Guest Bio:
Jullian Reis is the founder and CEO of Superordinary, a Billion Dollar creative powerhouse which helps brands launch in China as well as facilitating Social Commerce and Live Shopping for companies in the US. He also hosts a podcast called “On the record with Julian Reis“
Episode Summary:
This conversation explores the transformation in makeup marketing, particularly how brands are shifting from traditional influencer marketing to a focus on monetization through social media platforms. Julian Reis discusses the changing landscape of digital sales and the need for brands to adapt their strategies to engage effectively with consumers.
Takeaways
- Traditional makeup brands relied heavily on influencer marketing.
- The opportunity for sales has expanded to platforms like Amazon.
- Social media’s role has shifted from marketing to monetization.
- Brands must create ongoing engagement rather than one-off posts.
- The landscape of digital sales is rapidly evolving.
- Influencer partnerships are no longer just about big payouts.
- Makeup brands need to adapt to new social media trends.
- Monetization strategies must be rethought for success.
- Engagement metrics are crucial for modern marketing.
- The approach to sales must be more dynamic and responsive.
Full Transcript:
Moritz Schröder (00:01.796)
Cool. Julian, excited to be talking to you. You’re the CEO and founder of SuperOrdinary, a company that works very closely with helping brands go into the Chinese market, among a lot of other services. You also work very closely with social commerce, with live shopping, and try to make that even more public and popular in the US than it already is.
You started SuperOrdinary back in 2018, which coincided almost perfectly with TikTok launching in the US. Was that pure coincidence or did you base it off of the launch of TikTok in the US?
Julian Reis (00:44.974)
First of all, Moritz thanks for having me on your podcast. It’s lovely to meet you. I love listening to your previous podcasts. So I’m very happy to be here. So yeah. So where should I start? So just a quick two second background on myself. So my career was always about thinking about the big macro trends and how do we express that view, whether it’s in the equity markets or through investing in a company and
Moritz Schröder (00:54.637)
Cool, happy to hear.
Julian Reis (01:14.478)
Back in 2018, when I was in Hong Kong, I used to look across to China and, and think about like what’s going on in the creator economy over there. We, when you walked into, arrived in Shanghai, everyone was on their phones on the bridges selling products. was like hundreds of people with ring lights standing there selling products. And we all knew what was happening with QVC in America, but didn’t know what was going on in China. So.
I really spent a lot of time just learning about what was going on. And I saw that not only was the social commerce an interesting seismic change in the way that people were purchasing products, it was actually very entertaining. So when I started in 2018, the market was on a raw and it was just going from bottom left to top right. And I think anyone could make money back in those days. But what happened was when
COVID occurred, you know, consumer confidence really came down a lot and people’s, confidence in purchasing products went down a lot. our business actually retracted a lot. And during COVID I actually moved to the U S and this is when, I started super ordinary in America, but at the time, Tik TOK shops was not around. I was kind of like twiddling my thumbs, trying to figure out how to do what to do, but I knew that.
this wave was coming, so I had to be very patient.
Moritz Schröder (02:44.254)
It’s funny that you mentioned the people recording on the bridges with ring lights doing live shopping streams already back then, because I’ve seen those videos in the last couple of years popping up on social media here, but I always assumed that that was very recent footage. It never occurred to me that that might’ve been already 10 years ago. So they were doing it already back then on that scale.
Julian Reis (03:07.406)
Absolutely. I mean, if you think about what this did for the Chinese economy, it basically turned everyone into a seller, meaning that anyone could decide what product to sell. If you wanted to sell, don’t know, anything from beauty products to seafood, you could guess it. You could make a video about it and a live stream it and people would watch it and purchase it. One click checkout. It wasn’t
you’re clicking and then going to a Shopify site and then putting in your credit card details and verifying it. It was one click and boom, tomorrow it’s at your house or even that afternoon. So that kind of efficiency was something that still today we don’t have in America. So I believe that there’s a massive opportunity.
Moritz Schröder (03:53.056)
already back then you spotted that opportunity and were fairly certain, mean, certain enough to base a company off of it, that that will eventually make it to the US. I mean, that takes a lot of conviction.
Julian Reis (04:04.942)
You know, um, when you make decisions on information, sometimes you don’t have a hundred percent information. So I generally think that you need to be making decisions on, you know, 50 to 60 % information. But I really believe that the way that people were discovering products through entertainment was something that wasn’t going to change. And I still believe today, even with chat GPT and this whole idea of agentic commerce, where people would relinquish.
the responsibility to an agent to go out and buy their clothes and food and things like that. I still think we’re very, very far away from that. I think if you, if you take all of those pleasures away, what do you have left? And I think, you know, to me is it’s very important that social commerce is all about entertainment because you get entertained and that’s why you purchase.
Moritz Schröder (04:56.541)
Yeah, I totally agree there with you, I think with the rise of AI, social commerce, if anything will become even more popular and important because people crave that human touch. They crave that connection with the seller or the creator. And we’re going to get more into that. But if we linger a little bit more on your origin story and how you got to run super ordinary and scale it to the huge success that it is now.
How did that actually work at the beginning? Because I would imagine you had a little bit of a chicken and egg problem where on the one hand you needed to create demand for your services in the US, which maybe it wasn’t initially there. And then on the other hand, you also had to build up connections in Asia. You had to build the network of affiliates that eventually you would use to then help brands to enter the Chinese market. Can you walk me through how you tackled that problem?
