Creating a New Niche with Sam Brett, Naked Sundays

Naked Sundays. No, not my upcoming weekend plans, but the innovative Aussie company, blending skincare with sun care and the focus of this episode of Flex your Hustle. I'm Michelle Lomas and I'm excited to be talking to Sam Brett today. The founder of Naked Sundays should definitely need no introduction. Sam is a journalist, best selling author of six books and now founder of one of Australia's latest success stories in the beauty world. Sam began her journalism career in New York as an intern at the Fox News channel before returning to Sydney to write Australia's number one lifestyle column for six years, Sam in the City. She then moved on to work for Sky News, CBS, CNN and finally, as one of Australia's most recognizable reporters at the Seven Network. It was her experience here that inspired the Naked Sundays brand. As a reporter, Sam would often be out in the sun all day with makeup on, but no easy way for her to have skin protection. Sunscreens were sticky and oily, leaving a sheen that cameras didn't love, and let's not get started on that awful white residue that was not conducive to a full face of makeup, but with the men and women around her experiencing cancer scares due to Australia's harsh UV rays, Sam realized we needed something that was usable and effective. This led to the birth of Naked Sundays and achieving what all emerging businesses hope to do, zero in on a niche and flourish. Naked Sundays is dedicated to being as natural as possible too. As their website says "we are vegan free and cruelty free with no oxybenzone, no white cast, no mineral oil, no parabins and no BS". But as with all stories here, I'm sure there must have been a challenge or two along the way. So let's get cracking and have a great chat with Sam all about Naked Sundays.

So when I started Naked Sundays, I decided that there was a huge gap in the market for an SPF product that could work really well under makeup, over makeup, that was really fun that could get the millennial market who are most at risk of melanoma. And could just be something that was completely different. However, I was also quickly introduced to the world of TGA regulations and really making sure that yeah, the sunscreen, if you're making a sunscreen has to be high performance, uh, the efficacy has to be there. It has to be rigorously tested. And if you wanted to launch in any other jurisdictions, it really had to have all those regulatory things in place. And so I thought to myself, well, it cannot be sunscreen, cannot be a founder-led brand. It really has to speak for itself and people have to trust it. And it has to come from TGA, chemists and formulators and experts and not myself. I can come up with the concept and the colours and, you know, but when it comes to that really serious stuff, I wanted it to be taken seriously. And so I decided that I would let the products and the brand speak for itself and not have a founder behind it, sort of giving anecdotes or opinions or anything else. And I did, I'd let the brand speak for itself for nine months. And, and it did, it did speak for itself and it didn't need a founder it was sort of the people's brand. And we, we got some really great traction through micro influencers and through, uh, trendsetters and people who are in the industry and, and beauty journalists. To really propel the brand forward without a spokesperson or a founder.

I love it because particularly in the industry or in the beauty industry or the health industry, it's like Marketing 101, what's the founders story we need to bring the founders forward. And you kind of prove that that's not necessarily the case. You've built a great product without needing that founder story. But I'm still excited that you are now here and you are, you are the founder, cuz we can talk about, you know, how this product came to be. Cuz it is a great story as well. So why don't we start with that? Why don't you tell us the story and the origins of Naked Sundays.

I was a television am a television news reporter. That was my life. I did that for over 10 years, closer to 20. And everything about me was a news reporter television. I would get up at three o'clock in the morning. I'd bounce out of bed. I'd put my hair and makeup on. I'd go out to the scene of the day, whether it be a crime scene or, or a happy scene, whether it be Australia day or whether it be boxing day, like I was at the forefront of whatever was happening on any given day of the week for the number one breakfast show in Australia, Sunrise, and I absolutely loved and adored my job. Being out on the road though comes with sun. You're in the sun all day. So I'd be reporting about bushfires or floods or a crime scene, and you really cannot leave. There was like you, your life is dedicated to the news when you're out on the road, which is what I did for so long. And I started noticing a couple of my colleagues coming back to work. With gashes across their face. They'd had a melanoma cut out and I thought, oh gosh, am I even wearing sunscreen? Maybe I put it on at three o'clock in the morning. Maybe not. I don't even know. I mean, I don't even know what I do at that time to get ready, but..

Well, it messes up with your makeup, right? And you've got to have such impeccable makeup as well when you're on screen. That's, that's a hard one in itself right?.

