e.l.f. Beauty, Inc. (ELF) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us. I'm Dara Mohsenian, Morgan Stanley's household products and beverage analyst. We're very pleased to have e.l.f. with us here today. Just before we get started, for important disclosures, please see the Morgan Stanley research website at morganstanley.com. And with that, we're very pleased to welcome e.l.f. here, including Chairman and CEO, Tarang Amin; Senior VP and CFO, Mandy Fields; and Kory Marchisotto, Senior VP and CMO of e.l.f. Beauty and also President of Keys Soulcare. So thanks again, guys, for being here.

So obviously, Tarang, it's been a few years now of pretty consistent share gains. Maybe you can start just by talking about sort of the underlying drivers behind that. But also, obviously, in recent quarters, we've seen this big step-up and acceleration really to higher levels in terms of the market share gains. So just give us some perspective on that near-term momentum in recent quarters, and what's driven that acceleration? And how sustainable that is as you look going forward?

Sure. So thanks for having us. I'd say this has been a pretty consistent growth story, the 7 years since our IPO, we've averaged about a 20% CAGR on our net sales growth. And there are really 3 drivers of that growth. First and foremost is our value proposition, make the best of beauty, prestige quality at these extraordinary prices. Second is our innovation engine, which basically continues to be able to deliver these unique guidance that previously you could only find in prestige or take inspiration with these community at these extraordinary prices. And continue to build the franchises on those. And then third is our marketing engine, this ability to continue to engage our consumers in a way that drives marketing ROIs, multiples above everything else. And I'd say, in terms of the acceleration you've seen, it's really all 3 of those drivers working in concert. If I go back to our value proposition, I don't think it's ever been more relevant in terms of this prestige quality of extraordinary values. Our innovation, the powerhouse innovation we have, building these growing franchises where we're not dependent on any one launch, but every time we build something new in a franchise, we see the entire franchise grow. And then in marketing, we've consistently taken up our marketing levels given the strong ROI we've seen and the ability to bring even more consumers in our franchise. All 3 of those drivers are working together. And what I said has been a pretty good, consistent track record of growth for us.

Great. And Kory, maybe we can touch on the marketing aspect on e.l.f. really sort of pioneered monetizing social media. You've been ahead of the curve in the beauty industry. It hasn't gone unnoticed. A lot of your competitors are trying to catch up. So just as you think about that level of your growth, as Tarang just mentioned, how sustainable is the outperformance there? How do you guys stay ahead of the curve? And are you seeing any impact from competitors maybe moving into some of those early areas where you had success?

Yes. Well, first, I'd love to ask the audience a question. How many of you in this room are actually wearing an e.l.f. product today? Okay. That's the white space opportunity in front of us in this room, we just built our enduring long-term model right here in this room. He's going to be using Holy Hydration! by the end of today. I'm going to get you on a couple of things, especially where your SPF even when you're indoors. So that just gives you a really good view of all the untapped potential that we have in front of us. And when we think about where we're standing today out of the 1,800 brands that are tracked by Nielsen and cosmetics and skin care, only 5 have been able to generate over $700 million which puts us in very rarefied territory, not only rarefied territory but record amount of time. The other 4 brands outside of e.l.f. have been doing this for decades. We've only been doing it for 20 years. The top 2 in the space are over 100. So rarefied territory record amount of time. What really drives our ability to do that is by doing anything else but acting a beauty company. So when you think about the things that you just highlighted there, we are an entertainment company. We're a music producer. We're a producer of short-form episodic content, what we're able to do is think very differently than traditional beauty companies, which allows us to maintain our ability to be in rarefied territory and to be able to do that in a record amount of time. So if you think about, as a for example, a recent foray into the big game, which was our first moment to create a WaveMaker, we actually won the game with the highest brand sentiment and 60 billion impressions, which is unheard of for a beauty company. What really drives our ability to do that is our disrupting norms, shaping culture and connecting communities. So when we think about what other beauty companies do, we do the opposite. They make beauty products available to the happy few. We open the door to make it available to the happy many. They have a traditional beauty model. We have an unexpected model where we partner with brands like Chipotle for example, or a recent foray with Jennifer Coolidge. The second thing we do is shape culture, which is really important when you think about moving at the speed of culture. We take a cultural moment, we lean into the signals, and we act in real time. Our competitors are not able to act with that kind of speed. And the third thing we do is connect communities. And when we think about the connection of communities, we're really talking to people's hearts by involving them in our brand. A perfect for example, is the recent launch of our lip oil, which if you haven't tried it, there's a lot of people in this room who should be trying that before the end of today. That was driven by our community. They specifically reached out to us, asked us to create an item that was only available for $40. And in less than a year's time, we made it available to them for $9 that cannot be replicated by our competitors.