Julian Reis (05:55.062)
Yeah. So when I moved to Shanghai, I didn’t know anyone there. I literally moved into a hotel and I was looking at my notepad and like, how am I going to build a company in a country that I’m unfamiliar with? I don’t speak the language. I have no relationships with anyone here. so the first thing I did was I actually went to, a recruitment office and said, I’m looking to hire, a CEO, someone who could be, you know,
you know, had experienced in operating in this market. And what I was looking for was very difficult to find because it was such a new industry. So eventually I found someone who not only was bilingual, but you know, could, could see the world that I was dreaming of, especially for the come from a company side. And eventually, we started, the business and we didn’t have any brands to bring into China. So I got on the plane and I flew to America.
And I just went door knocking on brands. previously to starting SuperOrdinary, I had a beauty business. So I had a few relationships and I found a company or two brands that were willing to give me a chance. And then we started building the brands and luckily we did the right things. We worked with a brand called Pharmacy, which we still manage today, which I’m very proud of. It’s one of the largest skincare brands in China.
And we’ve been able to build it from zero to where it is today. And we’re very, very excited that we’ve been instrumental in building that brand. building the team before COVID, the team was over 300 people in Shanghai. And unfortunately, during COVID, we had to furlough many of our employees. And now we’re just sub 200 employees there, but still a very large team. And I think
You know, when you’re building a business internationally, you have to be there. You have to, you know, think local. You have to build a business, understanding the culture. My father’s from Hong Kong originally, so I do consider myself Chinese by ethnicity. And, you know, I really learned a lot about how to, you know, work with different cultures. And I think that was really a big benefit for me.
Julian Reis (08:16.402)
you know, the culture there is very different. People work six days a week and 9am to 9pm. And, you know, they’re, they’ve got this incredible team must win attitude, which I think is sometimes lost here in the U S and, it’s really exciting to see how, you know, the team, you know, celebrates the wins together. so once we started the business, you know, the business grew very quickly and now, the business is not as big as it was before COVID because, know,
China’s been going through a slow bounce back, but ultimately I’m extremely bullish on China. think we’ve got a huge wind in our sails from a macro economic point of view, because I think the Chinese market is running a huge trade surplus. They’re going to be exporting AI products for the next gazillion years and really going to be…
Moritz Schröder (09:09.31)
Yeah.
Julian Reis (09:10.438)
a winner in this race. So I think there’s going to be an opportunity for the underlying consumer to benefit and purchase more products, whether it’s from the West or domestically.
Moritz Schröder (09:21.501)
Yeah, and I could imagine that with your unique background where you have family ties to that part of the world, but at the same time know the US very well, you were sort of uniquely positioned to build the company that now you’re running, even though obviously being an entrepreneur, had to face a lot of struggles along the way. And I would imagine that COVID was one of the bigger ones, if not the biggest one. How…
difficult was that to navigate, especially at the beginning when all the countries shut down and you said it’s so important to have these very close ties where probably you were going to China a lot before COVID hit and then suddenly you were grounded in the US. How did that look like?
Julian Reis (10:05.838)
I think it was, we were very lucky that we had a very strong team in China. that despite not being there, there was a, you know, an ability to continue and run the business as we normally would. I think we had to react extremely quickly to, our brand partners and tell them, you know, what we thought would happen. if you remember, you know, the U S market continued to go from strength to strength domestically on e-commerce.
More people were purchasing products online than ever before because of COVID. Um, but in China, you know, things slowed down dramatically. So you had the, a tale of two cities where brands were doing very well in the U S but not so well in China. So we had to really manage that, that expectation with brands. So brands who were expecting to do more sales in China, we had to, you know, lower their expectations. And it was very difficult because we had a commitment to them to help grow them.
and you know, lot of brands traditionally would think, China’s got this much population. It’s, four times the U S that’s why we should be doing four times more. And in fact, that’s never the right answer. you know, the consumer is very educated. They, know, marketing campaigns that work in the U S don’t work in China. and it’s a very different way to sell a product to a consumer there. So I think, you know, code was a, was a struggle for most people. but I think what we.
managed to do well was, know, whilst China was like, you know, almost mothballing that the business there, the U S business grew dramatically. So we managed to almost have a hedge.
Moritz Schröder (11:46.47)
Right, and I mean now it’s kind of interesting how things are.
going the other direction where previously it used to be for Western brands that the Chinese market was this black box, a huge unknown and people like you were the ones that kind of needed to help them get a foot in the door there and get things moving. Whereas now we have sort of the same situation in the US where a lot of people are lost with social commerce. So again, you’re in a very unique position to help people and you position yourself quite well there.
Julian Reis (12:17.678)
Thank
Moritz Schröder (12:21.759)
How happy were you in 2023 when TikTok Shop launched in the US? And you probably foresaw that, but then it finally happened. Were you celebrating? How did that look like?
Julian Reis (12:30.644)
Yeah. I mean, you know, I was always asked by, you know, my peers and some investors like you should be running a live streaming business in the U S you know what to do. You know, the techniques, you know, you’ve seen the roadmap. and I think the challenge I had back in 2020 to 2122 was there was no real platform that really did it. There was obviously, there’s a platform called whatnot that’s doing exceptionally well.