Uh, you get very used to it. it becomes second nature. I can do makeup in 2 minutes flat. You know, I get ready half the time that my husband does. So you get, you get used to it very quickly, but really thinking about sunscreen and putting on sunscreen in the morning was never a thought at three o'clock in the morning, it's dark outside. And then you suddenly realize by 11 o'clock in the morning, but you're on air and you've got bright lights in front of you and you just can't have anything that's oily, greasy, sticky. Nothing. And so I thought, oh gosh, well, what if there could be like a product that I could reapply SPF, cuz you actually have to reapply SPF every 90 minutes. And most people don't know that. I didn't know that. And so I decided, oh, how about if I could make like a rose water kind of spray and it would be beautiful and it would set your makeup and it would make you look glossy and glowy and it would have SPF 50 in it. So I started going out to TGA labs and to chemists and to formulators, and everyone said it couldn't be done. And all the samples I'd get were white and sticky and I'd sprayed it in my eyes and it would just make me look worse. And, and I really thought I'm gonna get, I'm gonna make this happen. I just didn't know how, and I just kept going and it took about two years and finally had a sample that I was happy with. And it was the hydrating glow mist. And so I was ready to launch and yeah, I launched in January, 2021.

I did some shopping. After we chatted because you talked a lot when we first spoke about the amount of work that you put into every single little piece of the the brand and the product experience. And so I did, I did some shopping here. I've got it here. I bought a little pack. I got my lovely little Naked Sundays in the mail, which was gorgeous to see this beautifully, lilac box amidst, all the Amazon packages in my apartment. But I have to say like every single little touchpoint and everything that you've done from the product perspective is just top notch, highly detailed, I can see you've put so much effort into it. Can you tell us a little bit about that? And I know it started with the product as well. The amount of work that you put into it to make sure that it was the right product for people, and then all the way into the packaging and you know, that even that unboxing experience, that's just so special.

Thank you. No, that's really lovely of you to say and, and I feel that it is a team effort. I wish I could take all the credit for everything and I can't, but, um, you know, I, I think. No one's ever really asked me about this. Um, so I guess, you know, looking at Naked Sundays and how I wanted to launch it to the world and how I enjoy getting beauty products is always the holistic experience and not just getting a brown box in the mail and it, you know, kind of not wrapped up properly and you've just spent all this money and it's like, oh, that was a bit of a letdown. And I know I was ordering a lot of brands, um, doing my market research and I ordered a celebrity brand from the US. And that's exactly how it came. And it was just such a disappointing experience and not what you see on the Instagram and not what you see on their website. And so I thought I wanna replicate the experience that you get from our website, which I love I'm, I do the website, most of it myself, and I just love the whole experience of the website and all the colors and just how it makes you feel. So the products feel delicious when you, when you look at them on the website. And the key is that it's making sunscreen fun, and simple and easy. And I wanted the same experience to be when you bought the product. And I know, and we were in the midst of COVID and all the issues with Australia Post. And it wasn't a fun time, but yet, as you say, Michelle, you got your box and you just got this beautiful lilac and rainbow. Thank you.

Yeah, really fun. My son pilfered the stickers by the way. That was, I, I wanted them for myself, but he stole them straight away. The unicorns and the rainbows. He was like, this is my jam Mum. This is mine.

Yeah. So when we thought about kids, you know how to make kids love sunscreen. We came up with this little sticker pad, where it's for guys and girls or unisex where, um, they can put the stickers on their sunscreen to make it feel like it's their own, you know, kids. I have a five year old daughter. They love stickers.

I have a four year old son and he's the same. And he also loves anything. That's beautiful and fun. So flowers and rainbows and unicorns was amazing. He hasn't stolen this gorgeous little pack though. This one's staying with me.

Oh, good.

But I also need to thank you as well for having such an amazing mineral sunscreen stick. Because as a Mum with kids, man it's so hard to keep them still for two minutes to just get and rub it in.

Are you obsessed with it?

Yes!

It's a hidden, I haven't marketed it yet, and I'm putting it on right now for those people who are listening and it goes over your makeup the kids can do it themselves. They just put the stick on. It's a 100% mineral, so it's natural, it's zero white cast. You cannot even see it on my face at all. It's 22.75% zinc, and so it's just such a, oh, actually I lie 24.5 is this one, which is so good. Even better. It's all natural and so it's just such a perfect thing for kids. So we haven't really marketed it because our brand is such a millennial, fun, cool brand. And so for Mother's Day, we launched just as a little kind of gift for Mum's. We launched the stickers and the stick to give so that the kids could have something as well of Naked Sundays, but I'm really looking forward to launching it properly.

It's a game changer for me. I love natural sunscreen for my son. I don't like the thought of..

