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In the rapidly evolving beauty industry, few companies have demonstrated the agility, cultural relevance, and digital-first innovation that e.l.f. Beauty has achieved. On January 24, 2023, Ekta Chopra, Chief Digital Officer at e.l.f. Beauty, joined Matt Britton, founder and CEO of Suzy, the AI-powered consumer intelligence platform, on the Speed of Culture podcast to discuss how the cosmetics brand has redefined what it means to move at the speed of culture.
The conversation reveals critical insights into how e.l.f. Beauty became the #1 Gen Z beauty brand, establishing itself as a category leader while competitors struggled to understand emerging consumer preferences. This episode represents a masterclass in digital-first strategy, cultural intelligence, and the transformative power of authenticity in modern brand building.
Chopra's journey from her early technology roles to her position as Chief Digital Officer at e.l.f. Beauty spans over 20 years of experience in digital transformation, retail technology, and innovation. Before joining e.l.f. in 2016, she held significant positions including Director of Technology at the James Irvine Foundation and VP of Technology at Charming Charlie, where she witnessed firsthand how technology could drive retail evolution.
Her educational background in technology and operations management from California Polytechnic State University positioned her perfectly to lead e.l.f. Beauty's transformation from a traditional beauty brand into a digital-native powerhouse. Since taking on the Chief Digital Officer role in October 2020, Chopra has spearheaded initiatives that have fundamentally reshaped how the brand engages with consumers, leverages emerging technologies, and builds competitive advantage in an increasingly crowded marketplace.
The episode demonstrates how e.l.f. Beauty's value-driven positioning—making premium-quality cosmetics accessible at affordable price points—combined with genuine Gen Z cultural connection, creates an unstoppable growth trajectory. Unlike brands that attempt to manufacture authenticity, e.l.f. Beauty emerged organically from understanding what young consumers actually wanted: high-quality products they could afford, brands aligned with their ethical values, and companies that genuinely listened to their communities.
This positioning has translated into remarkable business results, with the company achieving $1 billion in revenue in 2024 and maintaining 26 consecutive quarters of sales growth and market share gains. The conversation between Britton and Chopra reveals the strategic decisions, cultural insights, and technological innovations that have enabled this meteoric rise.
One of the most pivotal strategic decisions in e.l.f. Beauty's modern history came in 2019, when the company made the bold choice to close all brick-and-mortar locations and invest exclusively in digital customer experiences. This decision, which would have seemed counterintuitive to traditional retail executives, proved visionary when examined through the lens of Gen Z consumer behavior.
Rather than operating as a traditional retailer trying to adapt to digital, e.l.f. Beauty became a digital-native brand that understood where its core consumers actually spent their time: online, on social media platforms, and in digital communities.
Ekta Chopra's role in orchestrating this transformation cannot be overstated. By consolidating e-commerce operations, engineering capabilities, data ecosystems, and digital infrastructure under a unified Chief Digital Officer function, she created organizational alignment around the single mission of delivering exceptional digital experiences.
This structural change eliminated the traditional silos that plague legacy retailers—where brick-and-mortar teams defend physical store investments while e-commerce teams struggle to get resources and attention. Instead, e.l.f. Beauty's entire organization rallied around understanding and serving digital consumers where they actually shopped.
The digital transformation extended beyond channel strategy to encompass the company's entire approach to innovation and product development. By analyzing digital consumer behavior, engagement patterns, and emerging trends in real-time, e.l.f. Beauty gained competitive intelligence that informed everything from product launches to marketing investments.
The company began testing new products, marketing approaches, and technologies with agility that would have been impossible under traditional retail structures. This test-and-learn methodology, powered by data from digital channels, became a core competitive advantage that allowed e.l.f. Beauty to stay ahead of consumer trends rather than chasing them.
The financial results vindicated this bold strategic choice. By eliminating the fixed costs of physical retail locations and redirecting those investments toward digital infrastructure, marketing, and brand-building, e.l.f. Beauty achieved superior unit economics compared to competitors.
The company could invest more aggressively in emerging platforms, influencer partnerships, and user-generated content campaigns precisely because it wasn't burdened with maintaining expensive retail real estate. This financial flexibility enabled the kinds of experimental, culturally-relevant campaigns that have become hallmarks of the e.l.f. Beauty brand.
Perhaps no campaign better exemplifies e.l.f. Beauty's understanding of Gen Z culture than the #EyesLipsFace challenge launched on TikTok in October 2019. Rather than creating a campaign and hoping TikTok users would engage with it, e.l.f. Beauty took the unprecedented step of commissioning an original song specifically designed for the platform.
This decision—to create content that felt native to TikTok rather than repurposing advertisements—reflected a fundamental understanding of how Gen Z consumers differ from previous generations in their media consumption and expectations.
The campaign's results exceeded even the most optimistic projections. The #EyesLipsFace hashtag generated 5 million user-generated videos and accumulated nearly 10 billion views, making it one of the most successful branded campaigns in TikTok history.