Um, but there wasn’t anything outside of that, that really, um, canvassed, you know, a large population, there were all these like individual apps that came around like flip and network. And none of them really took off. And I think the challenge they had was they were trying to drive, um, people to join their app, but there was no real reason to be on that app every single day. So when tick tock shops originally started and you know, tick tock had been around through musically.
it was exciting. one of our employees was the very first person in America to sell the first product on Tik TOK shops. so we, we have that, you know, that story that always goes down the hallways about that’s where super ordinary in the U S started. but now it’s, it’s got to the point that, know, we were Tik TOK shops, you know, partner of the year last year for beauty. and we continue to really scale our, our expertise. and now we’ve, you know,
I built a very big international team here in Los Angeles. And the reason we built it here in Los Angeles is that, you know, it’s very well set up for the infrastructure around the creator economy. And what we have now is, you know, we have 15 studios here in LA. We’re expanding. We’re hiring a lot of people and we’re managing many, many brands, everything from fragrances to skincare, to beauty, to clothing.
Um, you know, we just signed with H and M, um, very close to where you’re living right now in Stockholm. Um, and, and also Disney. Um, so we’re their exclusive partner on Tik TOK and we’re really excited because I think that the one thing I know that other people don’t is that we’re just at the very beginning of the trend. Um, we’re not halfway through. We’re not three quarters way through. We’re at the very beginning. Um, so we think that there’s a really big, big, big opportunity to really go after.
Julian Reis (14:56.354)
categories, which we believe will live on TikTok in the future. We believe that vertical format content is the way forward. Obviously you’ll watch it in your glasses at some point, but we think there’s a huge opportunity as media shifts and being in LA, it’s really exciting because we’re right at the epicenter of a lot of these changes.
Moritz Schröder (15:20.24)
I could imagine, actually, can you speak a little bit to that? I’ve been to LA before, but just as a tourist, I would imagine that it is, at least in the Western world, the epicenter for the creator economy. How do you realize, how do you notice that in everyday life, besides the obvious fact that a lot of creators live there, do you feel that buzz of social commerce and live shopping building, or is it still something that is so niche that not enough people are aware of it?
Julian Reis (15:50.06)
I think in life shopping specifically, we’re seeing that really come into its own in 25, I think 2026. That’s where we’re making a big bet that life shopping is really going to become a big opportunity. It’s again, following the Chinese playbook where affiliate sales first was the main driver for sales and then live streaming became a big opportunity. think in America, we haven’t had the big
introduction of the big live streamers like we have in China, like Austin Lee and the others that are, you know, are doing billions in sales. But I think there’s an opportunity to build that. I think in LA there is this, opportunity to, you know, be self-sufficient as a creator because there are so many different revenue streams that you can create as a creator these days, whether it’s running your own channel, your Tik TOK, your sub stack, your, you know, your different, your monetization platforms.
There’s so many things you can do. So I think that that universe of opportunities is really alive and well. I think the, the, the trend that we’ve seen recently is that. You know, YouTube as, as an alternative to traditional TV is obviously we’re seeing that that is the new TV and it’s connected TV and everyone’s watching there. I think that’s something that I believe is true. However, there is a much.
bigger opportunity to make money from other platforms to, you YouTube is as wonderful as it is, you know, you only get paid through AdSense and some, you know, one-off brand deals and a lot of creators can’t make a sufficient living from that. However, we think there’s opportunities to work with these creators and come into the super ordinary ecosystem where we can empower them to help them sell products. We’ve started to do that with some creators and we’re doing a lot of the big mega lives and selling
Moritz Schröder (17:22.437)
Right.
Julian Reis (17:41.41)
you know, close to a million dollars a live stream. And now we’re, you know, we’re making it entertaining. So we’re thinking of ways to work with creators in different respects, in different categories. And I think that, you know, there is a big shift away from traditional entertainment. you know, Los Angeles, unfortunately, has lost a lot of Hollywood’s, you know, revenue and dollars because, you know, the movie industry and
Production assets have declined substantially. So, you you’ve seen like, you know, the traditional a lot of activity with Paramount and Sony and Warner Brothers. Not a day goes by that till you learn something new. And there’s been, you know, these, this growth of the streamers, you know, whether it’s Netflix or Paramount plus and Hulu and all these other things. There’s a lot of war going on between the, you know, all these players. So this, it’s a very exciting to watch a sudden Ravel because
Now that TikTok’s going to be, you know, acquired by the Ellison family, you know, there could be, you know, really big opportunities in social commerce.
Moritz Schröder (18:49.996)
Yeah, for sure. And I think you had a really strong point there that what I personally find lacking so far in a lot of the live shopping streams is that it’s not entertaining enough on the one hand, and people don’t seem skilled enough in actual sales to bring in the numbers that we see in China. Obviously, there are other factors like the huge population in China, all in one time zone obviously helps, whereas US is much more
fragmented. But I do feel like there’s a missed opportunity just because you’re not copying what already works in other parts of the world. And I think there’s just a lack of knowledge for a lot of people who are already in that field, but might not know what works well in China. So someone like you is obviously aware of what works in Asia and is able to bring that to the US.
Julian Reis (19:45.772)
Yeah, I think there’s, you know, like I said, I think in the next couple of years, you know, we shouldn’t be looking what’s happening in the next month, two months, but you know, what’s it going to look like in five years? I really do believe that I think people are getting ahead of themselves and thinking that, you know, AI is really going to solve the shopping, dilemma. because I think as humans, we really should enjoy a few things that really make sense.
we’re going to have a lot more time on our hands. If we have a lot more time on our hands because less work days, there’s going to be more content to consume that content has to be entertaining. we’re not going to sit around and watch AI videos all day long. It’s really going to be stuff that feels real to us. think human humanity is really at a, at at a challenge when, know, we’re, not watching real things.
So I think that, you know, live streaming is, is one way to prove that it’s not a fake, you know, robot or an AI robot that’s talking to you and, and you can interact. So I think there’s a lot to be said about where the world’s going. And if we believe in that view, then I think, you know, shopping is going to be a tremendous, tremendous opportunity. And it’s not just products, it’s services, it’s booking restaurants and hotels and travel. So there’s a lot of other adjacencies that I’m excited about.
Moritz Schröder (21:11.017)
I personally follow the social commerce boom quite closely and I’m really fascinated by all the different parts of how that is playing out. You have agencies popping up left and right doing social commerce and live shopping. But then of course you have the affiliate space that is exploding on TikTok.
And then you also have a lot of SAS tools that are being rolled out to support that space. So I think it’s very interesting that you with SuperOrdinary are one of the largest players in that space and probably have more resources in terms of manpower, but then also just in terms of money to fund really large bets.
Where do you place those bets? You mentioned already that you have 15 studios where you’re doing live shopping. What are other large bets that maybe smaller players are just not able to compete with right now?
Julian Reis (22:09.464)
So one of my passion projects is that I really love content and I love building entertainment, entertaining content that, you know, and I always think that content has to win first because if it’s boring content, it doesn’t matter what you’re selling. No one’s going to pay attention to it. So this year we’ve been investing in building content studios, meaning that we really think carefully, like really, really carefully.
What can we create to get a consumer to watch the content and then eventually buy a product? So we’ve gotten more upstream into, into the creative side. And we’ve worked with brands to really help them get more awareness. So if you think about a traditional makeup brand, their, their, their opportunity to sell was on Amazon was on TikTok And, know, traditionally they would go to like some big influencer and pay them a lot of money and.
They’ll get maybe two posts and then hopefully, you know, they’ll make some sales, but that’s changed. think the thing, what I think about social comm social media, social media is not about marketing. It’s about monetization now. So if you think about, you know, we’re marketing to sell products and we’re in real time. you know, how do we create content? So recently we did a, a series with a brand called Lenege. It’s a,
Korean skincare brand. We managed to take it from number 36 in America to number two in earned media value that they call it EMV. And we did that in less than 30 days. And we did that because we built a content series with one of our creators. We got over 250 million views of that piece of content where, you think about F1 movie, you got 200 million views.
So, you know, it’s really obviously not apples to apples, but just in a measure of eyeballs. and for a brand to get that, that much awareness because of the creator economy, it’s going to be that much easier for that brand to, get more conversion when the person sees that product on the shelf or online, they’re going to recognize it. They’ll understand it and, eventually purchase it. So I think we’ve really.
Julian Reis (24:29.838)
We think deeply about that. think that’s something that I really want to place more bets on. think the content demand for content is going to get bigger and bigger over the next, you in our lifetime. Um, and really to partner with brands to help them do that, because there’s lots of brands that sit on the shelf at Walmart, target CVS, Aldi, and people just don’t care about them anymore because they’re, it’s, they’re lost. So, you know, building these brands through.
entertainment. I know it’s a big stretch, but I think there’s a, it’s really exciting for the, for, you know, brands of tomorrow.
Moritz Schröder (25:08.853)
and do the brands see the writing on the wall? I assume the ones that end up talking to you do, but do you have to do a lot of convincing and showing them what’s possible or do they realize that they missed out so far and they want to reverse that?
Julian Reis (25:24.654)
think it’s, it’s, it’s, that’s a really good question because it is very challenging. think probably one of the most challenging parts of my job is convincing and educating our partners what the way we think it’s going to happen. and often things happen way, way too late. you know, recently we saw Sephora starting to run an affiliate program on their, on their website and, you know, empowering their influences. mean, this is something they probably should have done, you know, 10 years ago. they’ve, they’ve got the biggest support staff.
So I think the hardest thing for us is educating the brands because I think traditionally no one wants to take big risks because things are difficult. And when things are going difficult, it’s hard to put your hand up and jump. But I do think that, you know, the opportunity now in social commerce is that a lot of younger brands can enter the market and take market share, which is one scary for the big brands.
but to those that don’t lean in quickly are going to suffer because, you know, if you start really leaning into TikTok shop in two years time, it may be too late. And the reason why I say that is because a lot of brands were very scared about going into Amazon because the, the, connotation of going to a eBay like type platform, but TikTok’s different. There’s a reason why there’s, you know, close to, you know, 200 million people on TikTok in America.
If your consumer is there, so should you.
Moritz Schröder (26:56.896)
Yeah, yeah, totally.
To someone like you and me that seems obvious and it’s somewhat surprising how long it takes in these big corporations to change their ways of doing marketing and consumer outreach. Also on the creator side though, and I’m sure you talk with a lot of creators and work very closely with them. Do they see this shift happening of how monetization went from just pure ads on most likely YouTube to whole
Julian Reis (27:10.765)
Yeah.
Moritz Schröder (27:29.479)
variety of different ways of monetizing not only their own content but really their skill set nowadays? Or is that really just something that is so new and so recent that only the 20 year olds are aware of that?
Julian Reis (27:43.502)
No, I think a lot of creators are suffering the same fate right now. Their revenues have gone down. I think the last two years, the day of doing brand deals on Instagram are really few and far between. Obviously there are some that are continually doing it, which is great because they can come on very high prices. But I think for the majority, which is, know, it’s not the 80-20 rule. It’s like probably the 95-5 rule.
most of them aren’t making any money, so they have to have a very diverse, range of, of monetization tools. So, you know, part of our business at super ordinary is we’ve been building these tools for creators to help them monetize content. have a platform called fan fix on fan fixes, been, you know, a nine figure business for the last couple of years. And, the business is one of which, where we help them, you know, create content and help them sell content and.
and live stream. And the reason why we’ve done that is because we believe that the creator economy, the creators are going to need diverse range of revenue streams. So I think, you know, the creator economy, definitely are aware of like what’s happening. know, YouTube ad sent sales have obviously gone down over time, you know, and there’s obviously creator fatigue.