It's gotta be..

You know..

No it's gotta be right. Especially for their face.

Yes exactly. But the natural sunscreen on the market is so thick and gluggy, and for some reason it's so white, even when you've rubbed it in, it just kind of like sticks. This is beautiful, it's light. Okay. We, we move away from fangirling about your products. I would love to talk a bit about your marketing challenge. So I love your products were built off the back of like a very real problem and something that, you know, we need more awareness about, particularly in Australia with our Sun. So strong! But you've got one of the hardest challenges from a marketing perspective, which is shifting behaviour and perception, perception that I need to wear something every day and behaviour that I need to apply it maybe more than once a day aside from, you know, actually most people don't even apply it every day.

So I'll be honest. That to me is pretty much what keeps me going. Um, is the positive message. Because I don't know about the people listening, but sometimes when you are just flogging a product online or to Instagram followers, it's a bit repetitive. It's like, what am I, you know, what, why should they use it? Why should they need it? And with Naked Sundays, it's such a great challenge to have to reeducate an entire audience and generation really about the importance of sunscreen and reapplication. And so every time I post or bring out a new product or write a blog or anything that I do at all, which is in the social realm. Has such a strong message behind it, which is at the end of the day, we're just trying to reduce the rates of melanoma, trying to get people not burned out in the sun and try to help them understand that sunscreen can be cool and fun and look great on your Instagram feed, but also work. And so I've taken that challenge to mean that I'm doing something meaningful. And that helps me continue on this journey that I'm on without feeling like it's you know, why am I doing it?

And so who's your core customer at the moment who's buying the products?

So I've heard that 15 year old girls are now going into Mecca to buy their Naked Sundays, which I love because get them in early. Get the habits early and make it fun and that's what I really love. I feel like the core customer is between 18 to our age, which is I'll say early, mid thirties..

Under 40!

But not really because girls actually stopped me in the street. They are about 43, stopped me in the street and said, oh my God, we love Naked Sundays. We're obsessed, we're telling everyone. And then there's the kids who I'm hoping like the five year olds, like our kids, the four and five year old gravitating towards our mineral sticks. So I don't wanna say that we're a brand for everyone because we are definitely a little bit more high end than your average sunscreen and not everyone wants a high end skincare sunscreen, but I really would look at the Mecca customer and say that that's really who our target audience is. And that's the girl who just wants something that, um, we say it's skin loving ingredients works well with makeup high performance, SPF 50+ really has those antioxidants in it and it's multitasking. So you can be the girl with the 10 step routine, and this is your final step, or you can be the girl that just wants one thing like me and is a busy Mum and just wants one product that does it all. It's your moisturizers? It's your primer. It's, it's a sunscreen. It's um, it's everything. And that's it. Get up and go. One product.

When you first launched, how did you get going? I mean, it's, you don't have marketing experience. Did you bring a marketer on board? And what were the kind of things that you started to trial?

Uh, so I will, I resent that I am not a marketing expert. I am a marketing 101. I'm a genius, man.

You are a genius marketer. Honestly, I say the amount of people we have on this show who don't have traditional marketing experience are better marketers than the ones that do, because you're not limited by your learnings or your experience. You are bolder and braver and you are more willing to try new things.

Correct. So zero marketing experience, zero marketing genius also comes with being a consumer and saying, well, where do I buy products from? And who do I like to see using the products and where do I like to shop? And what do I like to see? And the first thing I said to my team was I hate getting emails. So we don't send any EDM's out whatsoever. Uh, no emails, zero, but like, not even like once a week, Oh, my God. I was like once a month, once every two months when we have one new product, that's it? Anyways, so I was very adamant about that at the beginning. Obviously things have changed and I'm now an email marketing genius. No, not really, but , I love email marketing. So zero people knew about Naked Sundays. Zero people knew that I'd created the product. No one knew about it. And I remember giving it to two influencers, micro, micro, micro nonpaid. Just, what do you think of this product? And they posted it and their followers were engaged with them, not by sheer numbers, but because they looked to them for beauty advice and they saw this spray and they were like, they said, oh my God, I need it. Not, I want this not, this would be nice to have. Where did you get it from? They're like, I need this, I need this, I need this. And they, we started getting DM's into our official account saying, when is this product coming onto the market? And so I called the PR that I had hired just a friend. And I said to her. We need to launch now. And she said, well, we're not launching till the first of Feb. It's the 10th of Jan, what do you mean? And I said, we need to launch now. We ended up launching two weeks early. I think we launched on the 19th of January, 2021. And cuz the, the hype was just starting and we pretty much sold out in three weeks so of everything.

