Seeing a lack of Korean representation within the fragrance market paved the way for Wonny Lee to start a brand centered on scents inspired by Korea, Elorea.

During a trip to South Korea, he and his wife visited a well-known boutique beauty store. “The cosmetic side was obviously very crowded with these cool Korean brands. But then, when we walked over to the fragrance section, we found that all of the brands in that section—essentially, you can buy them in New York. There was just no Asian representation on the shelf.”

Lee, who started his career working in venture capital, co-founded the brand with his wife, Su min Park, in 2020. Elorea sells products like Hazy Blue, a perfume incorporating sandalwood and amber that was inspired by “the Korean word ēnae [이내], which means the bluish, hazy energy that is visible in the distance during sunset.”

Marketing Brew talked to Lee about how the two of them have approached Elorea’s marketing strategy since starting the brand, which recently opened its flagship store in New York City’s NoLita neighborhood.

Continue reading here.—JS

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It’s been an eventful week for Big Tech: Just as Twitter rebranded to X, TikTok rolled out text posts.

• When opening TikTok, users will now be able to select from photo, video, and text options to create a post.
• Text posts, which have a 1,000-character limit, include many of the same features as TikTok videos, letting users record Duets, add sound, or tag their location.
• Other text features include stickers, tags and hashtags, and background colors for posts.

Previously, TikTok users could incorporate text into video and image posts. “It doesn’t seem like this drastically new feature set,” Brendan Gahan​, partner and chief social officer at creative agency Mekanism, told us. Still, he said “adopting even small feature sets” could lead people to spend additional time on the platform, boosting its ad revenue.

Gahan said it’s possible that TikTok is capitalizing on recent changes at Twitter: “A lot of advertisers are fleeing away from Twitter. [TikTok is] probably like, ‘Oh, whatever we’re working on, this might be a good time to expedite it and get it out, just in case some tiny percentage of brands just need another place to push text.’”

TikTok’s announcement comes on the heels of not only Twitter’s rebrand, but also after the latter drew criticism earlier this month for imposing rate limits. The announcement also follows the debut of Meta’s answer to Twitter, Threads, earlier this month.

The addition of text posts on TikTok isn’t the first time the platform has built out its content offerings. Last year, TikTok started letting users create image-based posts à la Instagram. It also offers Stories, which it started testing in 2021.

As social media apps add more capabilities, Gahan said the changes are becoming less novel. “As these platforms get bigger and bigger, they tend to look more and more similar,” he said.—JS

Chris Low serves as graphic design platform Canva’s head of vibe. You read that right: head of vibe. Canva takes the employee experience so seriously it employs a nearly 70-person vibe team, which Low oversees.

Low’s been in charge of the vibes since 2016. He’s relying on his decades of experience in the hospitality industry to create “moments” at work for the company’s more than 3,500 employees across eight campuses and a number of coworking spaces globally.

Low got his start washing dishes in a noodle restaurant. He “touched every part of the hospitality industry,” eventually becoming a partner at his restaurant, Orto Trading Co, in the Surry Hills section of Sydney, Australia, near Canva’s campus.

“All I knew of [the] tech industry was the Facebook movie,” he said. “But I learned that Canva was incredibly aligned to my values and could allow me to do some of the most exciting, best work of my life and haven’t looked back.”

Canva’s execs would often patronize Orto, he said. Named for the Italian word for kitchen-garden (the one closest to the house growing the food a family eats), the restaurant focused on comforting, family-style service and “paddock to plate” produce.

When Canva’s co-founders Melanie Perkins and Cliff Obrecht learned Low was planning to sell Orto, he said, they asked him to “bring the vibe” of the restaurant to Canva as its first head of vibe.

Keep reading on HR Brew.—AD

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