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Amy Liu, CEO and founder of Tower 28, has a 13-year-old daughter — and, therefore, a front-row seat to the current phenomenon that is the younger generation’s obsession with beauty.
“Five years ago, I would not have said [13] is prime ‘skin-care girly’ age,” Liu said. “But every girl [my daughter’s] age is basically an expert when it comes to skin care nowadays, and she has the medicine cabinet to prove it.”
Both in response to this cultural shift and to give some attention to the skin-care side of the business, centered on its SOS franchise, Tower 28 is hosting a one-day pop-up on March 16 at Platform, a shopping center in Los Angeles. Other components of the campaign include billboards and a partnership with Rumble fitness studios — it will host classes on March 23 and 24. The pop-up is particularly compelling, given it was designed to cater to shoppers under the age of 14.
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At the pop-up, the brand will lean into education around its SOS Daily Rescue Facial Spray, which is a hypochlorous acid spray. It will aim to educate in a “fun, approachable” way, especially as it seeks to communicate to the “Sephora teens” that they don’t, in fact, need a 12-step skin-care routine, said Alex Kalatzis, Tower 28’s director of marketing. The campaign’s tagline, “TikTok Viral. Derm-Appoved,” seeks to communicate the brand’s credibility.
“We’re going to be showing a lot of before-and-after [imagery] to allow [guests] to understand what the product is and what it actually does,” said Kalatzis.
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“Hypochlorous acid is a cousin to bleach that is commonly used as a preservative in skin-care products,” said dermatologist Dr. Joshua Zeichner. “Unlike bleach, however, it will not change the color of your fabrics and does not have a harsh effect on the skin. Because of its antimicrobial properties, it has been used for more than just its preservative benefits — in fact, it’s the main ingredient in skin care products. Hypochlorous acid has been shown to help improve of variety of skin conditions ranging from acne to dandruff.”
“This ingredient has become pretty synonymous with our brand, and we’re the only brand that retails at Sephora that uses it,” Kalatzis said.
At the pop-up, there will be three main stations. The first will be centered on new customer acquisition. With a sign-up for email and SMS marketing and a follow on Instagram, guests will be given a full-size bottle of the SOS Daily Rescue Facial Spray, its hero skin-care SKU. “We know a lot of people have seen this product all over Instagram and TikTok, and we want to give them a chance to try it,” Kalatzis said. The face mist retails for $28.
The next station will hold the brand’s first refill station for the product, rewarding SOS’s die-hard fans. “We’ve amassed this group of extreme loyalists who are obsessed with this product, it’s saved their skin, acne or eczema,” Kalatzis said. One bottle of the SOS spray is sold every 15 seconds, and sales of the product comprise 30% of Tower 28’s business. It has over 5,000 5-star reviews, across its distribution channels and has won 11 beauty awards. At the refill station, guests will be able to replenish any size of SOS mist for free, from a 1-ounce travel spray to the $68 refill bottle.
At a third station, guests 14 years old and under will be have the opportunity to trade on their harshest product — that glycolic acid-packed Drunk Elephant serum, perhaps? — to receive Tower 28’s full-size moisturizer, the SOS Daily Barrier Recovery Cream. “We want to prove to them that you can use something really gentle that’s still effective, and we want to be the brand that saves their skin,” Kalatzis said. Tower 28 began to promote the event on March 12.
When it comes to skin care, young consumers often don’t do their homework. Take this TikTok: A young girl sprays her face while explaining that she’s interested in the SOS mist simply “cuz it’s very viral, I’ve been seeing.” When repeatedly asked what it does for her skin, she finally shrugs, saying, “I dunno.” It’s fortunate, then, that hypochlorous acid is such a harmless ingredient — there are worse things a child could spray on their face.
The “inflection point” for the product’s virality was back in June 2022, when the brand saw two viral moments, Kalatzis said. The first was when Bieber mentioned SOS spray in a TikTok about products she uses to calm down her “angry” skin. “We saw sales surge 55% at Sephora and [it has sustained],” she said. The second was a video made by a small creator demonstrating a dramatic before-and-after. “It ended up yielding more engagement than Bieber,” Kalatzis said, adding that the post now lives on the product’s Sephora product page because it’s such a strong conversion tool. A year later, in June 2023, Sephora featured SOS Spray in its window display, and the brand saw sales skyrocket once again. “Operationally, again, we had to hustle to keep up with demand,’ Kalatzis said.
“One of my dreams was always for us to be a brand that was more like what Clinique was when I was younger, where you have that safe dermatologist-tested and -approved [factor]. And for this younger consumer, we want to give them an option that is an elevated basic — it’s not going to break the bank,” Liu said. As of now, Tower 28’s other skin-care offerings include a $34 SOS Intensive Redness Relief Serum and a $24 SOS Daily Skin Barrier Redness Recovery Moisturizer. Based on conversations with Liu and Kalatzis, it seems more than likely that a cleanser is coming soon.
“The SOS was part of our initial launch, when we were obviously very small, and we never came back and did a bigger moment around it. It just grew organically on its own,” Liu said. “[So now we are] giving it its own moment in the spotlight before we bring on other products.”
In addition to the pop-up, the campaign involves 10 billboards across Los Angeles. The brand is also seeding products exclusively to dermatologists — 600 medical professionals within the National Eczema Association’s network — for the first time. And it is running paid media with Sephora, via display banners on the retailer’s site, marking another first. Finally, the brand is partnering with dermatologist Dr. Joyce Park (@teawithmd; 664,000 TikTok followers) by hosting a TikTok live with her and Liu to bring the “TikTok Viral. Derm-Appoved.” tagline to life.
As another element of the campaign, Tower 28 is teaming with Rumble to provide free workout classes to its community. One of the many benefits of the SOS Spray is that it helps cleanse skin and keep it breakout-free post-workout, Kalatzis said. Attendees will be given branded SOS towels and full-size SOS products. These will take place in Washington, D.C., Chicago, Tempe, Dallas, NYC and Atlanta. “We’ve been active on the coasts, but we want to make sure we’re getting to other markets, too,” Kalatzis said.
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