Okay. That's helpful. We just talked about marketing effectiveness. So maybe marketing dollars, Mandy. Just, obviously, you've seen huge increases in marketing spending in recent years, and that's accelerated even in the last few quarters. Can you talk about ROI behind those dollars? And also, a lot of times, when you spend a lot more, you're learning things and you can get more efficient over time from here. So just curious for your perspective on ROI on sort of the existing dollars and also ability to drive greater effectiveness over time.

Well, we are very pleased with the ROI that we're seeing on our marketing spend. When we look at our ROIs year after year, we kind of plan for some level of deceleration but actually not seeing any deterioration in ROIs. In fact, they continue to get stronger as the years have gone on. So very pleased with the investments that we're making. And over time, I would say, over the last 5 years, we've taken our marketing and digital spend from 7% of net sales now out looking at 24% for this year on the top end. And we've done that in a measured pace. We want to make sure that we're seeing the top line growth, it's the flywheel that I'd like to call it. We want to see the top line growth, we want to be able to invest behind marketing and digital, but we also want to be able to expand our EBITDA margins. And I think you've seen us do that quite well. We find areas, whether it be within gross margin or in non-marketing SG&A to be able to fund marketing and digital spend that we want to see and continue to have EBITDA growth as well. And so we're feeling great about where we are, the investment that Kory is making. I mean she has a framework that she operates in, wanting to go after the things that are working, but also reserving some of those dollars to test and learn, which keep us ahead of competition and keep us fresh with our community. And so I think we're taking a great approach with our marketing spend.

Okay. And from here, is this sort of a right level as a percent of sales leaving this year? Might you get leverage over time? Might you continue to increase it? How do you think about that given we've seen a big move over time?

Yes. Well, again, it goes back to that flywheel. We want to make sure that we're driving net sales and expanding EBITDA margin. What happens on the in between will dictate if we can invest more behind marketing digital or in other areas of the business. But we're constantly looking between gross margin, our non-marketing SG&A spend, where are there buckets and how much can we flow through to EBITDA margin expansion? And how much can we invest back into the business.

Okay. Great. And Tarang, you may have noticed just a little bit of stock price volatility in recent months. Obviously, there's been a lot of focus on sort of the scanner data and some of the year-over-year changes that we've seen versus a period with very tough comparisons. So just help us put that in a bit of perspective. Has anything sort of changed from your perspective, your view on the business here? What you worry about at this point? I'm just trying to get at your overall perspective on the business as we look through some of that volatility.

