Beyond cultural tie-ins, creator-led marketing is leading the way. “Our most valuable marketing investment has been building our creator community,” says CEO Lee. “From the beginning, we invested in getting products into the hands of consumers and creators who could share their experiences. That approach helped us build credibility, drive discovery, and better understand what consumers wanted.”
With trust in traditional influencers slowly dwindling, Anua continues to adopt a tiered approach to seeding (the sending of free product samples to influencers without a paid contract to post). “We seed a lot, and we have different layers of that,” Miller explains. “We have seeding efforts through our TikTok Shop affiliates. We have wider seeding efforts to micro-creators, or to those who are more niche, like a specific college community or a nurse. And then we have our more strategic seeding of top creators. At the end of the day, people trust people, and that’s what converts.”
How does the brand decide who it works with? “When you work with the volume of creators that we do, it’s about looking at it from a few different lenses. First, we need to reach a trifecta of different creators, so people with different skin tones, skin problems, personas, ages. Then, we have a great community of experts, such as dermatologists and makeup artists, that really builds trust. And finally, we have people like Kendall [Jenner], who are moving culture.”
Jenner was announced as Anua’s first-ever global brand ambassador in June, which felt like the natural next step, says Lee. “As Anua scales, we’re maintaining our investment in grassroots creators while expanding into global partnerships, experiential marketing, and integrated retail campaigns. Our partnership with Kendall represents this next stage, introducing Anua to a global audience,” he says. The campaign shines light on the brand’s viral PDRN line, which Jenner already had an affinity for, according to Miller; the model’s makeup artist, Phillips, uses the PDRN cream as part of her viral underpainting technique, where the face is contoured prior to applying foundation.