So, you know, working with creators, helping them live stream and sell products is something that we’re very focused on helping them do. and we’ve really figured out that I call it the special source that really makes them successful. And many of them, you know, they can live stream when they’re not there, you know, we can help them with hosts and get them to sell products to their audience. the audiences are the super fans and the super fans will virtually buy them anything that, you know, be some of these creators create. So I think there’s,
There’s definitely an understanding, I would say, but where it goes from here is that, you know, these creators have to really lean into it.
Moritz Schröder (29:43.42)
Right. And I would imagine that it’s super beneficial for these creators to have such a strong partner like SuperOrdinary in their corner because it used to be…
10, 15 years ago, if you were a YouTuber, you most likely were a random person filming with your camera or later with your iPhone in your mom’s basement. And you called yourself an influencer. And that can be super challenging for a variety of reasons. But you mentioned the creative fatigue where you were just burning out because you had to do everything, right? You had to film and you had to script and you had to edit and you had to upload and you had to promote it. And then you were making very little money most likely with it.
We were chasing a dream. But it’s cool that nowadays with all the tools available and with agencies like yours available, there are more more people who actually can make a very decent living with this.
Julian Reis (30:37.08)
That’s right. mean, our goal is to be, the best partner to the creators and the talent. you know, with whatever they want to do, like if they want to sell products or monetize content or make a micro drama, we want to be their partners. and also to the brands. mean, you know, we don’t want to ever have a situation where the brand feels like they’re not getting a great service. I think the, opportunity is, you know, long.
a long-term relationship with these brands. Like some of these brands have been with us now, you know, close to eight years. And we, love, we love working with them, but we want to always be at the cutting edge of, of helping them solve their problems. you know, I think as a lot of these larger companies become a lot smaller, we’re almost becoming their, you know, their arms and their legs to do a lot of the work that, you know, requires, you know, a lot of,
a lot of investment on our side to help them.
Moritz Schröder (31:37.864)
With your focus on the Chinese market, what are trends that you’re waiting to catch on in the US and China being five or maybe even more 10 years ahead of the US market? What are some things that you’re waiting to plan out in the US?
Julian Reis (31:54.488)
So some of the things I think about is, you know, the trend of sports and health and wellness. I think that, you know, there’s a big opportunity globally, not just in the U S and this is nothing that no one knows is that, you know, the trend of longevity, health and wellness, there’s going to be enormous amounts of investment.
Um, the cost of drugs will continue to decline. Um, you know, lot of the things that were once, you know, a barrier to entry and now going to be, um, open to all. Um, I do believe that the Chinese market is behind the U S in sports. Um, I think there’s a big, you know, a learning sort of what the U S has done, particularly around media rights and how to monetize new IP, um, whether it’s, you know, monetizing a football team or.
you know, a pickleball team, you know, the U S over the best at it, you know, in live entertainment is something that, you know, the, the Chinese market will take on and in, Dros. So if you look at any live entertainment, whether it’s the Miami tennis or us open or, know, whatever it’s the golf tournaments, know, the U S are able to monetize these assets incredibly well from brand sponsorships and adjacencies. I think China’s behind. think they’re going to catch up extremely fast.
I think there’s a lot to do here in Chinese sports, whether it’s in the sports themselves or media or selling products, which are health and wellness products. I think that’s just something that I think is going to continue to grow. So I’m excited to work with China and our partners there to build new products in that category. There’s multi-billion dollars of opportunities to do in that space.
you know, coming up to the LA Olympics in 28, I’m just sure there’s going to be a very tight race for gold medals and between China and the U S I think that’s a huge opportunity for a company like super ordinary to capitalize on that. and also there’s, you know, a of other sporting events that we’ll continue to see. So, in the next 10 years, that’s something that we think very carefully about.
Moritz Schröder (34:05.659)
Yeah, think it’s really interesting how all these different ways of entertainment now have more and crossover.
And you see that with social media content and people like Mr. Beast working together with like some of the largest sports icons like Ronaldo. But then you also have recently Netflix announced that podcasts will be streamed on their platform. So more more crossover there. And then also you have the creators that are increasingly building their own brands. Like you have creator led brands pushing really the envelope of what is
Julian Reis (34:31.319)
Absolutely.
Moritz Schröder (34:44.98)
possible for a creator in terms of monetization. And again, you have Mr. Beast there as the front runner. How do you experience these creator led brands that probably you’re already working with and the creators behind it? Like are they these…
Julian Reis (34:48.107)
Absolutely.
Moritz Schröder (35:02.032)
incredible entrepreneurs and people that are just so talented that they can do everything or do they have a team around them that tells them, hey, now it’s time to sell chocolate bars? Like how does that work like in reality?
Julian Reis (35:13.644)
Yeah, I think we’ve been very close to that trend for the last seven years. And, you know, we’ve been participating by distributing or investing or innovating with the creators. I have to say that it’s traditionally been a more of a challenge than a win. I think you hear about the successes, but we don’t hear about the 99 % losses out there. I think the, you know, the creator opportunity to distribute
products is a very good opportunity. think the creators creating their own brand is still a very challenging opportunity because, you know, there’s a creator has to have a full team around them. and I think ultimately, you know, to be successful in, in, building a brand, know, you have to have the, you know, the core pillars that it takes to build that brand. look, I think there’s, still so much that can be done working with creators, but
You know, you know, you know, obviously we’ve seen a lot of examples of recent sales of beauty brands, whether it’s Fleur or Rode by Haley Bieber or Chris L. did Fleur. but you know, we, we certainly think that using the creators as the distribution channel for content and products is certainly the way.
