WWD Beauty Keynote: Where Brand, Demand, and Retail Converge in the Era of Connected Commerce

At this year’s WWD Beauty CEO Summit, Front Row Co-Founder and Chief Revenue Officer Chris Skinner opened his keynote with a reality check for modern beauty brands: the funnel has collapsed.

Click here to watch the full panel discussion on YouTube

“Today’s consumer journey isn’t linear—it’s looped, layered, and always on,” he explained. “They’re discovering, converting, and validating everywhere, all at once.”

That shift has made growth more complex, and more interconnected, than ever before. The days of building brand awareness in one department, driving demand in another, and handing conversion off to retail are over. The new era of beauty commerce requires brands to think in systems, not silos.

Joined on stage by OUAI’s leadership team—CEO Hannah Beals, Senior Director of Social Media and Content Amanda Martinez, and VP of Sales Jessica Ryan—Skinner explored how beauty’s most culturally resonant brands are rewriting the playbook.

The Connected Growth Engine

“Everything you do off Amazon is as important as what you do on it,” Skinner said. “And even if you’re not on Amazon—you’re on Amazon.”

Front Row’s Connected Commerce model was built for precisely this convergence, combining brand strategy, creative, DTC, and marketplace expertise into one seamless growth system. Powered by Catapult, Front Row’s proprietary technology, the model allows brands to visualize how storytelling drives traffic, how traffic drives conversion, and how conversion feeds back into brand equity.

In OUAI’s case, this connected approach has redefined their Amazon strategy. What once functioned as a replenishment platform has evolved into a destination for discovery, driven by a holistic understanding of how social virality fuels search and conversion.

“When a brand or product goes viral on TikTok,” Skinner noted, “there’s a like-for-like search on Amazon. That’s the loop in motion.”

By aligning data, creative, and channel expertise, Front Row and OUAI have transformed what it means to “show up” for consumers, meeting them wherever their journey begins, and guiding them back into the ecosystem with intention.

The New Beauty Playbook

The conversation extended beyond marketplaces to the heart of brand-building itself. As OUAI’s Amanda Martinez shared, brands can no longer treat their content strategy as separate from their commerce strategy:

“You can’t divorce content from its distribution channels,” she explained. “If it looks the same as it did 10 years ago, you’re losing.”

This idea of brand flexibility, maintaining a strong identity while adapting to platform-specific cultures, is central to modern Connected Commerce. Martinez described TikTok as “a creator-led space where brands are guests,” highlighting how relevance now depends on agility, authenticity, and the ability to act from brand values rather than strict playbooks.

That same adaptability fuels OUAI’s omni-channel success. From leveraging viral mispronunciations of their brand name to responding in real time to creator content featuring their products, OUAI has built a community that thrives on participation.

It’s proof that in the beauty category, authenticity scales, and the strongest brands are those that connect emotional storytelling with measurable outcomes.

Front Row’s keynote underscored a truth reshaping the industry: in today’s commerce landscape, growth comes from connection.

“Long gone are the days of driving growth with blinders,” said Skinner. “Everything you do in one part of the ecosystem affects the rest.”

That philosophy, uniting brand, demand, and retail under one system, has made Front Row a trusted partner to the world’s most ambitious beauty, wellness, and CPG brands.

As the lines between brand-building and selling continue to blur, the agencies and founders who succeed will be those who see the entire loop: every signal, every story, every conversion, as part of one connected journey.

Learn how Front Row helps beauty and wellness brands connect brand, demand, and retail to unlock sustainable growth.