Susan Woods [00:00:25]: Hi, I’m Susan Woods, Principal of the Woods and Co., and to me, it’s a matter of candor.
Kelly Kovack [00:00:35]: Technology, social media, and the rise of influencer marketing changed the business of public relations forever. I’m Kelly Kovac, Founder of BeautyMatter. Change is good, but it isn’t always easy. The one-way communication funnel of traditional PR that carefully placed and controlled the message of clients evolved into the dissemination of information into real time, and brands having actual conversations with their audiences. Brands are no longer in control; consumers are. Paradigm shifts can be perceived as a problem or an opportunity, and they result in obsolescence or resilience. Susan Woods, the Principal and Founder of Woods and Co. has flawlessly navigated the digital evolution of media, providing a playbook for agencies and brands.
So, Susan, thank you for joining us today. Can you share a little bit about your background and how you came to found Woods and Co. and focus on indie beauty?
Susan Woods [00:01:37]: Sure, thank you for having me, Kelly. I love being here with you. So, what a long strange trip it’s been. Basically, 22 years ago, I was working as the VP of Development at Paramount Pictures, and I’m now professionally confident enough I can tell this story truthfully, because for a long time, I fibbed. A friend of mine came to me, and he said, “You look pretty miserable. Your job looks like it pretty much sucks. All you’re doing is working on the weekend, getting paid no money…” I had this lofty title, but I was miserable, and I didn’t know what to do with my life. And he said, “I have a great idea: let’s start a PR firm,” and I said, “JP, honestly, I know I was a journalism major and I’m a good storyteller, but PR just seems like puffery to me, and I’m not really into that kind of pushing products and people and from what I’ve seen in entertainment, what traditional PR people do,” I wasn’t really that into it. He said, “I just know you’d be good at it.” So, out of desperation, and stupidity, probably, at the time, we were so young that we didn’t have a lot of overhead or bills to pay, we just really had meager rent in L.A. I said, “Okay,” what could be worse than what I was doing then, you know? So, we founded Choir Communications, and our first client, bearing in mind this was 22 years ago, were organic food clients, and why? Because nobody else wanted the business.
Kelly Kovack [00:03:01]: That is amazing. That’s amazing.
Susan Woods [00:03:03]: Isn’t that amazing? Literally, I had to call reporters on the phone, this was before the computers were a big thing, like we were still faxing, I believe. Some people were starting to email, because I remember at Paramount, we had a few executives asking for pitches via email, and we were like, “Wow, okay,” but it was really at the advent of the technology boom. So, our first clients were organic food, this was right when Whole Foods started to perculate, and I would have to call people on the phone and convince them why they should make healthy choices, and the reporters, food editors at the time, would say, “But, it tastes like crap. I’d rather not eat crap.” Our first client was Organic Choice, natural soups and servings, I kid you not.
Kelly Kovack [00:03:50]: You say it like you’re still pitching it.
Susan Woods [00:03:55]: Oh yeah, well, I pitched it so hard back then, I was like, “Please, just try this stuff,” and literally, they would say, “That was the worst tasting soup I’ve ever had in my life,” and so I learned a lot about how to convince people to make different choices and try organic, and why they should think about what they were ingesting as being important. And so, we became the go-to natural food company, and I started walking the halls of Organic Natural Expo West, back before it was anything but you know, a hall filled with virgin companies that just hoped to make it, and now, when I go to Whole Foods, I’m so proud because so many of the companies at Whole Foods, I had a hand at launching. So, we built a decent sized company with offices in New York and L.A., and I was flying back and forth, because my partner had no interest in going to New York, he doesn’t really like it, and I was flying back and forth, we got a foothold in New York, and I started expanding Choir to go into fitness and wellness and health, and then naturally, into beauty, and when you go into beauty as a PR professional, you sort of have to be in New York; you can’t do it as effectively from L.A., it’s so relationship-driven, and so much of the business of beauty happens in New York that I found myself commuting between New York and L.A. every two weeks, even though I had a young son, so I was getting pretty tired, and my ex-husband turned to me, and he’s like, “You can’t keep up like this,” and I said, “Yeah, you’re right.” We had sort of outgrown our partnership, and so seven years ago, I said, “You know, I think it’s time for us to get separated,” you know, my business partner and I, and I took beauty, fitness, health, as it pertained to anything topical, and he took anything ingestible, including food, and then most recently, of course, a couple years ago our non-compete dissolved and we’re still really good friends, so we’re sister agencies, so here I am, New York, and I’ve always maintained a presence in Los Angeles, but you know, beauty has really been pretty much 80% of what we do, other than some fitness and health clients. That’s how I got into indie beauty, and of course, some of my first clients were natural clients, back then, seven, eight years ago – well, I guess it was ten years ago now that I got into beauty, I would say it was 70/30, 30 naturals, 70 not, and now, of course, that’s all changed, so it’s been really interesting.
Kelly Kovack [00:06:38]: It’s very interesting, you know, that you say you knew that it was – that sort of the partnership had run its course. You know, I think so many people enter partnerships, and when you start a business, everyone loves each other, but as the company evolves and people get older, very often, priorities change, business dynamics change, and some people kind of stick with it, but very often, the parting of ways doesn’t end in friendship, it ends up being really acrimonious. How did you navigate that?
Susan Woods [00:07:15]: It was really hard, actually. I think JP and I had started as friends, and we had just…I don’t know, we tried everything from marriage counseling to all kinds of professionals, you know, counselors, business coaches, and so we really had a lot of water under the bridge; we really had talked a lot about where we wanted to grow the business, what we were interested in and what we weren’t, and so I think it was just a natural step that we both looked at each other and said, “This isn’t working.” So, it wasn’t acrimonious at all, and actually, I talk to him all the time; we go on vacation together, we ski together, we still fight like brother and sister, but we love each other like brother and sister. He could be one of my first calls if something happened, you know?
Kelly Kovack [00:08:08]: That’s pretty special.
Susan Woods [00:08:09]: I think so. I mean, there’s still – quite frankly, and I think he would agree if he heard this, a little bit of competitiveness between us, and there’s, you know, I think that’s part of the reason why we sort of didn’t succeed. I got the greatest piece of advice from one of the business coaches. You know, JP…every business coach I would get, JP was like, “Oh, that guy’s a dunderhead, that guy is a dunderhead, that guy doesn’t know what he’s talking about.” So, I used to work at CAA, before I worked at Paramount. So, I called one of the agents that I knew over at CAA, and I thought, “Who do these big ego, entertainment guys get when they get into a partnership? Who do they get? I want that guy,” and it cost me a ton of money – or us a ton of money, it’s a really simple piece of advice that sort of formed my thinking about doing business, it’s really quite simple and I think everybody should hear this: on one side of the piece of paper, write down what you love about your job, and on the other side, write down what you don’t. Chances are, you’re really good about doing the things you love, and really not good doing the things you don’t. So, if you can carve a partnership into a model that enables you to focus on what you love, and the other partner probably focuses on other things, you could have a kickass partnership. Unfortunately, in our case, I found that JP didn’t really value what I did that much. He thought I was too social, and liked the parties, and stuff like that. We’re just different. So, that’s sort of what happened.
Kelly Kovack [00:09:50]: You know, it’s really interesting that you sort of started your first agency when kind of business was being – was evolving because of technology, because I kind of feel like PR has gone through almost, I guess, in your case, a second sort of digital revolution, because the rise of digital technology and social media kind of created a paradigm shift for the PR industry, and that sort of one-way communication funnel of traditional PR evolved into a dissemination of information real-time, and brands have to actually have conversations with their audiences now, that are very often unfiltered. How has this informed your business model? How do you engage with clients, and how do you actually do the work? Has how you approached sort of PR and the agency model changed?
Susan Woods [00:10:57]: Yeah, of course. I mean, I think I was very lucky in that I kind of saw it coming many years ago, and so, we – I remember that was one of the things that JP and I were debating. I said to him, like ten years ago, “Print is dead. This is a dying breed, JP, we have to pivot,” and you know, we would have a lot of arguments about that, and that was really painful to a lot of people to reckon with, and I think the companies that didn’t do so fast enough are the ones that really floundered. So, I kind of saw it coming, and was able to modernize and develop in ways that kept us relevant. So, what we immediately did was started a social media department, obviously. The omni-channel opportunities that have arisen as a result of the digital transformation, or landscape, as you said, Kelly, have been so significant, and what that does, as you mentioned, is allow brands to talk to consumers directly, therefore having access to information that formerly, they would have to hire big focus groups, studies, etcetera, and now you can really talk to your audience. Think how lucky that was, especially at a time when D-to-C sales channels have become very, very critical for brands, especially during COVID. All of the brands we represent, if they didn’t have their digital strategy in place, as well as that D-to-C communications sales channel going, they’re really suffering, because retail, obviously, has been so compromised by the pandemic. So, you know, we’ve been doing – we have different ways of talking to both editors and consumers, we’ve tried all different tactics, from even video desk side, this is before COVID even, I was recommending, here in New York, we rely on desk side meetings formally, even before COVID. Why not have an editor in another place, whether it be secondary media markets, also have access to the brand founder via digital communications strategies, including video? So, I think, you know, a lot of positive changes have come as a result of the digital transformation of our industry.