Moritz Schröder (36:31.909)
and
Thinking about how that would work like for such a brand to then enter the Chinese market, I would see the immediate problem that most likely those creators are not very well known in China. One, because of the language barrier, but then also because they’re most likely active on platforms that are just not available in China. So how does that look like? How do such creators think about the obvious goal to enter a market with 1.3 billion consumers potentially when they don’t reach
have a foot there in the door.
Julian Reis (37:04.718)
I think, I think, I think it’s going to take time. There’s no shortcut to building an authentic audience and super fans. think we’ve seen an incredible amount of, super fans around sporting, teams, whether it’s the NBA or NFL. and there’s a lot of, know, these tours that come to the U S sorry to China. We’re seeing, you know, as Travis Scott is performing next month, we saw a Kanye tour last, last earlier this year.
So I think, you know, the West are really recognized that, you know, the Chinese audience are excited, but you have to invest. can’t expect that you’re sitting in the, in your, you know, in your bedroom live streaming from the, from your bathroom into China expecting to make sales. That just doesn’t happen. You know, the Chinese culture really pay respect to people that take the time and effort to learn about their culture.
And I think if you do that properly and you really spend time and effort there, I think there’s a massive opportunity to build a real fan base. You know, we, we work with a lot of talent who are from sporting industries, particularly the NBA. And they, they go every, every year, maybe twice a year, but their fan base, you know, are strong. And, know, we’ve seen examples of them selling all types of products from shoes to bottles of wine, and they can do incredible sales. So.
I really am excited that, you know, I’m hoping that the barriers to travel and, and making sure that we bring a lot more talent to the Chinese markets is, is wide open.
Moritz Schröder (38:44.227)
I don’t know if you followed that, but the streamer, iShowSpeed, he was traveling in China during the summer. And I found that just very interesting because it’s sort of unique still. And I think it’s going to be the way forward if you want to grow your customer and your fan base in China, right?
Julian Reis (39:02.027)
Absolutely.
Moritz Schröder (39:04.493)
Yeah, I’m excited to see what he will come up with in the future, because he’s only 20 as I recently learned. And it’s insane that he already has the following that he has. So insane how you could potentially use that going forward if you still have like 40 years of career in front of you.
Julian Reis (39:15.566)
Crazy.
Julian Reis (39:22.766)
Exactly.
Moritz Schröder (39:25.839)
If you talk to brands and to creators that want to enter the Chinese market, what are some of the biggest mistakes that you want them to avoid? Like what are some things that anyone who tries to push into the market and doesn’t really understand the market would get wrong that you can help them with?
Julian Reis (39:49.576)
The first thing we say is just make sure they’re set up for success. And what I mean by that is making sure that they have a solid team and infrastructure around them to support the things and the demands that the Chinese market could ask for. whether it’s investing in marketing, a lot of brands would come to us and saying, here’s my inventory, you figure it out. But it really does take time and investment and you can’t be too short-sighted. It’s all about
You know, when we speak to brands, it’s about developing together a three year plan to make sure that we’re setting very realistic expectations about what to expect. and I think that’s where, you know, a lot of brands kind of fall back and say, well, you know, this market’s so big, how come you can’t do more sales? The trick is like a lot of brands come into the market and leave the market because they haven’t planned properly. So planning is everything. we typically think brands should be at a certain size.
before they come in and it depends on the category. But, um, typically, you know, we look for brands that are probably doing close to 50 million of revenue in their domestic market. Um, that just tells us that they’ve, that, that size that they probably have 15 to 20 employees from different, you know, um, um, you know, different levels and different, um, infrastructure sizes. So they can handle the demands because as you know, um, you know, probably 50 % of the revenue happens in Q4.
I’m in China just because of all the sales events which we’re heading into right now. So that’s typically what we, we advise.
Moritz Schröder (41:24.855)
Okay. And how much of that strategy then that you’re customizing for your clients revolves around live shopping and social commerce in China? How big of a factor is that for you?
Julian Reis (41:36.526)
I would say about 80%.
Moritz Schröder (41:39.342)
Wow, okay. So that is then based off of the affiliate network that you have and the live shoppers or live streamers that you work with.
Julian Reis (41:47.072)
A hundred percent. We have an incredible network now that allows us to automatically figure out who are the right partners and affiliates to help us grow your brand. we’re, you know, we have in-house capabilities that everything from our own design marketing agency, you know, messaging, copywriters, we do everything in the house and we’re able to create entertainment shows around your brand to really show it in a different light.
And there are all these different platforms, social platforms, whether it’s the, the weibos of this world, this Xiao Hong Shu, which is a little red book or Taobao, T-Mall, Douyin, WeChat, you know, it goes on and on. And then you have all the different video platforms like Billy Billy, Huai Shou. So there’s, there’s a lot to, to learn. And I think for, from a brand, it’s really important that they understand that we, they have to release the control to us so that we can do our best to make sure that the brand does.
what we expect.
Moritz Schröder (42:49.44)
I would imagine that that’s pretty hard for a lot of brands to simply let go and hope for the best. How does that then look like going forward? Like, do they have KPIs that they give you? Do you check in once a month or even more frequently with them? How does that look like?
