Head of marketing at Hey Bud, Hannah Neumann, is thriving amidst the skincare startup’s phase of hyper-growth.

Her honest approach to campaigns, like putting real people with real skin on billboards, has helped build an authentic community for Hey Bud.

But it’s her mindset to “think big, act quick” and belief that “failures are never failures” that guides her leadership style and workflow.

Inside Retail spoke to Neumann to better understand her career path thus far, her dynamic role at Hey Bud, and her unwavering love for the beauty industry.

Inside Retail: What key roles and experiences have shaped your journey to becoming Hey Bud’s marketing manager?

Hannah Neumann: I think the biggest one that really shaped the passion that I built around brand marketing is when I was over in the UK at Superdrug. Superdrug is an incredible business in the way that they are strategising how they want to connect with the community. I had some incredible mentors in that business and team. But really, [I loved] driving the ability to connect with customers – more than just being that product on the shelf – every day. 

The other key thing that came from Superdrug when I think about my learning and development is scale. 

I’ve been with Hey Bud for two years now [and] this is absolutely the most incredible space that I’ve been in in terms of learning and development and leadership. I’m very passionate about the brand, the team that we have, and what we’re achieving, as well as pushing boundaries and trying to understand what is possible. 

We love driving things forward, that kind of hyper-growth mentality, and really bringing the entire team along the journey.

IR: What does your current role include that might surprise people?

HN: I joined the team about two years ago as the marketing manager, and more recently, the head of marketing. I was lucky enough in my previous roles and across my career to bounce between smaller businesses and those really big spaces of Superdrug and L’Oreal. I think there are incredibly powerful learnings from both big and small business. 

When I look at my role now, I’m definitely not running a traditional head of marketing role, that’s for sure. Some days I am thinking of the big picture, and long-term strategy, and really looking at diving down into the data and numbers. Then other days [because] we’re a small business and a smaller team, sometimes we’re all together, packing a box or two if we have a really urgent send that needs to go out. 

I actually love that; it truly makes sure that I’m connected to the business in every single way. I think we actually build a stronger team for that. I love that I’ve had roles in businesses who are a bit smaller than the competitors they’re chasing, especially in the beauty space. That’s exactly where we sit. It’s not about the size of the team – that’s not the flex – the flex is actually how much you can achieve.

IR: What drew you to the beauty and skincare industry, and what excites you most about working in this space?

HN: I am a big beauty fan of this space. It’s really interesting, a big focus of mine was making sure that I was working for a business, or had a product that I was marketing, that I was truly passionate about and connected with. I know some people could do incredible things and not be connected to the product. But at the end of the day, why I love this space is the ability to connect with the community around you and build the conversations that they want to hear, not just what the marketing says it should be.

When you look at beauty as an example of this, the industry has been forward-thinking and progressive in terms of inclusion and diversity, really key things in terms of actually representing the customer base. One of our most successful campaigns here at Hey Bud had nothing to do with a beautiful, stunning model who’s been airbrushed, but actually showed real skin, real scarring, real acne and real pigmentation. That’s what the consumer wants to see. 

I think that’s why I’m so connected to the beauty industry because you have the ability to build conversations with your customers and then deliver something that feels like you are building a brand that people want to be connected to.

IR: What’s top of mind for you as marketing manager of Hey Bud? 

HN: I could give you some very standardised answers here but when I think about Hey Bud, we are actually in a very unique and exciting position. We’re in a really interesting stage of brand growth where we have hit a period where we’re really growth-focused, both on doors and accessibility, but also products. That all comes at a really tough time in the consumer market. 

We’ve all seen how everything’s trending at the moment with customers. However, we put that on its head and really look at, if that’s the market insights, what are they telling us? How are they telling us where our most powerful spend is in this case, and more importantly, how are we not falling back on that answer? 

To all of the “why” questions around product forecasts and sales – “why are sales down?” – we’re not saying, “it’s the market.” We’re actually looking internally, and we’re building as part of that. For Hey Bud, we are committed to this kind of sustainable path to hyper-growth. 

If you go to what keeps me awake, it’s how do we then deliver. Hey Bud was born out of Covid-19 by three incredible co-founders, and has never known anything other than really challenging markets – needing to adapt really quickly, getting to jump on any opportunity that pops up. We don’t have this legacy understanding to fall back on. 

We quite often joke throughout the office that our boardroom is called the “kitchen” because someone’s always cooking up something new in there. The “think big, act quick” responsibility as leaders in the business is really having an understanding and having a conversation about why can’t something be actioned today. 

IR: How would you describe your leadership style and how has it evolved with Hey Bud?

HN: Everyone works in different ways. Trying to get people to conform to the business way of doing things or your personal way of doing things as a manager is never going to get the best results out of them. So finding that flexibility with the way that you connect with your team, the way you drive your team as well, is so incredibly important. 

When I look at the really successful moments, executions, and campaigns that we’ve done, everyone’s contributed really consistently to different areas of that space. I think that comes with a lot of trust and actually stepping back and allowing the team to think about what they have to achieve and think about the best way for them to get there. And then, again stepping back, letting them run at it as well, and giving them the face that you trust them. 

I think the flip side of that is failures are never failures. They’re just learnings. You need to find the right environment for this but I’m a huge believer. It is actually one of Hey Bud’s core values. It’s totally fine to try something new if you think it’s going to work, let’s give it a crack and if it doesn’t work out that’s absolutely fine – we just need to learn why behind it, and then we keep going on that next stage and figure out how we do it better, different, or change something for the next time until we get the results that we’re after.

IR: Is there a standout piece of career advice you have received that you often share with others?

HN: It’s something that took me a long while to learn but now I truly live and breathe it every day. I’ve actually already mentioned it, it’s finding the power in failure. It’s terrifying, especially as you’re just starting out in your career, every little mistake that’s made feels like you have this huge mound that you need to cross. 

However, driving the team and pushing the team to actually figure out what happened, whether it’s an organisational challenge, or whatever it is, don’t blame external factors because there’s no growth within that. 

[It’s about] finding that internal ability to go, “Right, that didn’t feel great, we don’t love failure but what have I learned?”. Then take it forward and ensure that you actually find comfort in it. 

There’s no harm in trying something new if you truly have an understanding or a belief it will achieve something. If you look into it, maybe it’s the wrong time, maybe the week before your biggest competitor launched a similar campaign, or something like that. I think the most powerful piece of advice that you can put into practice is to learn exactly why that didn’t work this time around, and chase the resolution about how to achieve it next time around.

This article is part of Inside Retail’s #IRWD365 campaign, in partnership with Airwallex, to shine a spotlight on inspiring women in Australia’s retail industry and drive tangible change towards gender equality.