In feature 043 of Conversations Behind The Campaign, we sat down with Aila Morin, the Founding Chief Marketing Officer behind beauty brand Merit.
Since its launch in 2021, Merit has built its reputation on a distinctly different approach to beauty. While many brands compete for attention through constant product drops, trend-driven marketing and an always-on social presence, Merit has leaned into restraint. Fewer launches, less noise and a clear point of view. The result is a brand that has cultivated an extremely loyal customer base and, in 2025, surpassed US$200 million in sales.
In our conversation, Aila discusses the thinking behind Merit’s social strategy, the launch of its latest mascara and why the brand has resisted the pressure to be everywhere at once. We also explore how a strong product market fit has shaped customer loyalty and enabled the brand to scale with intention.
1. For those who don’t know your background, how did you first get into marketing? Was it always a career path you wanted to explore?
I had an unconventional path to where I am today, and never thought I’d end up in marketing. I studied sociology at university, and planned to go to law school, so I took a year off after graduating to save money. After applying for over 300 jobs, I received 3 offers: one as a French to English translator (my French is not nearly good enough), one to manage a beauty brand counter at a department store, and one as a Social Media Coordinator at a startup.
“I took the social media role; it paid the least, and I kept working at a beauty counter for the first little while to make ends meet. It didn’t become clear that I’d stay in marketing, necessarily, but I felt clear that being deeply creative and agile was important to me; and studying three more years for law school wasn’t something I wanted to do.”
From there, I worked at many startups (most of which failed); and it was the exact time that platforms were launching, like META ads and Instagram organic and influencer marketing as a concept. I learned each of the platforms when they were launched, which gave me a very unique perspective on scaling and leading a global P&L (although, working at many brands that didn’t work didn’t feel like the most auspicious career beginning).
2. Before Merit, you worked at jewelry brand Mejuri. You’ve shared how being a bit naive in the industry was actually an advantage. Can you talk more about that?
By being naive, I mean I didn’t know the “rules” or the playbooks that existed in beauty; brands having to have a hero product that is the bulk of their business, for example. Not knowing this led to creating an entirely different business structure (focused on routine, a decentralised consumer and globalized brand promise), that was based on study and logic. Instead of doing what we “should” do as a beauty brand, I spent a year digging into the reasons businesses fail, and planned around that.
“So while being naive was a gift then, ignoring the traditional playbook is an active choice now.”
3. The Uniform launch was one of my favourite product launches to date. It said everything about the product without leaning on the world of beauty or the product itself. How did that idea come about?
It’s one of my favorites too, because it was inspired by my personal life. When I was a kid, I remember my dad leaving for work every morning, putting on the same Brooks Brothers shirt – his uniform. This idea of things we use every day, because they’re perfect enough to have earned that spot in our routine, really stuck with me. We then talked a lot internally about our own experiences with sunscreen – how wearing it daily felt like such a chore, because we hadn’t found one that we actually wanted to wear. So the concept was born from that insight, and we were able to build on the metaphor of uniform dressing without relying on product marketing, but instead a feeling we can all connect to.
4. Everything on the Merit feed feels incredibly intentional. It often looks effortless, but I imagine simplicity and consistency can be the hardest part, especially with trends pulling you in different directions. What helps you decide what is on-brand – and what isn’t?
It’s less about being “on-brand” and more about driving forward our philosophy – which is to tell a story, to show a problem and how we can fix it. That’s always the guide for our feed, and keeping that top of mind allows restraint to feel natural. The marketing world is so focused on traffic and conversion, which is often why you see brands posting multiple times a day, leaning into every trend and viral moment.
“For us, retention and sentiment are also key metrics, which means we focus on what each post is actually saying – ensuring that it’s adding value to our narrative rather than clogging up the feed.”
5. You’ve previously shared how you worked at a number of startups that didn’t succeed before Merit. How did you separate your own growth from those outcomes, and what did you take from it?
I learned a lot from being at startups that didn’t take off, but the biggest takeaway was the importance of product market fit.
“You can have a great product, but if it isn’t solving the precise issue of your consumer, then it’s not going to work.”