Julian Reis (42:55.31)
you
Julian Reis (43:03.362)
Yeah. It generally starts very, fairly intense, like at least once a week where we have check-ins and we, you know, we, we share all the data. We’re very transparent with what’s going on within their category, who are the competitors, what’s going on in their pricing, what’s wrong with their product. It could be, you know, an opportunity to tweak a formula. it’s really, a lot of detail. it’s not.
such like running an Amazon storefront. This is something that it’s really important that we, you know, all the comments, the remarks about your product is fed back to the brand. there’ve been so many situations where, you know, we’ve had to change the formula, so that it’s successful in, in, in the Asian market. but that’s something that, you know, it sets us apart as a partner because we’re not someone that would take anything down the line and just try and hopefully sell it.
And unfortunately, sometimes brands don’t work out in China, you know, for whatever reason. So, you know, it’s just like the U S not every brand can have a runaway success as in, as in Europe or anywhere else in the world. So it’s really about, you know, you know, from the brand perspective, if they get it right, there’s a huge opportunity. But, know, pick a
category that’s not so crazy competitive. That’s obviously, you know, the Chinese market’s very, very good at pricing things to perfection. So no one makes any money. So, but anyway.
Moritz Schröder (44:37.462)
Okay. Is it still the case that Chinese consumers have interest or a particular passion for Western products or has that subsided because the Chinese products are on par in terms of quality nowadays as well?
Julian Reis (44:55.352)
I mean, obviously there has been a resurgence of the challenging brands. So the local brands have done exceptionally well. that, you know, many of the local beauty brands, particularly are now Chinese, whether it’s Proya or Winona. Some of these are examples, but obviously Western beauty brands and Western fashion brands continue to be, you know, status symbol to be able to purchase them.
But there has definitely been a decoupling from the Western brands to local sourced premium brands.
Moritz Schröder (45:29.397)
Okay. And if we look at it from the other direction, how does it, how is the demand looking like for American brands to enter the Chinese market, given all the uncertainty around tariffs and Trump and everything that comes with that? Do you see a decline in the interest or is it just as strong as ever?
Julian Reis (45:51.786)
No, there’s been a decline for short from, from COVID days. think there’s always been a difficulty to actually physically get to China. So, you know, lot of brands just it’s gone down their priority list. then once was, you know, top, top priority. So probably now priority number five, I think the, you know, we are going to see, a resurgence of interest into the China, China market. And that’s driven because of consumer demand underlying.
consumer growth, I think we’ve hit the bottom in the Chinese market probably, you know, six months to a year ago. And I think, you know, one of the biggest opportunities is exposing your brand to the local market and really building there. So we’re really well set as a company to take advantage of that view. You know, so we’re really interested in categories to go after that express, you know, consumer growth, you know, can go into health and wellness, beauty.
you know, know, categories that, you know, generally mimic and correlate highly to a recovering economy.
Moritz Schröder (46:59.403)
Okay, that’s interesting. My wife is actually Chinese, so I do have some connections to Chinese culture and Chinese economy as well, because I hear a lot about her friends oftentimes struggling right now or in the last couple of years really after COVID. The economy was not great for a lot of people there. So it’s gonna be interesting to see how much the economy will bounce back and if it will ever regain the strength that it had before COVID.
Julian Reis (47:28.662)
Yeah, no, definitely, definitely.
Moritz Schröder (47:32.043)
If we look into the future in terms of
social commerce, obviously, but then also the influence of China on Western economy as a whole. Do you see any brands or services that currently are already existing in China and booming there that haven’t quite made it yet to the US that you think it’s just a matter of time until they’re gonna be here? I’m thinking of obviously, Temu and Xi and alongside with TikTok were a couple of examples in terms of.
apps and brands. But then more recently we have Labooboos and everything around that craze. Do you see anything that you think it’s just a matter of time until it’s going to make it to the West?
Julian Reis (48:12.898)
Yeah.
Julian Reis (48:20.852)
like my hot take at the moment is I think the manufacturing to consumer model is going to become a big thing in America. and what I mean by that is that the new business model will develop such that just in time production for new trends directly from the factory to the consumer. if we’re able to understand, which is what she ended with this data collection about what the current trends are.
Moritz Schröder (48:29.374)
Okay.
Julian Reis (48:49.292)
manufacturers could make small quantities and then sell them through TikTok. So I believe that’s an opportunity that if we can work with the right factories, we’re able to really take advantage of that trend. So I think that’s a big trend that I’m looking forward to.
Moritz Schröder (49:06.795)
Okay, and do you see that only going through TikTok or how else would brands in China collect that kind of information that they certainly need on the customer to then spot those trends?
Julian Reis (49:19.282)
that’s a good question. I think Tik Tok’s obviously the one that is best to express that view. however, you know, I think there are going to be, you know, because of the, because of the tariff, think the manufacturing will happen here in the U S so it’s going to become, really important to, you know, figure out ways to distribute. and that’s why I think, you know, with our affiliate network, we’re able to really accelerate, you know,
can seed a hundred thousand products a week if we want to, to our affiliates to get them to post content. So that’ll be a fun exercise when we partner with the right factory.
Moritz Schröder (49:59.849)
For sure. Yeah, I think working with all these individual affiliates actually gives brands the opportunity to then micro dose in a way the content and also the products that they want to bring to the consumer and just see what works and what pops off and then double down on that, right?
Julian Reis (50:21.985)
Exactly, that’s exactly right.