Yes. I'm highly confident in this business, never been more confident. In fact, I mean, if you can just take a look at our guidance, I don't know that many consumer companies guiding to 57% on the top line in terms of growth, 71% and adjusted EBITDA, which is probably an indication of our bullishness in terms of where the business is. In terms of what gives me confidence because the scanner data is simple math. You're going against heavier comps, where will that be? We've outlooked where we feel it's going to be this quarter, next quarter. Overall, not only the growth profile we've had pretty consistently over the years. But if I take a look at the white space that's ahead of us, we've doubled our market share in the last few years. We're now the #3 color cosmetics brand in the U.S. with about a 10% market share. And while that's great, we're pretty confident we can double it again. And we have to look no further than Target, our longest-standing national retailer, where we're approaching 20% market share. And the only difference in Target and everyone else is they had a 5- or 6-year head start [indiscernible]. Skin care, which is one of the fastest-growing areas of our business, I think e.l.f. SKIN was up 130% last quarter in tracked channels. It not only is very fast growing, but we still only 1.6% share on e.l.f. SKIN and skin care. So we have a huge amount of white space there. We just acquired Naturium, one of the best, fastest-growing assets within skin that complements the e.l.f. SKIN brand. We've got a great way there. And then international, again, our international business has been up over 100% in the last few quarters, and yet only 14% of our business is international, primarily in Canada and the U.K. So if I kind of take a look, I know it's hard for investors to get past that noise, a scanner here and there. I take a look and I basically say, I've got 2 -- we've got 2 things going on. One is tremendous white space and our ability to continue to grow share. And then the second thing I would say is scanner data only represents about half of our business. And where we've been seeing some of the strongest growth is actually in the nontrack channel. So I feel quite bullish about what you're going to see in scanner data, but even more bullish in terms of the overall profile of the business.

Okay. And maybe let's touch on the overall portfolio or the untracked piece of the business. We've got your friends from Ulta coming up, presenting here next. And just as we look at the untracked momentum in general, I mean that business has sort of doubled year-over-year roughly over the last year here. So obviously, a lot of momentum. What's behind that? What's driving that, if you unpack it, that's less visible to us than the scanner data, number one. Number two, how sustainable is it? And number three, we are coming up against a period where you're lapping much more difficult comparisons on that piece of the business. So is it sort of hey, that's the reality where we're at a higher base, and we slow pretty significantly? Or is it more some of the underlying drivers that have driven strength really give us confidence even off a higher base. How do you think through that? Or how would you help us think through that?

Yes. I would say that we are very pleased with what we're seeing both in tracked and untracked channels. And I just want to touch on track for a second. There has been volatility in the Nielsen data, but we continue to dramatically outperformed the category. Well, 49.5% was our latest Nielsen growth in the latest 4 weeks versus the category at 2%. And so we are highly confident in our ability to continue to grow share on the track side of the house. On the untracked side, we're equally as enthusiastic. International was up over 150% in the last quarter. Our digital business continued to be strong. We have Ulta, who is not in the track channel also continues to be strong, we talked about last year Ulta with no space games being over 70% growth for us. So there's a lot of momentum on the untracked side as well. So that is what gives us confidence in those -- in both sides of the house. And I would say from an international standpoint, there continues to be momentum. We talked about the space expansion in the international markets that we're going to have in the spring. And so there continues to be a lot of untapped opportunity, white space opportunity internationally as well. So we're very pleased and quite confident in our ability to continue to drive growth, outsized growth above the category on both sides.

And can you talk about innovation contribution, maybe what you're expecting going forward versus recent history? And Kory, maybe you can tie that in with social media and marketing. Obviously, the 2 work hand-in-hand, but have created really some exceptional market share results in the last couple of years here. So obviously, a ton of innovation success, why does it continue going forward? What are your expectations and talk about how you sort of marry that with the marketing piece of it?

So maybe I'll take the first on the innovation contribution. As we look at kind of the drivers of the business, it's been pretty consistent over time. whether it be space contribution -- contribution from innovation, those drivers are very consistent. You talked about 19 consecutive quarters of growth -- 19 consecutive quarters of share growth. Innovation has been a consistent contributor to that. So it's not just any 1 year's worth of innovation that's driving those results. When we look across our franchises and we launch innovation in the primer category or within the Putty franchise or in the Power Grip franchise, when we launch another item in those franchises, we see the growth overall. And so it's phenomenal to see that when we are launching innovation, usually, people are launching innovation because you got to make up for a deficit. If you launch something in last year, you got to hurry up and launch 2 or 3 more items in the next year to make up for that. We don't have that dynamic in our business. We have seen these franchises continue to grow year after year. And I think it speaks to the awareness opportunity that we have. We talked about doubling our awareness over the last few years. we're bringing more people into the franchise, and that is what's helping to drive our risks. So I'll pass it to Kory for...

