For at least a decade, we’ve been conditioned to watch influencers unbox new launches, often from custom-made boxes with inserts shaped to fit each product, and with colors and copy designed to entice both creators and their followers.
According to Priscilla Tsai, CEO and founder of Cocokind, which is celebrating its 10th anniversary, just one of these boxes — not including the product inside, or shipping — can cost $20 to $30. And it’s common for brands to send out at least 1,000 of them.
So, at the start of 2025, the brand decided to reallocate the money previously spent on fancy boxes.
In January, Cocokind hosted seven longtime customers in the Napa Valley for a trip designed to give them experiences traditionally only afforded to influencers. Applicants were asked to submit 60-second videos talking about why they love the brand. Seven guests, chosen based on their video submissions, engagement with and excitement about the brand, celebrated the launch of the brand’s Electrolyte Water Cream. In an Instagram Reel, Tsai explained that Napa was chosen so that guests could immerse themselves in the region’s magnesium-rich mineral water, a hero ingredient in the moisturizer.
“There [will be] one concept that one brand will do, and then every brand will jump on it until it gets absolutely exhausted,” Tsai said, of traditional influencer trips. “Being in the industry, and also for consumers watching [these trips], it felt exhausting, because you’re like, ‘I’m spending my money on these brands.’ And sometimes these trips [bring] people who don’t even use the products.”
Instead, Tsai said, she wanted the brand’s marketing budget to go toward making her customers feel like celebrities.
Hundreds of customers submitted videos, Tsai said. In its first iteration, the brand asked for submissions to be entered via DM, but quickly realized its mistake. For its second trip, submissions came through social media posts tagging @cocokind, using the hashtag #cocokindbrandtrip, allowing them to contribute to the trip’s earned media value. Tsai said that orchestrating a customer brand trip is no different than running a brand campaign. She likened the overall endeavor to a billboard. “We go into it thinking, ‘How do we make sure every piece of content speaks to our brand, our products and our community?’ Whether you’re on the trip or not, you feel this sense of what the Cocokind brand is all about. It’s a uniquely identifying brand moment.”
Cocokind hosted its second trip in Miami from June 6-8 — this time with eight guests.
The brand tapped creators Kristyn Hoffman (@kristynhoffman96; 342,000 TikTok followers) and Rachel Finley (@hydrationceo; 268,000 TikTok followers) to get involved. Hoffman and Finley each got to choose one of their own community members for one of the eight spots. Tsai said there is significant overlap between Cocokind’s community and the two influencers’ communities.
Over 1,400 community members applied to be part of the second trip, a 745% increase from the first trip.
“We wanted to take every type of community member: people who are micro creators [but had never been on a brand trip], customers who post and customers who don’t post very much at all,” she said. Applicants were asked to engage with the brand in various ways. A brand webpage instructed them to “start posting, commenting on our TikTok & IG posts, and sharing your product reviews.”
Between March 13, when Cocokind announced trip No. 2, and June 11, a couple of days after the trip’s conclusion, it had generated over $3.7 million in EMV from community content directly related to the trip.
Marketers and founders tend to agree that when it comes to brand trips, spiking sales is not the goal. An increase in EMV is a key KPI. Tsai said Cocokind was also looking to increase brand awareness and encourage positive brand sentiment.
“Of course, we care about how it looks, but we care more about how it feels,” Tsai said. “We want to make sure everybody leaves feeling amazing and connected to each other, and [that] they had a motivating, inspirational weekend. We want them to feel a lot of warmth from us.”
In Miami, guests painted a mural together, and attended an influencer-style gifting suite featuring brands including Touchland, Kopari, Calpak, Owala and, of course, Cocokind. Some even opted to get matching tattoos of a palm tree illustration drawn by Tsai. During the three-day trip, Cocokind’s organic content surpassed 1 million views, and the brand saw seven of its own posts perform at least 10 times better than its typical posts, across TikTok and Instagram. For example, a post about the mural painting has received over 460,000 views, while another about the gifting suite has topped 85,000.
The customer trips are not intended to be lavish. Rather than send fancy cars to the airport to pick up guests, for example, Tsai picked them up herself — and her team created content around that moment. The sentiment in the comments was extremely positive, bordering on sappy. Examples include: “Getting picked up at the airport by the FOUNDER of cocokind is unreal 😍so special!” “Awwww🥹I know they felt safe and good” and “This is so perfect and personal like wow 😍i love supporting this company.”
As for why this all works, Tsai said it comes down to Cocokind’s ethos being one that, unlike much of the beauty industry, does not hinge on aspiration.
“We’re a very relatable brand. [Being relatable] is maybe a harder path — I actually think it’s more difficult to succeed in a big way as a relatable, anti-aspirational brand. … However, there is a customer who’s like, ‘I don’t want to see pictures of a celebrity,’ or ‘I don’t want to see a picture of someone who looks perfect or who has a designer outfit on while applying her serum. I just want to be me.’ That’s who we’re going for, because that’s how I felt. I don’t want to be that aspirational brand ever.”
Next week, Tsai will announce the application to attend Cocokind’s third trip. Until then, she’s keeping the location under wraps.
