Amanda Reiss joined Living Proof as Chief Marketing Officer in September 2019. Prior to joining the prestige hair care innovator, Amanda was CMO at Saucony. The similarities between overseeing marketing at an athletic footwear company and a hair care company are plentiful, both of which consider how women care for themselves and their lifestyles. Here, Amanda spoke to Beauty News about working from home, her responsibilities at the leading prestige hair care brand in the U.S., and what she wishes for everyone at this time.

Beauty News: How are you handling working from home?
Amanda Reiss: This is all just very unprecedented. We’re used to working in an environment that’s very meeting-heavy with some meetings running back-to-back all day long. As difficult as it is in the office, when you’re at home it’s really, really challenging. Planning set meeting windows is what’s working best, like from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. and then from 1 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. I would say coming up with potential non-call hours for everyone, whether you have kids or not, is a good idea for mental wellness.

Beauty News: Talk about 2019 highlights.
AR: In 2019 we had a year of strong double-digit growth, and we continued our leadership as the number-one prestige hair care brand in North America. Our core business is very strong and being led by our Perfect hair Day Dry Shampoo product. It’s still the number-one product since it launched five years ago. It actually cleans hair, something other dry shampoos on the market really aren’t great at. It was also a strong year of launching science-backed products, like Color Care, which is powered by a patented technology we invented. We also launched our Dry Scalp Treatment and our Triple Detox Shampoo. We’re also really excited about our sustainability initiatives, including partnering with Teracycle, which makes our products 100 percent recyclable in the U.S. and Canada.

BN: What is your role and responsibilities at Living Proof?
AR: At some organizations the roles and activities within the marketing team have been divided up into silos. So, they may have separate arms for say channel marketing and DTC (direct-to-consumer) marketing, which I think can lead to a big lapse in integration for the consumer. I’ve been really excited about my team’s purview at Living Proof, which leads marketing from brand and creative strategy, innovation strategy and consumer engagement, which includes social media, influencer, PR and content), all the way through to channel marketing DTC (direct-to-consumer) platforms. My primary role is to be part of the leadership team and work cross functionally with everyone to drive our business strategy, energy and culture.

BN: Who is Living Proof’s target consumer?
AR: We’ve done a lot of research to better understand our current and potential consumer. The overall takeaway is rather than speak to a demographic, we prefer to look at this in terms of how we connect as a brand, on an emotional and behavioral level. This is how we set out to identify our optimal segments. We think we have raving fans across many different demographics, and we engage with them based more on behavior and lifestyle characteristics than age. Our goal is to save our consumers time and frustration. Everyone has a hair challenge.

BN: It seems hair care is having a revival, would you agree?
AR: People are starting to look at their hair more like how they look at their skin care regimen. Their knowledge is not as far advanced in terms of understanding and expertise, but there’s still the aspect of not just looking good but making sure your hair is healthy and setting the foundation for your hair health over time, which then also makes it look better. At the end of the day, people want to feel good and probably now more than ever. It’s definitely an exciting time for hair care; it’s the fastest growing category in prestige beauty. It’s up at least 17% year over year, according to NPD. Living Proof is the number-one prestige hair care brand. And we played a big role in creating the category of prestige hair care along with retail partners like Sephora and Ulta Beauty. Retailers themselves are trying to put more emphasis on the prestige hair care category, for example, Sephora’s small store format has hair care at the front of the store. There’s definitely a lot of potential in the category. And I think the bottom line is that consumers are starting to see the hair care category as a follow-up to skin care, which is really good.

Beauty News: What has been Living Proof’s social media strategy and how is that going to change over the next couple of months as consumers are staying home?
AR: We’ve definitely put some parameters in place with our global partners in terms of the type of content we want them serving up versus content that can feel off kilter right now. In terms of the cadence between pushing product and sales and building community there will be a little bit of a shift and we will navigate that as we go forward. So we’ve been talking about things like tutorials for how to take care of your hair at-home.

BN: What’s your favorite beauty product (not including Living Proof)?
AR: I obviously had my favorites before, but now I have a whole new level of heightened exposure. The one I really love is by Ren it’s called Flash Hydro-Boost Instant Plumping Emulsion. I like things that are very light and just feel like they have a good amount of absorption that also does leave anything behind. I love their sustainability mission, too. And this might sound funny for the current environment as we are stuck inside, but I’m kind of obsessed with Supergoop’s Glow Stick Sunscreen. I love how they’ve made sunscreen a really fun thing, combining your beauty needs with sunscreen as an essential base.

BN: If you were to write the note inside a fortune cookie, what would it say?
AR: Right now, considering everything that’s going on, I would like to say better times are on the horizon. And P.S., keep doing your hair.