From powerhouse fashion houses to beauty disruptors, Michael Edelmann has carved a distinctive path leading brand strategy, creative direction, and global campaigns.
Now serving as Chief Marketing Officer of luxury skincare label 111SKIN, Edelmann brings with him a résumé that spans influential names like Dr. Barbara Sturm, Gucci, and The Business of Fashion.
In feature 035 of Conversations Behind the Campaign, Michael shares the core principles of building culturally relevant brands, the evolving role of community in digital marketing, and why long-term success hinges on the intersection of storytelling, education, product integrity, and cultural resonance.
1. You’ve worked across some of the most exciting fashion and beauty brands – Dr. Barbara Sturm, Gucci, The Business of Fashion, 111SKIN. What do you believe are the non-negotiables when it comes to building a culturally relevant brand that resonates?
In my opinion, it boils down to three core building blocks:
1. An authentic story
What is a brand’s ‘reason for being’ and purpose? It should be communicated clearly. For example, 111SKIN’s founder Dr Yannis never set out to launch a global skincare brand; he simply wanted to help his patients get their skin into its best condition possible – with or without professional treatment. That desire is still at the heart of the brand today; every product formulation is truly catering to a patient need, and the dialogue with patients informs our approach.
2. A powerful visual language
Creating a brand universe that reflects the community as well as the larger zeitgeist of the moment. A good example is Canadian e-tailer SSENSE and their approach to social media; in their adoption of meme culture, they successfully created a simple, yet super powerful identity on their social media profiles that stands out and clearly resonates with the community through a blend of commerce and entertainment.
3. An engaged community
Community is a term that is often overused nowadays. Community isn’t something you can pay for. To create a genuine community, brands need to share the values and interests of the people they want to assemble around them. Brands need to be embedded in their community’s culture. They need to show up for, and engage with them.
2. Marketing has become less about product and more about the lifestyle and identity a brand represents. How have you navigated this shift, especially within the luxury and beauty categories?
That is true, although I believe we are at an interesting tipping point; the quality of a product is starting to gain in importance again. Many years back, Tom Ford said in an interview that “Marketing is often used for hollow products, and it’s the only way you can sell them.” What he was referring to is the fact that you can have the best marketing, advertising and communications – but if your product doesn’t live up to a customer’s expectation, they will certainly not purchase the product again.
So for me, product remains king – and that’s how I have always approached campaigns. When it comes to beauty and skincare, that means that transparency about ingredients and formulations needs to be at the forefront, alongside education. This can include clinical studies, consumer trials, reviews or before/after images that show how effective a product is. All of these elements provide a human reference point that helps to identify whether a product is indeed good.
That human reference point also helps to create powerful lifestyles and builds community. So in navigating the shift, I focused my attention on the people behind a brand – either the founder, creative director, or the community that surrounds the brand. Emulating their lifestyle became a powerful marketing tool that was authentic at the same time.
3. Activations and pop-ups have become cornerstones of brand engagement in beauty. With 111SKIN’s recent ‘Repairs’ activation, why do you think consumers connect so deeply with these experiences and what makes a pop-up truly successful?
Pop ups allow brands to meet their communities where they are. For us, that meant showing up across multiple locations in London in the middle of a heatwave, to provide an instant skin hydration fix and repair. We dialed this up with a cohesive concept including a vintage van, boilersuits etc. It made the activation authentic and relatable – it had cultural relevance.
These IRL activations allow brands to show up as a person, allowing them to embed themselves in their communities and directly engaging with them. Particularly after the Covid years, we’ve seen a huge rise in consumers wanting to engage with brands both virtually and physically.
To that point, pop ups are also a great opportunity to allow customers to experience products, to test and trial them. Many popular brands such as Rhode can still be hard to find physically; you may not be able to purchase them in a local store. That means that pop ups reduce the distance between a brand and a customer, allowing them to sample a product before purchasing them online eventually.
4. 111SKIN recently launched its ‘V1P’ membership community, what inspired the creation of this loyalty programme, and how does it stand apart from other skincare memberships?
The program was really inspired by the patient community Dr Yannis managed to create at his clinic at 111 Harley St. A lot of care goes into building each patient relationship, to create the trust and comfort that ultimately leads to a treatment or surgery.
We wanted to create a similar bond with our customers at 111SKIN – because skincare is also a journey. Your needs change along the way. But we also wanted to find a way to give back to our most loyal and engaged community members – allowing them to become truly a part of 111SKIN by creating custom experiences and events through which they can engage with our team and the founders more.
More than anything, we wanted to create a loyalty program that moves beyond collecting and redeeming points. The V1P community is a genuine collective that is unified in their lifestyle and interests – from skincare to fashion and fitness for example.
5. During your career, you’ve overseen social media profiles with hundreds of thousands of followers. What’s your advice for cultivating a distinctive and genuinely engaged community within the skin and beauty industry?
Each social media platform requires a purpose – are you hoping to entertain, educate or provide information? Many brands forget that social media’s primary purpose is connection, not commerce. As such, you want to identify how you can add value to someone’s feed – with content that speaks to your community’s interests and lifestyles. And don’t forget to engage with your community; it’s not about shouting with your content, it’s about a dialogue.
6. 111SKIN is positioned as a luxury brand founded by Dr. Yannis Alexandrides, how do you craft your social content to reflect the brand’s story? Is founder-led storytelling central to your strategy, or do you explore other creative angles?
Dr Yannis and his practice at 111 Harley St. are integral to the storytelling. After all, this is where the brand started, and our formulations are still very much inspired by his work. The feedback from patients also informs our educational approach – they provide incredible insights into the topics and products they would like to learn more about.
This also means emulating the lifestyles of patients, their interests and values. With plastic surgery comes an element of glamour and beauty that we embrace in our marketing and communications through associations with luxury fashion for example.
At the same time, we’re also building a community around Dr Yannis – by tapping into other experts and their lifestyles. This includes for example makeup artists and aestheticians.
7. Looking back across your career, is there a particular campaign or project that shifted your perspective on marketing or changed the way you work?
I had the pleasure of collaborating with Sinéad Burke’s accessibility consultancy Tilting the Lens on British Vogue’s ‘Reframing Fashion’ April 2023 edition. It was an opportunity to highlight Disability justice, equity, intersectionality and pride – with an approach that moved beyond visibility. This means principles of accessibility were embedded into every step of the process, from planning and production through to printing and publication. For the first time, an edition of British Vogue was available in a Braille and audio version. Video content featured subtitles and audio descriptions. Social media posts included alt text. Disabled people were represented behind the camera, as well as in front of it.
It was a great reminder of how we as marketers can do better, to make our content and campaigns more accessible to everyone. But it was also a powerful signifier of the importance of culture and identity. I’m so grateful to Sinéad and the entire team for this tremendous learning experience.
8. The beauty landscape is evolving – from founder-led brands to a rise in consumer expectations around connection and transparency. What macro trends are you watching most closely, and how should brands be preparing now?
1. Authentic marketing
According to a recent study conducted by The Business of Fashion and McKinsey, the number of consumers looking to influencers for beauty ideas is declining. I believe this might be a result of overexposure and too many brands pushing into influencer marketing as a channel to drive product sales. After all: There are only so many serums one single influencer can authentically promote before consumers lose their trust and interest.
At the same time, AI is creating new opportunities to produce content and market brands. Yet, consumer response has also been mixed – with many demanding ‘real models’ over AI-generated counterparts. The recent backlash on a Guess ad in the August issue of US Vogue is a good example.
It will be interesting to see how marketers will strike the balance between new technologies and sales channels while remaining truthful and authentic.
2. Product is king
As mentioned earlier, I believe we are at an interesting tipping point; the quality of a product is starting to gain in importance (compared to how a product is being marketed). Brands will have to strike the balance between providing a superior product and creating a universe that is engaging at the same time.
One company that seems to have got the balance right is SKIMS. Their investments in technology, fit and color options makes customers come back for more. At the same time, their marketing campaigns tap into culture and identity – for example through the use of sports or entertainment superstars.
9. As the lines between influencer, creator, and brand continue to blur, where do you see the most exciting opportunities for marketers in the next 2–3 years?
Again, it’s about finding a balance: leveraging all the exciting opportunities offered by the evolution of AI, while also not forgetting about in person experiences that are equally important to consumers.
10. What has been the biggest challenge or risk in your career and what advice would you share with someone going through something similar?
One of the biggest risks I’ve ever taken was to leave my well-paying full-time job and move into freelance consulting. I didn’t have any clients or projects lined up at the time, but I knew that I wanted to work across different industries and even remits, to build new skills and grow both personally and professionally.
While I’m really happy to be back in a team environment, I’m forever grateful for the challenges and learnings during my time as a freelancer. I considerably increased my network, got to travel extensively and turbo-charged my career along the way. Going out on my own boosted my confidence while allowing me to create a better work-life environment for myself.
11. Are there any marketers or founders you look up to for both creative and career inspiration?
I’ve stopped glorifying single individuals; we’re all on our own journey and I try to carve out my own path. That said, there are definitely a few peers and individuals that are doing fantastic work and inspire me to keep going, such as:
Sinéad Burke – Founder at accessibility consultancy Tilting the Lens. As an advocate for Disability justice and pride, Sinéad and her team have worked with brands like Gucci, Starbucks, Mattel, Balenciaga and Jo Malone to create greater accessibility.
Charlie Smith – CMO at Loewe. Forbes just named him as one of the top 50 CMOs. Particularly in fashion, we tend to give a lot of credit to single individuals i. e. creative directors. But let’s remember that there’s a whole village that is equally responsible for the success (or failure) of a brand. And no doubt, Loewe’s quirky marketing campaigns, talent choices, and fun TikTok content helped to catapult the brand to the forefront of culture.
Yigit Turhan – CMO at Valentino. Yigit is so multi-faceted, I wonder how he manages to do his ‘day job’ and write a novel as a side gig.
Lindsay Peoples – Editor in Chief at The Cut. I don’t consume a lot of media anymore, but The Cut’s thought-provoking yet stylish content speaks to me. Since championing Teen Vogue’s renaissance, I’ve been an avid fan of Linday’s work in helping to champion culture and identity without being afraid to criticize the status quo and system where needed.
12. Where can our audience follow and engage with you and 111SKIN on social media?
Quickfire Questions:
Morning routine or evening ritual? Morning person all the way – a gym session, meditation and coffee set me up for a successful day.
One skincare product that you can’t live without? 111SKIN’s Y-Theorem Biocellulose Face Mask. It’s a 20 minute skin reset. And each sachet contains so much of the brand’s best-selling Repair Serum, I continue using it for days after.
Wellness retreat or city escape? Wellness retreat! I love living in London but prefer to escape for a little bit of peace and quiet. In fact, it makes me look forward to coming back to London every time.
HYROX challenge or half marathon? Full marathon! I completed two Hyrox challenges but have now signed up to race the NYC marathon later this year.
The campaign you wish you’d worked on? Brat album release! Absolutely iconic.
