Over the past year, Messaginglab has been working with a consumer biotechnology company - K18 Hair. K18 rapidly built a community of raving fans among hair care professionals soon after its launch. In 2021, the company and its hair-repairing mask went viral on social media. At the end of 2021, K18 entered the mainstream at hundreds of Sephora stores nationwide.

The marketing team behind K18’s success includes a very active, very aggressive content strategy. Leading the charge is Britni Birt, a veteran of cosmetics marketing. I sat down with Britni to learn more about K18’s marketing efforts and the lessons emerging biotech companies could take from their storytelling success.

Karl Schmieder: What's your role at K18?

Britni Birt: My official title is director of editorial and content, which is a little unconventional. Typically, content sits under social or under creative. In my role, I oversee all the brand storytelling. In other words, I'm responsible for every message that our customers - hair care professionals and home users - interact with. All those assets have a brand story and a messaging strategy behind them.

Karl Schmieder: Please explain what you mean by brand storytelling? How do you build stories for a brand?

Britni Birt: We like to say K18 is a biotech company that has applications in haircare-not a haircare company that uses biotech. Being a biotech company is a crucial part of our brand positioning and our brand storytelling. So, we have to educate our audience on the fundamentals of biotech to help them understand why that's important to haircare and how our product works. Because we're also creating new products, we must constantly educate and reframe our audience's understanding of how to use our products and where they fit into their haircare routines. In other words, why do our products work the way they do? That all comes out in our brand storytelling.

Karl Schmieder: One of the things I admire about K18 is your use of multiple social channels to educate your customers. Could you explain why that is important?

Britni Birt: It's important that no matter where a professional or consumer is meeting our brand, they're receiving the same level of storytelling and the same key themes. Whether they meet us on an organic social channel, paid media, or on our website - the story should be consistent.

What I love about our approach is that our stories are not always product-based. A key pillar is science storytelling—the science behind hair, hair care, and our products. So far, many of our campaigns have revolved around some aspect of the science––it's not directly pushing the product. One of the things I've seen is that when you hit every channel, the message gets out there and grows. You can have so much more impact on the value that you add to your audience.

Karl Schmieder: You mentioned that you have two audiences, consumers and haircare professionals. What has been the reaction from those audiences to your science storytelling?

Britni Birt: The reaction has been overwhelmingly positive. These stories are some of our best-performing content, and I think that is because consumers are hungry for authentic and credible brands. We've found the engagement is incredible.

Our professionals know we are providing a tool that works, that allows them to do their job faster and better. Professionals are willing to sit with us and read longer-form content. They're hungry for it, and they're excited about it. And really, the biotech is fueling that creativity. It's giving the professionals a fresh start or a new canvas that allows them to go further.

For a storyteller, it's a dream come true because education is a pillar in the pro hairstylist space. They constantly talk about technique. They continuously share information and educate each other. They spend a lot of their professional lives going to educational courses to soak up information. So that's honestly the dream customer for a brand or a storyteller.

If you tell an authentic story that helps someone do their job better, you get their buy-in.

On the other hand, there's a new wave of conscious shoppers that want to feel good about what they're buying. For a while, that idea was pigeon-holed in the conversations about sustainability. Now, I think consumers want to know a product actually works. They're interested in having an authentic conversation with brands. I think the credibility we can provide through evergreen storytelling is something people are excited to engage with.

K18 is not an ingredient story. It's not a bunch of buzzwords shrouded in marketing-speak. Consumers are over brands that communicate via buzzwords. People want to know that they're buying into something legit, something that works. And they're willing to spend the time to get the information, so they feel confident about their purchase. But we know everyone has a shorter attention span, so how we get the message across matters.

The average shopper is smarter than ever. They're hungry for knowledge that validates their reasons to believe.

Karl Schmieder: What does the universe of K18 marketing tactics look like?

Britni Birt: It's a great question, and I'll answer by saying, we start with a key story then figure out how to optimize it for each media channel -- even though each channel might be reaching a different audience with a different kind of media or information density.

From a consumer perspective, we have placed big bets on organic social channels. It’s worth saying though, each channel attracts a different audience, and it comprises several different types of media. On Instagram, for example, users are used to visual content, it's less narrative and more of a “Hey, here's the quick visual to help you wrap your mind around the idea.”

Regardless of the platform you find K18, our goal is to teach. So whether it's a blog, email, infographic, video, animation, or augmented reality piece, we want to optimize it for the audience, making it easy for them to digest.

Karl Schmieder: What's been your biggest lesson, your biggest challenge working at K18?

Britni Birt: One of our ad partners explained that our attention spans aren't there anymore. The average attention span is now six seconds. We're conditioned to scroll. We get bored quickly. As a result, we're not used to ingesting long-form content anymore.

So as a brand, if we're asking you to sit and engage with long-form content, we'd better make it is engaging. I wasn't 100% sure that we had an audience that would be willing to invest the time to do that, but they do.

It's been exciting to see that when the story is genuine, when it helps reframe someone's understanding, or gives them a more solid base to feel good about the product they're using, people will give you their time. That's been the most valuable thing I've learned.

As a storyteller, it means the long-form story is not dead. It just has to be intentional. It also means that there's so much more opportunity to create that authentic relationship with your audience. That makes me really happy.

Karl Schmieder: Let me put you on the spot. Are there any takeaways that you would offer biotech brand builders from a storytelling slash communications point of view?

Britni Birt: There are so many things we could talk about or teach. But there’s always going to be a delicate balance between how much information we give away, how much information is compelling, and at what point it's overwhelming, and people lose interest. We decided what ideas were core to our brand. We decided what we wanted our audience to take away and how we would offer value. We set that as our foundation.

Any biotech company needs to understand why they exist as a product, why they exist as a brand, and they must have the proof points to back that up. As our CEO, Suveen Sahib says, "What is the Why?"

As a storyteller, context is everything, and I think the average customer wants that context. If you can provide that in a way they can understand, they'll join you on your journey.

You can learn more about the work K18 is doing by visiting their website or following them on Instagram or TikTok.

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