How Emma Grede Builds Product-Based Brands for Celebrities

Emma Grede wants to build brands that solve problems. Part of her business savviness comes from her ties with celebrity-based brands. She is the CEO of Good American, an inclusive fashion brand she co-founded with Khloé Kardashian. She is also a founding partner of Kim Kardashian-backed Skims and co-founder of Kris Kardashian's Safely. The celebrity appeal of these brands market themselves to consumers. But Grede has also spearheaded other marketing initiatives for her brands—like making Skims the official underwear for the NBA, WNBA and USA Basketball sports leagues. And Good American branched out beyond Khloé Kardashian to feature models like Cindy Crawford and Emily Ratajkowski in ad campaigns. ADWEEK spoke to Grede about how she got started and how others can start their own companies. This conversation has been edited for clarity and brevity. ADWEEK: What pursued you to start your own company? Emma Grede: I have worked since I was, like 12 or 14 [years old]—I've always had a job. My first job was in fashion show production, and it was one of those roles where you essentially got to see what a lot of other people did. I spent six years in fashion show production, and then working on partnerships between designers and brands. I forged this unique idea of what it means to put a partnership together, and almost had a front row seat to this early idea of talent and brand partnerships. After that, I forged my own company when I was 24, and I ran an agency that specialized in entertainment partnerships—putting talent and brands together and forging big marketing campaigns that were global. After about 10 years of doing that, you get the idea that perhaps you'd like to do something for yourself. I was over being a consultant, and I thought I would like to try a business myself. How did you make Good American, Safely, and Skims stand out during their launches? At the heart of any of these businesses, they're product-based businesses. You have to have a best-in- class product. You have to have differentiated products for what's already in the market. We came into the market as leaders around this idea of what it means to really do truly inclusive fashion. When you are solving a customer problem, you bring solutions and innovation into the market, and that's what makes you successful. I pride myself on being a product person and finding those solutions. And when you do that for customers, that's what makes them come back time and time again. https://www.instagram.com/goodamerican/reel/C_nynlBPKOf/ Is there a social strategy that best highlights the brands? We do whatever makes sense and whatever makes sense in that moment. It's about being in popular culture. We just recently worked with Cindy Crawford. Now that's not because Cindy was having a particular moment, but she's an American icon, and she stands for something. When you think about somebody that embodies all of those values, it's about this meeting of moment, meeting of tension. I think we always try to do the thing that's right for that moment. How do you think about partnering with other brands? When you have a business, especially a relatively new business, you're always trying to find ways to reach customers. Figuring out how your brand can leverage other properties and other audiences. That's just part of what we do. My background for 10 years, all I did was marketing partnerships. So it's about finding the right properties and the right pockets of audience, and being able to constantly strive to find a new customer. It's really about finding the connection with culture and then doing things that feel part of the zeitgeist. In the moment when everybody's already talking about those things, and then we really like put ourselves in the right moment. What's your advice for aspiring entrepreneurs? Get started because I think you can wait too long. You can be overwhelmed by what you don't know. And I find a lot of people present me ideas on a piece of paper that doesn't tell me anything about what type of entrepreneur you're going to be. Someone who started something that is failing a little bit is more interesting to me than someone whose ideas still exist in a PowerPoint. And so my advice to anyone is get started.

Branding

How Emma Grede Builds Product-Based Brands for Celebrities

Good American and Skims have moved beyond their celeb ties

Colin Daniels

About

Subscriptions

Events

Publications

WORK SMARTER - LEARN, GROW AND BE INSPIRED.

Subscribe today!

Colin Daniels