I'm very proud to say that we have 16 segments in the color cosmetics category where we have a #1 or #2 ranked positions. So not just 1 or 2, but 16 places where we hold the #1 or #2 position and those 16 segments contribute 75% of our sales. So we're winning with 75% the #1 or #2 position. So let's start there. But product is not enough, and that's what you're alluding to. We do our best work and have our greatest impact when we create a flywheel. And that flywheel is driven by 3 core things, which is having an amazing product in and of itself. Then being able to tell a story about that product to existing and new audiences where it's going to be both relevant and resonate over the long term; and three, is really utilizing our digital ecosystem to power that whole model. Do I have confidence in our ability to do that with sustained long-term momentum? My answer is 100% yes, and I've actually never been more confident in our business than I am now. And there's a couple of reasons for that. One, our core value proposition is totally unparalleled. I came from prestige. I spent 20 years in the prestige space, and I'm very happy to report that we have graduated to a new place at e.l.f., where our community is now saying, we are not on par with prestige. We're actually better than prestige. So think of the emotional resonance of somebody being able to say, I used to spend $50 for this thing, and e.l.f. is actually doing it better for $9. That's an incredible -- that transcends the transaction. We're way beyond that, we're now really appealing the long-term emotional resonance. That is what creates the virality because people want to tell other people around that like, oh my God, can you believe that I've been spending $50 all this time and now I can get this item for $9 and then they want to tell their community and so on and so forth, they found this Smart Beauty score. That core value proposition is not only universal but it is also applicable on a global scale where we've been able to build a high level of brand demand. The second reason I have great confidence is our strategic investments are working. We've made strategic investments both in our talent who produce these high-quality innovations and also those that tell those stories about it, which really contributes to this very strong marketing engine, which this incredible flywheel, which is paralleled and allowed us to grow our unaided awareness from 13% to 26% and deliver outsized return on investment or would I like to call return on impact. And when I think about the third part that I'm super confident about is just how differentiated our model is. We act more like a Silicon Valley start-up than we do like a beauty company, which allows us to deliver performance that's nothing like beauty. And fast company, if you haven't seen it awarded e.l.f. one of the most innovative companies in the world, we were the only beauty company on that list, and we were put in the company of [ NASA ], OpenAI, Disney. And what that really tells you is whatever beauty is doing, we're doing something different, which is what is allowing us to deliver very different results that are really performance driven across the entire flywheel.

Great. That's helpful. And Tarang, I think what a lot of us are trying to sort of understand is what market share level is reasonable for e.l.f. to obtain looking out long term after this hyper growth period with some pretty substantial share gains. So help us frame how you think about that longer term in terms of the potential of the company? And also maybe you can sort of delve into some of your more highly penetrated areas in terms of retailer or product categories, just to give us a sense of where you are higher share today, what the momentum looks like versus the rest of the company to give us sort of confidence in that ultimate trajectory when you look out longer term?

