Next Level Digital with Emily White from Wild

Emily White is Head of Brand and Communications at Wild, the world's first zero-plastic deodorant refill, and they're a business that disrupting the personal care category. Here Emily, tells about advertising on vegan Facebook groups, and the surprising popularity of toffee apple scented-deodorant.

Talk us through how (when you launched the initial website) you initially set about acquiring new customers. 

We launched as the UK went into the first Covid-19 lockdown which meant people were spending more time online. We used this opportunity to our advantage by advertising our product in hundreds of online networks such as vegan Facebook groups or low waste threads on different chat rooms. We took a personal approach, often posting from our own social media accounts and spending hours replying to comments from interested people. We were able to find the perfect niche of customers who were interested in both natural and sustainable products and they become great early adopters of Wild. 

Wild is an innovator in refillable, natural deodorant. Who do you consider competitors in the market and what steps have you taken to help educate consumers on the benefits of your products?

We want to sit within the mainstream deodorant category rather than an eco niche. While some of our early adopters were people that have used natural deodorants before, more and more of our new customers are making the switch from mainstream antiperspirant brands. 

We’ve done a lot to educate customers about the effectiveness and benefits of Wild. We’ve put our deodorant through lab testing to prove that it stops odour for 24 hours, and regularly educate customers around the science of how all four ingredients work to keep you smelling fresh. Plus, we’re really lucky that lots of customers want to talk about their experiences of Wild on social media. This is helpful for customers who are on the fence about giving us a try. Our customer service team is also fab and they’ll answer any customer questions usually in less than an hour.

When it comes to marketing success, what has surprised you most?

The willingness of customers to try the wacky and wonderful scents we bring out!

As a background, we bring out limited edition scents every couple of months.Our first scent was Toffee Apple, which we released six months after launching. We had zero idea if people would be on board with a toffee apple-scented deodorant. This risk paid off and was a great success—people went Wild for it! Now bringing out new scents is an important part of what we do; we even get customers to pick the scents for us.

What marketing advice would you give to a brand that’s just starting out on its journey?

Test test test! Split test everything you can, collect as much data and customer feedback as you can, and never expect things to work just because you think they should.