Deutsch, Inc. | Agency Profile, Contacts, AOR, Client Relationships

• After the deal closes, Skylar will operate as a separate business unit within Starco Brands, still led by its founder, Cat Chen.
• Starco's founder and CEO, Ross Sklar, said that the company has plans to "take Skylar to the next level and build the next industry power brand."
  • This year, Skylar will also reportedly build upon the clean fragrance platform by introducing "new, breakthrough products."
  • This leads me to conclude that Starco will invest heavily in advertising for Skylar, especially to support the upcoming product launches.
• Starco has reportedly been pursuing an aggressive growth plan; 2023 will see product launches for many brands as well as new consumer category expansion.
• The brand will likely:
  • Ramp up digital spend
  • Shift its digital strategy under a newly promoted DM (more below)
  • Seek new agency partners
• Target demographic: 
  • Gen-Z and millennial consumers with a strong female skew
    • Skylar's strict sustainable ingredient policy especially appeals to this audience, and so does its 100% transparency promise and its products' lack of toxic chemicals.
  • Potential retail distribution partners
    • ​​​​​​​Right now, Skylar operates as a D2C brand but also has a presence in retailers such as Sephora and Nordstrom.

Recent leadership shifts:

• ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​In November 2022, Skylar promoted Sharan Keswani to the role of senior digital marketing director.
  • Keswani joined the company in February 2020 as its retention marketing director.​​​​​

Additional spending insights:

• Broadcast insights (TV ad creative spend, effectiveness, impressions, and performance)
  • 2021-2022 spend: Skylar hasn't utilized national TV commercials since Q4 2021, when it spent approximately $123.5k on the channel.
  • 2020 spend: It did not utilize this channel in 2020.
  • 2021 ad programming: Skylar's 2021 commercials targeted Gen-X watching shows such as Frasier, Marrying Mr. Darcy, Ghostbusters, NCIS: New Orleans, and Journey of My Heart.
• Digital and social insights (digital ad spend, effectiveness, impressions, and performance)
  • 2021-2022 spend: In 2022, the brand allocated roughly $1.3m toward digital ads, up 8% from the roughly $1.2m allocated in 2021.
  • 2022 data: Skylar earned around 165.1m digital impressions in 2022, 57% via Instagram ads and 43% via Instagram ads.
• Additional channel insights  
  • The company works with influencer partners

Additional agency insights: