Renee Ogaki
“I love listening and learning. No one likes working with someone who only wants to see things one way.”
Renee is the Founder & CEO of OGAKI, the leading beauty marketing agency recognized by Business Insider as one of the top boutique agencies in the US. She is a pioneer in the digital marketing space and has been instrumental in helping brands launch, develop, and execute their digital strategies even before the days of Instagram.
Throughout her career, Renee has worked with brands across the beauty space including Charlotte Tilbury, Diptyque, U Beauty, D.S. & Durga, Jillian Dempsey, T3 Micro, and many others.
What's your superpower at work?
I think my superpower at work is collaboration. I love working with my team and our clients, I love listening and learning. No one likes working with someone who only wants to see things one way.
How do you balance finding the right influencer for the right brand?
Ultimately, it comes down to what the brand's goals are.
If the goal for their influencer marketing program is conversion-based, then we're going focus on affiliate marketing and conversion partnerships. We're going to target influencers who routinely share shopping recommendations and have built an audience that is looking to shop for their beauty and lifestyle routines.
If it's more of a brand awareness play, we need an influencer with strong views and reach with the brand’s target audience, and who represents the brand’s consumer. We make sure the brand association makes sense.
Many different factors go into building a successful program, but ultimately it’s about diving into analytics and content to make sure that each influencer we choose makes sense for a brand's goals.
What's the most exciting trend in beauty marketing and PR?
This is a little controversial, but utilizing AI is exciting, and we've been seeing its potential across beauty marketing and communications.
I believe the future of marketing is one where AI tools will be in all areas of operations. AI will not replace the need for human marketers, but understanding how to use AI tools will be foundational to our day-to-day work.
We're still testing and learning as so many new tools come into the market. But it's exciting to see where AI goes and how it's going to continue to help us in terms of building efficiencies and new workflows.
2025 has a lot going on, obviously. Have you noticed any real-time changes in the language of beauty over the last 4-5 months? Are there any differences in how beauty presents itself?
To your point, many things have already happened this year, and those changes are affecting different brands differently. Everyone is dealing with different circumstances.
Take the L.A. wildfires, which had such a vast impact on the L.A. beauty community. Several clients are based there, and we ourselves have a team in L.A. It was a moment where we had to quickly pivot on social media content.
We thought of different ways to support the community through product donations, charitable donations, and events. The fires affected everyone and everything, so we worked with our clients one day at a time to put their best foot forward.
I saw everyone come together within L.A. to work on solutions. There was a lot of chatter questioning whether we should start (or stop) posting on social media and what the messaging should be. For some brands, we leaned into the founders' voices, concentrating on what they wanted to share in that moment, and that really resonated with their communities on social media.
Are there any pitfalls you steer beauty startups away from?
One big thing is comparison. When starting out, many brands want to line up against a brand they admire or a brand they see as a competitor within the space. But that leads to thinking, "Well, this brand is doing this, should we be doing that?"
“Brands obviously need sales in order to grow. But if you don't have any awareness in the market, your target consumer has no idea who you are.”
Carving out your own path within the space is really important. Of course, we should do competitive listening. And yes, we need to look at your direct competitors and understand what's happening in the beauty landscape. But ultimately, what is your mission? What is your path forward? What makes sense for you?
I also advise against trying to focus too much on performance marketing too early. Brands obviously need sales in order to grow. But if you don't have any awareness in the market, your target consumer has no idea who you are. They've never heard of you. They've never seen an influencer they love mention you. You don't have a social media presence. You don't have strong creative to advertise.
Ultimately, you're wasting your budget on paid campaigns trying to convert a consumer who has no idea who you are or what you stand for. We educate our clients and younger brands on the need for foundational brand awareness, and growing from there.
Your monthly Beauty Trends Report has become required reading. How do the reports come together?
They come to life through our team. We were constantly Slacking beauty trends, news, social posts, and the latest activations and events with each other.
We realized that we're constantly talking about these trends internally, so why not share them with our wider community?
Honestly, the hardest part is focusing on just three big trends each month, because there is so much happening in the landscape!
"Authenticity" has been such a ubiquitous buzzword within influencer marketing. What do you think of the state of influencers right now?
Oh, absolutely. Authenticity is such a buzzword within influencer marketing. It's almost lost its meaning.
Influencers having a genuine impact in the space today all have a very clear point of view. The type of content they share is very specific. They know the target audience they're speaking to. The influencers we partner with will not take on every partnership or every gifting you offer them. They want to make sure the brands they share make sense for them. They need to be fans of that brand and that particular product. They know their audiences' trust is something they can take for granted.
You recently were advocating for Substack and the written word. Is there a greater hunger right now for community, self-expression, and authentic personal recommendations (or all of the above)?
Absolutely. All of the above fuel the need for and hunger for Substack.
It's full circle. When we started this influencer journey, it began with bloggers. Substack is very similar to blogs. It's sharing personal recommendations and personal thoughts. It's building community in a way that's different from what you find on social media.
Also, since we're talking about Substack, I recommend Jessica Delfino's The Review of Beauty. She goes deeply into the why. She talks about why we want certain beauty ideals and why certain trends and products do well in the market. She's such a prolific writer, and I love her perspective. It’s great to celebrate writers.