Moritz Schröder (50:24.935)
Do you see an issue? I mean, we touched on AI. One of the use cases, especially in the creator space now is to build a lot of AI agents that basically do affiliate work. Do you see a risk there that the affiliate creator world will just be wiped out by AI? Or do you think people will be able to tell the difference and focus on what is real and human?
Julian Reis (50:48.972)
Yeah, that’s a good question. I, still believe that people will want to know that it’s a real non AI image talking to you. think that’s something that I firmly believe that we should, we should champion. I don’t believe that we should have AI robots, you know, taking it across, you know, that sales function. you know, I’m probably in the, in the minor camp on that because a lot of people think that they are efficiencies.
with that, I don’t want it to happen, but you never know.
Moritz Schröder (51:24.498)
Yeah, I would hope that platforms like TikTok and YouTube just force a labeling on creators and that the detection is so good that they can actually tell if it’s AI generated or not on their end, even though you as a viewer probably can’t tell anymore already now and certainly not in a year or two. But if you have a label that tells you this is an AI bot, then I do think people will be hesitant to buy from it.
Julian Reis (51:30.924)
Yeah.
Julian Reis (51:40.963)
Yeah.
Julian Reis (51:51.745)
That’s right.
Moritz Schröder (51:53.779)
But yeah, it’s gonna be interesting how that pans out. I don’t think anyone really knows. mean, they seem to just be rolling out things like Sora 2 and then see what happens.
Julian Reis (51:59.939)
No.
Exactly. We’ll see you. Hopefully not.
Moritz Schröder (52:07.337)
How big do you think looking into the future social commerce and live shopping will become? I talked to a lot of experts on that field already and pretty much anyone who’s very euphoric about the space still says that it’s never gonna be as big as in China. Do you share that view or are you even more optimistic?
Julian Reis (52:30.062)
Yeah, I mean, I’m obviously, I think, you know, I’m still a believer of the Chinese path is we’re still four years behind. I think we will catch up. Um, I think the population obviously dictates that it will never be as big. Um, but from a percentage, um, of commerce, think at least 30 % of the U S commerce business can be social commerce. Um, I really believe that entertainment is going to be the biggest driver of social commerce.
and that the entertainment and media business in the US is far bigger than the world and in terms of what’s being created. And I think that’s going to be a big driver. So as long as we have the media and entertainment hub here in the US, I think that’s going to be a big coefficient. Obviously other markets like India generate a lot of media and there’s a lot of viewers there, but I still think the US will be very strong on the creativity side.
Moritz Schröder (53:27.748)
Yeah, also with-
what TikTok labeled discovery commerce. It’s going to be super beneficial if the US and all the creators there are able to own that space because I do think we’re entering a world where on the one hand you have AI dominated shopping where you already know exactly what you want and you just let your AI bot buy it for you at the best possible price and most conveniently. And then on the other hand, you actually don’t know what you want. And that’s where I think social commerce and live shop
Julian Reis (53:48.462)
Yeah.
Moritz Schröder (53:58.986)
it’s going to be huge.
Julian Reis (54:00.106)
Exactly, exactly.
Moritz Schröder (54:02.63)
Yeah, super exciting.
just out of curiosity, you touched on Xiaohongshu, which was for a brief moment, the most downloaded app after TikTok went down for a couple of hours in January. And I think it created some really beautiful moments. I was actually following this quite closely because as I mentioned, my wife is Chinese, so she loves Xiaohongshu and I was aware of the app way before most other people in the West. And it created this influx of Western people into the medium and they started communicating with
Julian Reis (54:26.243)
Yeah.
Moritz Schröder (54:36.1)
the Chinese people over in China. And it was beautiful to see all these conversations and exchanges happening where before people were separated and probably on both sides fit not always the truth about each other. So I was wondering with your expertise and insights, do you think we will ever see a social media that actually is available worldwide and will have the possibility to bring people together like we saw for a brief moment there?
Julian Reis (55:04.056)
I would hope so. I mean, you can only hope, obviously there’s a lot of things that would have to change, politically for that to be a, be of case, but yeah, it would be a dream for like, everyone can communicate under one system. but it’s unfortunately not going to happen right now, but maybe, I don’t know, maybe with AI that, that there is a, know, with these language models, will allow more open communication and learning from other, other cultures.
Moritz Schröder (55:35.067)
I think it would be very cool to actually have social media take that role that everybody hoped it would have 20 years ago. And now it seems like we’re more divided than ever also due to social media, but it would be very cool to see people brought together by social media as it can occasionally.
Julian Reis (55:50.571)
No.
Julian Reis (55:53.888)
Absolutely, absolutely.
Moritz Schröder (55:56.987)
Julian, where can people check out you, your services? Where do you want to redirect people?
Julian Reis (56:03.806)
thanks, Morris. So for a super ordinary, you can, we have a website, so it’s www.superordinary.co.co. so you can reach out to us there, all on LinkedIn. You can message me directly. and we’d love to meet with more brands and more creators.
Moritz Schröder (56:25.273)
Awesome. Well, Julian really appreciated you taking the time. was a great conversation. Lots of great insights for someone who works on both markets, but then also all the different spaces of the creator economy. And I think both of us are very excited for the future and what’s yet to come. Thanks so much for taking the time.
Julian Reis (56:29.186)
not the lower.
Julian Reis (56:44.006)
No, not at all Moritz. It was great meeting you and thank you for having me on your podcast. really enjoyed myself. Thanks, Moritz.
Moritz Schröder (56:51.578)
My pleasure.