Yes. So as Mandy said it, but it's worth repeating out of 800 brands tracked by Nielsen in color cosmetics, e.l.f. is the only brand that's grown market share in 19 consecutive quarters. So we feel we have a great track record in terms of continuing to build share. I mentioned while we're 10% share nationally, close to 20% at target. So I would say we've publicly stated our confidence in being able to double our market share over time. We have given a time frame. But if you just look at the consistency of our ability to continue to build share, I think, in the last quarter, we built over 330 basis points of share. We're highly confident of our ability to do that. And really, the way that works, I'll go to our most penetrated customer, our most long-standing customer target. How it happened there. They started the brand with 2-foot tests and have consistently added more space over time. But the biggest driver within target is our productivity, our ability to proactively change out almost 25% of the assortment to ensure that we're having a very strong productivity there. In turn it's rewarded us with more support. So the way I look at the kind of road map of how do we double our market share is do a lot of the same things we're doing within target, which is expand our presence, have other points of disruption with this store. If you go into a Target right now, you'll see a couple of different points and really be able to partner with leading beauty retailers. I'm really proud of the progress we're making. I know you're having Ulta Beauty come up here next. Ulta has moved in many respects, even faster. We went from a 4-foot kind of test at Ulta just a few years ago to they've now expanded us to 12 feet of space. We think there's greater potential there. We're amongst the most productive brands. They call this out in the last call. Walmart may be our single biggest opportunity in terms of presence. We have less than 8 feet within Walmart. Some legacy players, you can see a 24-foot run in a supercenter. So it's basically being able to replicate the level kind of the share of shelf that we have out of Target to other retailers, drug even more white space potential internationally even more so than that. So I feel highly confident in color cosmetics of doubling our market share over time. Skin care. Skin care, we have huge aspirations, not only the growth that we're seeing on e.l.f. SKIN, also Naturium, but just how big that category is and what we can do there. And then I mentioned international. And it's really following that same consistent playbook we have year after year in terms of being able to drive what we're doing. And then I'll end with as great as our business as a Target, I don't think we've seen -- I mean, Target continues to grow extremely well for us, and it's that continued partnership over the holidays. I did store checks, and I went to a super Target and had a 14-foot set on e.l.f. I thought that looked pretty good. And then I went around the aisle, I saw 28 feet of Maybelline and we outsell Maybelline by a pretty wide margin, I think, almost 600 basis points higher. So even at Target, our longest-standing retail customer we're not standing still, and it's really catching everyone else up to the level of presence we have there that gives me a lot of confidence.

Right. Okay. That's helpful. And you just touched on skin care and international. So why don't we segue there. First off, international, huge growth rates recently. Maybe just talk about what's driving that in the existing business, but also give us the vision looking out over the next few years and longer term and what the footprint can look like eventually internationally.

Yes. So last quarter, international represented about 16% of our net sales. It grew over 150% year-over-year. So quite a bit of momentum from an international standpoint. And really, our footprint today is mainly in the U.K. and in Canada. That is where we have most of our international business today. We talked about launching in Italy in October. So that was new news for e.l.f., a really successful launch. We have people waiting outside of the doors for e.l.f. and Kory spoke about this earlier today in one of our sessions, but with the social media presence that we have, it really puts e.l.f. in these countries before e.l.f. shows up on the shelf in these countries. And so that's really fantastic to see. So a lot of opportunity. If you think about 16% of our net sales today versus many other beauty competitors have over 70% of their net sales outside of the U.S., it is a huge white space opportunity for us. And so we're going to continue to drive the business in the U.K. and Canada, but also start to penetrate Europe and other areas because we know the demand is there. We see comments from our community asking for e.l.f. in different countries. And so now that we have GM leading our international business. She has done a fantastic job starting to prospect new retailers that we want to partner with because to Tarang's point, we do want to find strong retail partners to take our brand further internationally. And so we're going to be disciplined about it. You're not going to hear about us being in 40 countries, all of a sudden overnight. We're going to take it at a measured pace and make sure we have the right partners that we work with to expand.

Okay. And is there sort of a rough pace or framework as we look out over the next 3 to 5 years, we should think about in terms of countries or size of magnitude or any type of help in terms of framing the opportunity to expand in new areas?

Well, we have not given a target specifically from a net sales standpoint, but there is a lot of interest for e.l.f. across the board. And so I think you will see us penetrate additional countries over -- even within the next 12 months, you're going to see some momentum there.

Okay. That's helpful. And then skincare, you also mentioned Tarang. Why don't we start with Naturium, a, just give us some more insight into the brand equity there and what excites you about that brand because a smaller brand that's tied to one retailer today. So it's not as known in the investment community; b, what can each entity bring to each other; and c, maybe just give us the vision for the retailer footprint build-out as we look out over the next few years. Obviously some pretty significant opportunity when you look at your footprint in the U.S. versus theirs today.