Kelly Kovack [00:13:23]: You know, I want to talk about influencers just a little bit. I don’t know if it’s just me, but it really feels like things have changed a little bit. There’s sort of this ecosystem of some very large influencers, who will all remain nameless, that kind of fueled these ridiculous self-inflicted dramas and infighting that brands sometimes got caught up in the middle of. All of the sudden, this feels really dated. I mean, we all have much bigger problems, in the world, than what influencers throwing shade at the other to remain relevant. I think it kind of come to a head that Alicia Keys was going to – or, at least it came to a head for me, you know, she made an announcement that she was going to launch a brand, and immediately, there were these influencers kind of spouting off that she had no right to start a beauty brand, and I’m thinking to myself, who made you the deciding voice of who can and cannot start a beauty brand? It’s sort of reached this level of ridiculousness that felt so…almost desperate and attention-seeking. What’s your take on the current influencer landscape? What trends are you seeing? What are consumers gravitating towards? Have brands sort of changed how they’re making the decisions of who they partner with?
Susan Woods [00:15:06]: Well, being that we’re in indie beauty, we’ve never played the macro game, really. So, most of our outreach has been confined to micro-influencers who really are authentic brand ambassadors for our clients, and just love the clients. That’s, of course, the mainstay of what we do, is we try to identify who those authentic influencers are who really like the brand, because I think the consumers see through that now, and they kind of know who’s being paid, who’s not, etcetera, and they sort of discount it as an ad, and some of them are just posting so much content, it’s just redundant, and it’s just become saturated. So, we have one brand, interestingly, that is playing in that field, and we’re just helping them identify a handful of paid partnerships that will drive sales, because that tactic has been very, very successful for them in Ireland, in particular, where the brand was founded. So, other than that, we’ve really not played that game, and of course, now, all the rates are being completely cut, everyone – I think the influencers know that…a lot of brands are leaning off of that now, to me, from what I’ve seen, and really looking for partnerships that are going to be on-going and true – truth in their partnerships, and I think that’s what the consumer is looking for, too. The consumer wants to see people really talk about the efficacy of a beauty brand and really believes, you know, that what they’re hearing is true. They’re tired of being just pitched product by influencers. I just don’t…I don’t know, I just don’t think that that works anymore, and in terms of influencers, they’ve had their own reckoning recently, because if you look, so many of them have made mistakes during the pandemic in terms of being tone deaf, or Black Lives Matter in terms of saying controversial things or beign caught wearing something that is politically charged, and so they’ve had their own reckoning, many of them, and we’ve been called upon to counsel some of them. One beauty brand, in particular, influencer sort of got under her hood and found her wearing a MAGA hat from years ago, and really were writing things all over Instagram, etcetera, and so, you know, they’ve become both the watchdogs and the watched. It’s sort of crazy, and that’s all since the advent of social media, but they’ve had their own reckoning, you know?
Kelly Kovack [00:18:02]: Yeah, you bring up an interesting point, because we’re sort of at an inflection point with social media, with kind of this social media power transparency that’s given rise to this callout or cancel culture, and sometimes it’s warranted, sometimes you pull back the curtain and it shows people and brands for what they really are, but sometimes it feels unjustified and vindictive, and regardless of the intent, the result is the same, especially if it goes viral. I would imagine, for you, it’s a bit of a minefield, because you have to help clients manage in this landscape. What do you do if you wake up and find out one of your clients has been outed on Estee Laundry, for example?
Susan Woods [00:18:51]: It really depends what they’ve been outed for. I think we had one situation, thank god not on Estee Laundry, but we had one situation where they were called out for not developing enough of a broader color palette for foundations, and you know, it was interesting, because my counsel and that of my staff was two different things. My staff said, “Tell her after her initial – after she address…” and I’m favoring what they said, they said, “Tell this woman, who owns this brand, to apologize, say it’s being addressed, and not to engage in the dialogue, because you have all of these people, every time you answer a DM, they will DM five more times, and then write on your post ten more times, and next thing you know, you have this ongoing conflict that just doesn’t die, meanwhile, they’re just looking for opportunities all over Instagram to just call brands out. It’s not, really, that they care, so much about the respective brands, they are just opportunists who are looking for controversy, and the minute you engage in the dialogue, you’re making it worse, once initially addressed, and of course, listening to their comments and making sure that you are addressing them, and making sure you are developing a broader color palette, if need be, etcetera, of course it’s something a lot of brands have learned during this time, but just continuously engaging in the dialogue, I think, will just fuel it.” So, I was sort of surprised to hear the counsel of my staff, but they had many examples of having seen that just further embroil a company into that.