Wow.

And so I really just thought to myself, so I said to myself, you know. Either it sells out or no one buys it. And those were my two options. And I had a full time job. I was a news reporter at Channel Seven, living out my dream, keeping one eye open on Naked Sundays, just seeing if it would be a success or not. And, and it was, it was just one of those things that people just felt like they needed the product, that there was the gap in the market that we had filled for them and they loved it. And so that drove me to continue.

Mm. And so it is such a beautiful and fun product too. It looks gorgeous. It fits in your handbag. It's kind of ticks all the other boxes as well as something that like everybody needs. So no wonder it just flew off the shelf and then from there. Okay. So you've, you've sold out in three weeks. There's your proof it's gonna work. What was the next step? Obviously ramping up orders, building way more. And then, you know, when did you realize this was gonna be pretty big?

I think with the looming Mecca launch, I was so excited to launch into Mecca, Mecca is my favorite store. Mecca's downstairs from my office. I buy everything from Mecca. I'm such a Mecca girl, been shopping there since I was like, Whenever it opened really. I think when I was in my, in my twenties and, and I was just so excited and I thought I still, then, you know, you don't know, is anyone gonna buy it in Mecca? I didn't know. So I really, every day is, is a day that I wake up and go, okay, how can I help people find out about our products? I don't think, oh, it's made it big.

Well, it's, I mean, I guess when you're on that journey as well, cuz you are moving into other markets and you're trying new things. This is all a journey. Isn't it? It's just. You're big until the next step. And then you're bigger than the one before and then you're like, when is this gonna be like, it's just all, it's all happening. Um, yes. I know you mentioned from a marketing perspective, influencers worked obviously really well for you in the beginning as well, and continues to be what are some of the more fun and interesting things that you guys have done from a marketing perspective to sort of like drum up excitement and interest.

Yeah. So we, we launched, as I mentioned in COVID, so that was really difficult to do anything fun and exciting, but, um, we managed to do a beautiful campaign called Give Melanoma the Cold Shoulder and we got the whole internet to pose on Instagram with a nude shoulder or like a nude selfie. And it was just promoting awareness of melanoma and skin cancer. And we gave, um, funds to the melanoma Institute Australia of all the sales that were sold that weekend. And it was just encouraging people to share the sun safe message. So that was really fun. It was like a cool viral campaign that really worked. Um, we got about three or four key celebrities to get involved. So they really elevated it. It was all over the press. It was just such a wonderful campaign. We did our first event in March where we launched our clear serum. The first world's first clear SPF 50 serum. And we just had a beautiful lunch with about 20 influencers and it was the first time I'd ever met anyone because. Firstly, no one knew it was me. And then secondly, we couldn't meet anyone cause of COVID. So that was really lovely just to see all the people that and thanked them really, that had supported Naked Sundays. Then in the middle of June, we did a summer in July, summer in June, um, party where we, we hired out a restaurant in Bondi beach. It was about one degrees and we had like beautiful big floaties. Like, you know, those big Swan floaties.

Yes.

And we had a pool with like lilac balls. Yeah. And we had beautiful summer cocktails and Palm trees and umbrellas. And it was just such a fun summer summer in June, summer in July party. And we launched our golden glow body shimmer, sunscreen, SPF 50+. And yeah, we're just constantly thinking about ways to just, as you say, make sunscreen really fun and, and accessible and easy for everyone.

Mm. And that strategy about sort of engaging influencers as well as encouraging people to share. I mean, I notice it's same as soon as I open that box, it's like, you know, take a selfie and, and hashtag us and, and you could be featured. Um, is that a huge part of your strategy, really engaging in social? Is that where you see a lot of your sales come from?

It's not a strategy per se. It's like, it says it in the box, but I don't think anyone's ever actually read it and done it.

It is a question I always wondered. Do people do that? Yeah, no.

No, they don't. But they do do it without seeing it in the box. We know because the box has a code that they can use if they buy, if they wanna buy again. And so that code is very rarely used, but what we do see is everyone getting the box and photographing it and sharing it on social, cuz they want to not because we told them to. And then people sharing it because they love it. And it's something that they've got with them on the beach or in their handbag, or they're spraying it in their car or their kids are using it and they're just loving the innovation. And so they're wanting to share it. So we see a lot of that. I always get a little thrill when I see it shared on social and it just makes me so happy that the mission of making sunscreen cool and Insta worthy is actually coming to a reality.

