided recall. Talk a bit about that approach.

Gabrielle Richards (18:26.807)

Sure, so on a quarterly basis, we measure and let me preface this. It's always very difficult to measure true impact from the brand side, right? Because normally marketing we're here to spin, but we track our performance through aided and unaided awareness. Also, you know, looking at our competitors, having a benchmark and then understanding too, what are our customers saying about the brand, right?

Our sentiment is incredibly important. We have a really large research team here at Trophylia. Paired with our data science team, we're able to really understand the metrics that we're tracking to be able to pivot and modify our strategy on a quarterly basis.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (19:13.044)

Great, well thank you. You've shared some tremendous success and so congratulations for everything you've achieved and the brand is achieved in such a short time. So one more question is what would you say to a brand that needs to start seeing growth like you've achieved? What would your recommendation be?

Gabrielle Richards (19:31.972)

Don't be afraid to take risks, right? True growth mentality is to try, try, try, adapt, try again, right? Also benchmark your competitors and people outside of your category. I think sometimes you can become so consumed with numbers and sometimes, you know, struggle with the creativity and the disruptiveness, right?

Consumers are smart, right? They want to make sure that you are exactly what you're preaching and that you're also, you know, creating products that really tap into not just their lifestyle, but that, you know, can really enhance their lifestyle. So I would say, you know, as a brand, number one, understanding who you want to be known for, what your true brand positioning is, also recruiting the right team, right? That's incredibly important. And then finally, you know, key team members that are going to be really passionate about the topic and the subject matter so that you can build an authentic community.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (20:34.984)

Well, Gabrielle Richards, this was very enjoyable. I learned a lot and always enjoy speaking with you. So thank you so much for your time today and hopefully we can have you on again sometime soon.

Gabrielle Richards (20:48.907)

Thank you so much, Kerry. And it was so great meeting you in real life last year. I can't believe it's been a year.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (20:50.804)

Thank you. Yes, we do need to meet up in real life again soon for sure.

Gabrielle Richards (20:58.613)

Yes.