Shai Eisenman had long struggled with acne before founding Bubble, a skin-care company positioned as an affordable alternative to legacy brands that’s targeted toward Gen Z.
The brand, which came out in 2020, attracted pre-seed funding from multiple fashion, beauty, and wellness VC investors, has gained more than 1 million followers on TikTok, and, according to Eisenman, gets tagged on TikTok 14,000 times a day. Bubble, which is sold at Walmart, CVS, and Ulta, has experienced 500% retail sales growth year over year, Eisman said.
Its marketing has been almost entirely organic: Bubble’s growth, Eisenman explained, has partly been fueled by its presence on Geneva, a group-chat app with a strong Gen Z user base that’s been compared to platforms like Slack and Discord.
Eisenman told us that before the brand debuted, it held focus groups to see how people responded to specific products. According to Eisenman, it was during these focus groups that she realized Gen Z should be a part of the creation of the brand and its processes. She said that she worked to make Gen Z “truly a part of everything we do, because they see the world so differently from the average millennial.”
From there, she said Bubble “wanted to figure out a way to actually communicate with our community in the creation of the brand” ahead of its rollout. It joined Geneva in 2020, months before the brand officially debuted.
Bubble communicates with its brand ambassadors on Geneva through “rooms” dedicated to things like products, suggestions, and feedback. Bubble’s brand ambassador program has close to 7,000 members, about half of whom are active on Geneva. Bubble brand ambassadors receive free products, discounts, and other perks.
On Geneva, the brand runs four “homes,” (the term for groups on Geneva), such as Bubble College for college ambassadors and Bubble Besties for younger ones. In the main Geneva home, there are rooms where brand ambassadors can do things like ask questions about its products. The Geneva account is moderated in-house by six Bubble team members.
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Eisenman recently engaged with Bubble’s ambassadors by asking for their thoughts on a new product the brand is rolling out in August, a plush toy called Slammy that resembles the bottle for its Slam Dunk Hydrating Moisturizer.
“I sent a picture of Slammy…and asked people what they thought before I approved the production of it. This way, we were able to see the excitement before we actually pulled the trigger. Any product that we launch, we review it with them,” she said, noting that its community tested its recently launched SPF “about two years ago.”
Geneva was able to fulfill Bubble’s needs, according to Eisenman, due to its scalability, ease of use, and ability to let people “really share and talk.”
“Millennials have Facebook groups, but because Gen Zers don’t have Facebook and they use TikTok and a little bit of Instagram, all of the social elements of communities kind of disappeared. So Geneva was the first thing to truly answer that,” Eisenman said.
Like Bubble’s use of Geneva, Eisenman said “almost everything we do is organic,” though it works with advertising agencies on retargeting and supporting minor paid advertising. The brand also has in-house creative and marketing teams, as well as a social media team.
She said much of its social strategy revolves around creating content that both reflects broader trends and aims to appeal to what its community is seeking. “I think that’s really where we differ from other brands, because we truly kind of change and shift our entire strategy based on what we see our community wanting and looking for and are getting excited about,” she explained.