The One Absolute and Possibly Uncomfortable Truth of Marketing

“‘Cause I can’t make you love me if you don’t. You can’t make your heart feel somethin’ it won’t.” – Bonnie Raitt

Last time we talked about the One Absolute and Possibly Uncomfortable Truth of Marketing. 

To be clear, we did not create the One Absolute and Possibly Uncomfortable Truth of Marketing. We heard it first from Mark Ritson, and he heard it from the great adam&eveDDB strategist and planner Sarah Carter. The One Absolute and Possibly Uncomfortable Truth of Marketing is simply this: 

Customers do not care about your brand. You care. We care. Customers do not. Customers do not love you. Brand love is a myth. 

Kory Marchisotto, the CMO of e.l.f. Beauty, might completely disagree with the One Absolute and Possibly Uncomfortable Truth of Marketing. After all, Marchisotto has been building a passionate community of e.l.f. Beauty fans since 2019. And they are passionate.

She often talks about how her customers put pen to paper and write actual, honest-to-goodness, physical letters expressing how grateful they are that e.l.f. makes quality cosmetics that are affordable and accessible. That’s brand love, right? It’s gotta be. Because who even writes letters anymore? Ain’t no one else got time for that shit. 

As of February 2026, e.l.f. Beauty has also experienced their 28th consecutive quarter of net sales growth. That is epic consecutiveness. That is Joe DiMaggio, Wayne Gretzky, Cal Ripken Jr. and Edwin Moses levels of consecutiveness. That’s gotta be a sure sign of brand love, too, right? 

We’d argue this is simply great marketing by a brilliant CMO.

Kory Marchisotto is really friggin’ good at all 4Ps of marketing. Yes, it helps that she has a CFO who gets it. It helps that she has been able to grow her marketing budget from 7% of net sales in 2019 to somewhere around 25% of net sales by 2024. 

Marchisotto is able to do more with more. For seven consecutive years, e.l.f. has been one of just six public consumer companies with an average of 20%+ growth. 

Marchisotto takes the needs, wants and desires of her customers seriously. She is very much the voice of the consumer in the C-suite. Hell, she often lets the customer into the C-suite. Marchisotto and her CFO, Mandy Fields, regularly lead live town hall meetings on Twitch to talk with tens of thousands of customers. The CFO of a $1.6 billion company regularly takes questions from teenagers. Marchisotto loves her customers. 

These online, town hall meetings are wildly valuable sources of qualitative customer data and potential product innovation, but it’s mathematically impossible that they are a significant source of net sales growth. The audience, while impressive, is way, way too small. There’s only so much Soft Glam Satin Foundation you can sell on a Twitch stream.

Even their active fan base is infinitesimally small compared to the millions and millions of light buyers who occasionally buy a Cream Glide Lip Liner or what have you from Target, Walmart, Ulta, Walgreens, CVS and other major retailers. 

Marchisotto knows that if e.l.f. wasn’t physically, mentally and economically available absolutely everywhere, their astonishing run of net sales growth would come to an end. 

If e.l.f. stopped listening to their customers. If e.l.f. stopped innovating. If they pulled out of major retailers to focus on D2C sales because the margins are much higher. If they stopped advertising. If they decided they were going to raise prices and become a luxury brand. If e.l.f. acted like Nike, their customers would walk away. Some would write very angry letters, and then they’d walk away.

A few years ago, Nike did the opposite of what e.l.f. is doing. 

Somewhere back in 2017/2018, Nike decided it no longer wanted to make and sell athletic clothing and equipment. Instead, they wanted to become a tech and data company. 

Imagine trading your status as the world’s most awesome and most profitable athletic brand to become a tech and data company. That’s like Foo Fighters becoming a ska band. No disrespect to ska bands, but that would be awful.

Actually, it’s worse than that. Nike becoming a tech and data company is like Foo Fighters becoming Ticketmaster. Imagine Dave Grohl turning to the rest of the guys saying, “Fellas, being one of the biggest, raddest, most profitable rock bands on Earth is great and all, but what if instead we made all our money by charging additional fees?” 

No thank you, Dave Grohl. That’s rude.

Nike had all the product, placement and pricing power in the world. They had incredible promotion, including god-tier, long-term brand advertising. Then they decided to chuck it all in the bin and play small ball. Why? Margins. Here’s how it went down …

John Donahoe, a former Bain consultant and eBay CEO, arrived with a mandate to maximize both margins and efficiencies. The strategy, officially known as the Consumer Direct Acceleration (CDA), was built on the belief that Nike could capture higher margins and own its customer data by bypassing traditional wholesale partners. They were going to cut out the middleman and pass the savings on to their shareholders! 

Capturing higher margins sounds reasonable, though, right? Sure. And all that beautiful first-party data was going to be the cherry on top of a rich, delicious, indulgent revenue sundae. So that’s what they did. They also gutted product innovation, essentially becoming a tech and data company that also happened to still make Dunks. 

Nike focused almost entirely on loyalty programs, short-term, hyper-targeted, performance advertising and D2C sales. They cut ties with retailers and gave up shelf space to their competitors. 

Take a moment to savor the arrogance. Drink in the hubris. All of this was born from the idea that consumers fundamentally care about Nike. As if we would follow them wherever they decided to go. As if greatness isn’t a two-way street. As if there aren’t other options. 

At first, the numbers looked spectacular. Digital sales soared, especially during the pandemic when everyone took up running but all the stores were closed. Everything was coming up John Donahoe. Everything was fine until it wasn’t. 

On Friday, June 28, 2024, the stock price plummeted almost 20%, and Nike lost $28 billion of its market cap. Oops. Shareholders were not happy. In late 2024, Nike veteran Elliott Hill replaced Donahoe as CEO, which signaled a return to sanity. They’re still recovering. Yes, they’re fine. They’re Nike. 

So what does this mean for you? 

Nike forgot about physical availability — you have to be where customers are. They forgot about mental availability — you have to be top of mind in buying situations. They forgot about light buyers. They forgot that the One Absolute and Possibly Uncomfortable Truth of Marketing even applies to giants like Nike. 

Consumers do not care about your brand. Not really. People have way more important things to care about. 

The One Absolute and Possibly Uncomfortable Truth of Marketing should be supremely liberating. You’re free to focus entirely on the customer and their needs, wants and desires. On being easy to mind and easy to find. On being where your potential buyers are when they need you. On creating great products and experiences. On driving growth and profitability. 

Humility is a competitive advantage. 

Kory Marchisotto and Mandy Fields are doing something deeply and profoundly cool at e.l.f. Beauty. They’re building a community, sure, and e.l.f. absolutely has fans. But that’s not what’s driving record growth and profitability. Marchisotto is singularly focused on the consumer. The brand is humble enough to know their buyers and potential buyers are driving the bus. They’re humble enough to show up when, where and how their buyers — light and loyal alike — need them to. They’re reaching out to more and more people. It’s working.

We’ll see you next time. 

Sources!

1. “Wartime leadership with John Donahoe” – Master of Scale podcast 
2. How not to Plan: 66 Ways to Screw It Up – Les Binet and Sarah Carter
3. “Inside Elf CMO Kory Marchisotto’s ‘kinetic marketing’ approach” – The Drum
4. Ep.140 | How e.l.f built a billion dollar beauty brand – Kory Marchisotto | Uncensored CMO 

If you’d like the One Absolute and Possibly Uncomfortable Truth of Marketing unpacked in a more scientific way, read “How Brands Grow” and “How Brands Grow Part 2” by Byron Sharp and Jenni Romaniuk. Brand love is a myth.