That understanding allowed me to separate each company’s growth from my own, and showed me how important it was that my next step be somewhere that understood this concept – both for the success of the company and for my own career.
6. Merit partners with talent that feel slightly outside the mainstream but adored by fans – from Walton Goggins to Suki Waterhouse and most recently Jemima Kirke. What are your guardrails when choosing who to work with?
The typical beauty brand strategy with celebrities is to have long-term brand ambassadors – we’ve intentionally not done that, working with talent for each moment and campaign that feels right. This allows us to work with so many amazing talents and share different voices. Picking talent honestly always starts from the people that our team likes and resonates with, who is in the show we’ve been loving or who we’ve always looked to for inspiration. As a team of Millenials, that often means people who have a bit of nostalgia to them – like Jemima, or Lauren Graham, who we worked with last year. That nostalgic element allows for richer storytelling, and for us to show our customer someone who feels like they’re in their same life stage.
7. You’ve talked about not being everywhere at once, but really investing properly when you do show up. How do you decide when to make noise as a brand, and when to stay more in the background?
In my opinion, there’s a bit of mystery inherent to building a brand.
“If you’re launching newness, posting into every trend, or having an event every week, it’s overwhelming for the consumer – and makes it hard to tell what is actually adding value.”
We decide on what those key moments are for us, and we show up during those moments in a big way across channels – but then we’ll get quiet, to give you a bit of a break. That makes it so that people miss you, and when you come back with a new idea, they’re even more receptive and excited.
8. With Merit stepping into red carpet makeup, and your mascara featured across talent at the latest Met Gala, what does that unlock in terms of brand positioning and future growth?
As a brand that’s making products for your everyday, being on red carpets felt a little incongruous at the start – obviously, we’re not all on the red carpet in our daily life. Our first red carpet moment was actually completely organic, with the lovely Elaine Offers who used MERIT on Sarah Jessica Parker – MUAs get to try everything, so having her choose us proved that red carpet makeup could be minimal and restrained in a way that made sense for us.
Over the years, we’ve been able to identify the talent and events that help push forward a less is more approach to red carpet makeup. Showing up at these culture-defining moments allows us to deepen our connection with fashion, which is a major part of the brand, and also to work closely with makeup artists, who are an extremely important part of our community.
9. Most volumising mascaras rely on a ‘bigger-is-better’ cue, but you’ve challenged that with a precision-led application. How does that shape the campaign’s visual language to reflect both the product and the broader brand message?
Our tagline for this campaign is “small brush, big impact” and that has guided the identity from start to finish. With volumizing mascara, we’ve been led to believe that a bigger brush equals bigger volume, but that’s actually not true – and for our customer, she’s looking for volume in a more precise, sculpted way. The campaign leans into that precision and restraint, showing the brush in all its glory. It also very much lives in the classic MERIT world, using a lot of our signature blue and maintaining that elevated brand positioning.
10. We’re seeing more brands bring customers into the launch journey through teasers and early seeding. How did you approach that for this launch, and what impact does that have on consumer demand and engagement ahead of release?
We love to show the behind the scenes to a launch, bringing people into the MERIT world, and looked for new ways to do so with this launch. We teased more than we ever have – you’ll spot Clean Volume in our social posts starting in April, and we pre-seeded the product to our community about six weeks ahead of the launch, encouraging them to try and share. These tactics build an authentic buzz around the launch and also give us a bank of real feedback and content to use.
11. I loved your campaign earlier this year with Deborah, an 89-year-old customer who was emailed to you by her granddaughter.In a fast-paced environment, I’m sure it’s easy to acknowledge moments like this but not really act on them. Why are these moments so important to you?
That was one of the most special moments I’ve had in the six years of MERIT. We receive so many beautiful emails and comments, and I wish we could acknowledge every single one. Deborah’s story really hit home for us in showing that beauty is so personal for each and every person. I think in the age of AI, we’re all looking for even more humanity, and being able to showcase those authentic human moments is invaluable.
12. Where can our audience follow and engage with you and Merit on social media?
I’m personally pretty quiet on social media, but please check out MERIT on Instagram, and our newly-launched Substack!
