The “E.l.f.” In E.l.f. Beauty may stand for eyes, lips, and face, but the brand also has a heart—Laurie Lam, its chief brand officer.
When describing her role, Lam told Retail Brew she pumps “the vital blood…so every single organ gets what it needs in order to adequately be able to do its thing,” adding the brand needs a strong pulse to maintain the “speed of light” pace, both in marketing and product innovation, that has become essential to its strategy.
“In my two years I’ve been at E.l.f., I’ve done more than I’ve done in my 20-year career,” Lam said.
Lam spent more than 15 years in marketing at L’Oréal before joining E.l.f. in 2022, beginning her new role with an intention word—“unleash”—which is spelled out on the friendship-style bracelet she’s wearing when we meet up at Cannes Lions.
E.l.f. began in 2004, selling $1 direct-to-consumer cosmetics. As such, it’s “always been disrupting,” Lam said. Fast forward two decades, and the brand closed out fiscal 2024 with net sales up 71% in Q4 to $321.1 million, notching its 21st consecutive quarter—and strongest ever year—of net sales growth. While the brand has raised prices since its debut, Lam noted that understanding its consumers, listening to its community, and often moving quickly has helped the brand sparkle.
Glow getter: E.l.f. prioritizes “moving at the speed of culture,” which means creating products and marketing campaigns that are culturally relevant as well as emotionally resonant, Lam said. Its new bronzing drops, launched in April, were created after CEO Tarang Amin went live on TikTok and saw consumers asking for them, Lam said.
“He walked right down the hallway, he walked into our product development room, and said, ‘Do what you need to do, but we’ve got to make sure bronzing drops happens, because the community is asking and going wild for it,’” Lam said. Its marketing support, including a “Go Wild” ad campaign featuring actress Jameela Jamil, then illustrated that consumer demand for the product.
That penchant for speed—and risk-taking—is also how it’s become a multi-time “TikTok billionaire” in terms of views, Lam noted. An April TikTok video promoting its Stick It to Zits Pimple Patches—where an E.l.f.-branded helicopter sticks a pimple patch onto George Washington’s cheek on Mount Rushmore—garnered 24.2 million views. A video featuring a Love Is Blind couple using its products, released days after the season’s final episode aired, brought in nearly 4 million views (“This is the smartest marketing I’ve seen in years,” the top comment reads).
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Lam’s role not only means being the heart of the operation, but also, a “kind heart,” she noted. While its campaigns all center around being a “bold disruptor,” Lam said, some go beyond promoting its price-accessible products to zero in on a different kind of accessibility. Its “So Many ‘Dicks’” campaign, which debuted in May, highlighted its support for US corporate boardroom diversity by calling out the number of men named Richard, Rick, or Dick serving on US public companies’ boards compared to the number of people from underrepresented groups.
While the campaign wasn’t selling a product, Lam said it “didn’t feel like a risk. It felt like something that we had to do.”
Eyes on the prize: And with trends changing at a breakneck pace, flexibility is key. “Everyone knows that I keep everything in pencil,” she said. “We need to be able to pivot based on what is happening.”
In her first year with E.l.f, Lam said the company lost its holiday campaign a week and a half before Thanksgiving, and quickly pivoted to another one; this year, its Super Bowl commercial featuring Jennifer Coolidge, which secured 57 billion impressions, was completed in three weeks.
“I always talk about my stovetop and my oven, and I’ve got like, 15 plates ready to go,” she said. “So if one burns, I’ve got others ready to go. It’s not like other brands, like mise en place for one plate at a time, and they cook one thing from the oven and it goes on the table.”
These efforts all further its status as a “disruptive marketing engine,” Lam noted, with a brand DNA that avoids a “watch and see” model, favoring gut instinct over data.
“It’s less about whether or not we wait for metrics to tell us to jump into something,” she said. “It’s more about just going in because we believe it’s the right thing to do in some cases, or because we have something we need to offer.”
The bottom line—her job may not be for the faint of heart.
“It’s always been evolve or die, and lean in right away,” she said.