So let's talk about maybe some of the things that haven't worked for you, you know, early stage, there's always some things that you try that you're just like, mm it's not working. Has there been anything that would, you know, stand out to you that you're like, you just, oh, sure that was gonna work and it just didn't.

Yeah. I mean, I think when we launched our mineral, which is, as I said now, best seller sold out at Mecca 24 hours. Constantly sold out. We can't keep it in stock. Um, I remember launching it and just crickets. Um, I sent an EDM. I was so excited. I remember sitting at my computer, it was 5:00 PM on a Thursday, 1st of June. And I'm like launching this mineral. It's gonna be amazing. And then like just crickets and no one talking about it. It wasn't in the press. I think it's still really not spoken about that much in the press. It's just become a cult product. And so it was such a slow burn. It was just, people needed to try it and love it and then repeat by it and then tell their friends and then they loved it. But yeah, it was disappointing to me on the day that I launched it because. I guess, as I said to you, like, I am not a genius marketer. I have no idea what I'm doing when it comes to marketing. And I didn't really think about how to build hype or pre-launch parties, or now I, I still, you know, my people that work with me. They're like, why don't you send an EDM it's click frenzy or it's this and that. And I was like, I don't want to. And they said, why not? We are doing something for it. Why don't you just send it out? And I thought, I just, I like being subtle. I'm not sure if that's the best strategy I'm not allowed in your face. I hate getting marketing. I hate it. And so I guess I just don't wanna bombard people with marketing. So, but I realize that if you're launching new product, that's gonna be a best seller and sell out in 24 hours in Mecca, you better, you better do some hype around it. So I've learned my lesson.

It's interesting that you, you talk about the fact that you don't like to do a lot of the traditional marketing channels. You obviously, you very much focus on more of the, the content engagement and influencers and the referrals. I know affiliate marketing as well is something that you do focus on. Um, how does that, how is that working for you?

After a really long time? Probably after a year, I started getting into looking. I started looking at marketing and what is marketing and how would that work? I came upon, um, Commission Factory, which is actually really easy to use and I was pleasantly surprised. And so I signed up for that. I didn't do anything else. I signed up for Google ads. Facebook had been something that we'd always done, but very small. We do very small spends we don't blitz it. And I found affiliate marketing to be really helpful for magazines and editorial that wanted to feature us and wanted to be able to link to our product. And as they say on those articles, they might get a small commission for the links, but that's only so that they can link to our website. And so I noticed that a lot of articles that we'd already been featured in started using that feature and we signed up and more, uh, editorial, uh, featured us because of that. Mm. So that was really helpful. We don't rely on any one marketing strategy because things change very quickly. Like we've had the TGA laws come in, which changed things for influencers. We've had algorithms change for Facebook all the time. Google shopping has recently changed. And so there's constant changes. So if you're relying on one good luck to you. And so we just try diversify as much as possible. So some weeks I'll really go hard on affiliates and I'll look in the um, dashboard. I'll see who's new. I'll have a look if anyone's messaged me, I'll put up a code. I'll have a special for everyone on the affiliate. And then other weeks I'll, I'll do it the same on Google. And then other weeks I'll do the same on Facebook. And then other weeks I'll do the same with influencers. So just, I just, I just try and keep it fresh, I guess, with each different facet of marketing that I, that I use.

Mm. So what's next for you guys?

We're launching a beautiful holiday campaign. Yep. Coming up holiday starts in September in retail land. So I didn't know that. So we've been planning since March. Um, but yeah, we'll have new products and new bundles and, and cool new things and wonderful events happening all for holiday. And we're really excited for that. So it's our first proper holiday that we're actually, you know, a full-fledged brand. And I'm excited to learn about all that goes with that, and just constantly innovating and trying to be at the forefront of SPF, which is really just what we're about.

Well, I'm thrilled to have my Naked Sundays pack now. It's been great to chat, really excited to see where this brand goes. I'm excited to see you go global and have such a great Aussie brand, you know, hit the global stage, which I'm sure it will. You're gonna be in Sephora in the US. It's gonna be amazing if not already, I'm sure you're already having those conversations. So good luck with everything. Thank you for taking the time to chat to us today.

Thanks for having me on.

Not gonna lie. I'm pretty inspired after talking to Sam. Now, I just need to think up a niche of my own. Thanks very much for the great reviews we've had so far. We really appreciate them. If you know someone who would love this podcast, don't be shy. Tell them about it. This has been Flex your Hustle, a show produced by Commission Factory and Ampel. I'm Michelle Lomas bye for now and key hustling. Commission Factory.