So what attracted Naturium is one of the great brands within skin care. Basically, we talked about the difficulty while there are a lot of brands in color cosmetics in skin care, the difficulty of scaling. Naturium basically went from $0 to $90 million of net sales in less than 4 years. So we knew there was something real there. And what we found was driving the brand is this ability to have clinically effective skin care that's biocompatible, often the level of formulation and the quality of those products, you find it price points multiples higher than what Naturium sells on average, about $18. So we love the growth profile. We love that has incredible white space. The current footprint for Naturium right now is primarily Target, Amazon and their own website. And so just like we did with e.l.f., there's a lot of parallels of our ability to improve their presence within Target, improve their business within Amazon, their site as well as expand the brand as we go forward. One of the things we like best is how complementary is e.l.f. SKIN. e.l.f. SKIN is $9 average unit retail Naturium's at $18. e.l.f. SKIN primarily appeals to women Gen-Z, the millennials. Naturium has a very strong presence with millennials. Almost 1/3 of its user base is met. And then again, our hero focus on kind of e.l.f. SKIN versus this clinically effective biocompatible. So we've got great assets to go after. I would say the plan on Naturium is continue to drive the momentum that they're currently seeing in their existing retail base. But then two, over time, expand that footprint, which we know how to do. And then the third thing is continue to double down on making sure people are aware of Naturium because they'll be able to generate those levels of sales, not only in a very short amount of time, but with a small -- much smaller user base, and we believe we can expand that user base. I feel really great about having both of those brands to be able to continue to pursue the momentum we have in skin care.

Okay. And how would you think about the opportunity in the skin care over time? You've talked a little bit about it, with just the e.l.f. portfolio, but now we have Naturium coming in. So how do you sort of frame things for us here today, post that acquisition? And the pace of rollout in terms of retail footprint for Naturium, if you could give us some sense there, that would be helpful.

Yes. So I'd say, acquiring Naturium doubled our presence in skin care, where our penetration of skin care went from about 9% to 18%. I would expect that penetration to increase over time. We haven't given a specific number, but I use the share for e.l.f., where e.l.f. SKIN is 1.6% market leader in skin care is 15%. So just like we have a long way to go in color cosmetics, even more so in skin. And then we haven't talked any future distribution plans in Naturium, but you've seen by our track record, our ability to continue to expand. I think over the next few years, you'll definitely see an expansion of the footprint of Naturium. But I think what I feel great -- best about is the inherent momentum Naturium has, even if we never expanded distribution, we feel it's going to be an incredible growth asset for years to come.

Great. And maybe we can end on shelf space in general for e.l.f. Maybe I'll be a little more successful pulling out of you than I do with Naturium. But how do you think about it here? Obviously, you've delivered very strong growth and share gains for your retailer partners in recent quarters. In theory, those retailer partners on a wider assortment and want the entry level, which you have also even though you've also had a lot of success on the higher end. So is this sort of a period where there can be a bit of an inflection in shelf space for your company? Or is it more look the gains have been so strong over time. You're not going to see any 1 year where there's a big step change. Just how do you think about that across your entire footprint in the U.S.?

Yes. Our strategy has been pretty consistent over the years on this where the biggest driver of our business is productivity gains. And I talked about the productivity gains of proactively subbing out assortment, improving our visual merchandising. And that -- I have incredible confidence we can continue that model for a very long time. That's naturally led to more shelf space gains as well because we offer retailers the 3 things they're looking for. The strongest productivity of their category from a dollar sales per linear foot, the level of innovation they want, no one's got better innovation than we do and attractive consumer profile. Our strength is the #1 brand amongst Gen-Z with almost a 29 share of them as well as growing other audiences. So we stand great. And so our approach is we do not want a home run space win. We would rather have a subset of a retailer's doors, expanding pretty well or an overall retailer in a certain amount. And if you look over the years, base has actually been pretty consistent year after year. The mix might be different between customers, we've been able to pick up that space. But I like the balanced approach of, first and foremost, stay focused on productivity because that's the thing -- that's the biggest driver of our business and space naturally comes on top of that. And you'll continue to hear I think every couple of calls, we talk about additional base opportunities, I would not expect that to change. I think you're going to continue to see a good cadence of us picking up space, but always starting first with productivity.

Okay. Great. Well, with that, we're out of time. Thank you, guys, for being here today. It's great to have all 3 of you here. It really gives us a holistic view of the business.

Thanks very much.

Thanks so much.