These aren't vanity metrics; they represent genuine consumer engagement, with millions of young people voluntarily creating content that associated their personal brands with e.l.f. Beauty. The campaign succeeded because it tapped into authentic Gen Z motivations: the desire for creative self-expression, community participation, and connection with peers rather than top-down marketing messages from corporate brands.
Building on this success, e.l.f. Beauty developed the "Eyes. Lips. Famous." reality show concept, which ran on the brand's TikTok channel and offered users the chance to develop their skills as TikTok influencers under the mentorship of established beauty creators.
This format represented an evolution of the brand's understanding that Gen Z consumers don't just want to consume content—they want to participate in creating it and potentially gain recognition and influence within their communities. By positioning e.l.f. Beauty as a platform for community members to develop their own influence and skills, the brand transcended traditional marketing relationships.
Ekta Chopra's leadership ensured that e.l.f. Beauty's TikTok strategy remained consistent with the brand's broader mission of democratizing beauty and opportunity. Rather than using influencers as paid endorsers, the brand cultivated genuine community participation where everyday users became contributors to the brand narrative.
This approach generated authentic, diverse content that resonated far more powerfully than traditional advertising could achieve. The platforms and channels became less about selling products and more about building community, which paradoxically drove stronger sales by creating genuine brand loyalty and emotional connection.
The foundation of e.l.f. Beauty's Gen Z connection extends far beyond tactical marketing choices to encompass genuine organizational values that resonate with a generation prioritizing authenticity and ethics. The brand's commitment to being 100% cruelty-free and offering vegan options aligns precisely with Gen Z preferences for ethical consumption and corporate responsibility.
Unlike brands that layer ethical messaging on top of exploitative practices, e.l.f. Beauty's values reflect genuine operational decisions that Gen Z consumers recognize and respect.
Ekta Chopra has emphasized that e.l.f. Beauty's approach to technology and digital innovation is not driven by technology trends for their own sake, but by a commitment to serving consumers and creating genuine value. This philosophical approach has guided decisions about AI adoption, metaverse exploration, and other emerging technologies.
Rather than rushing to implement new technologies because competitors do or because they generate media attention, e.l.f. Beauty evaluates digital tools based on whether they enable better consumer experiences or deeper community connection.
The brand's pricing strategy—making high-quality cosmetics accessible at price points that don't require financial sacrifice—represents a fundamental rejection of the luxury positioning that had historically defined the beauty industry.
By proving that premium-quality products could be offered at affordable prices without sacrificing performance or ethics, e.l.f. Beauty challenged industry norms and democratized access to quality cosmetics. This value proposition resonates deeply with Gen Z consumers who view conspicuous consumption and luxury signaling with skepticism, preferring brands that offer genuine quality and good value.
The company's acquisition strategy, including its investment in Rhode, reflects a commitment to scaling brands that genuinely resonate with Gen Z audiences rather than pursuing acquisitions for financial engineering purposes.
By identifying and acquiring culturally relevant brands that share e.l.f. Beauty's commitment to authenticity, accessibility, and ethical operations, the company builds a diverse portfolio that speaks to different segments within its target audience while maintaining brand integrity.
While e.l.f. Beauty's TikTok success might have led other brands to narrow their focus exclusively to that platform, Ekta Chopra's leadership has consistently pursued a diversified platform strategy that positions the brand where Gen Z consumers actually congregate.
Strategic partnerships with platforms like Twitch and BeReal, combined with early metaverse and AI experimentation, reflect an organizational posture of perpetual curiosity and willingness to test emerging channels.
The brand's partnership with gaming platforms and creators recognizes that Gen Z beauty consumers are not monolithic but rather dispersed across multiple digital communities with different interests and engagement styles.
By establishing presence in gaming communities through partnerships with streamers and gaming influencers, e.l.f. Beauty reaches audiences that traditional beauty marketing would overlook. These partnerships feel authentic because they connect beauty with lifestyle interests that actually matter to Gen Z—gaming, content creation, community building—rather than presenting beauty as an isolated category.
The metaverse was widely dismissed by skeptical executives as a hype-driven trend of limited practical value. Yet e.l.f. Beauty's thoughtful exploration of metaverse applications reflects Chopra's belief that understanding emerging platforms early provides competitive advantage and cultural insight.
Rather than launching token metaverse experiences to claim relevance, e.l.f. Beauty has approached virtual spaces as genuine channels where Gen Z and younger millennials spend real time and build authentic communities.
The company's current work with artificial intelligence represents the frontier of this innovation mindset. Ekta Chopra has stated that e.l.f. Beauty is piloting 85 different agentic AI use cases, exploring how generative AI can enhance everything from customer service to creative marketing to product development.
This scale of AI experimentation, guided by the principle that technology should serve consumer needs rather than driving strategy, positions e.l.f. Beauty to rapidly scale successful applications while learning from failures at low cost. The approach reflects the same test-and-learn methodology that has defined the brand's digital transformation.
The title of the podcast episode—"Moving at e.l.f. Speed"—captures the essence of what Ekta Chopra and her teams have accomplished: building organizational capabilities to move as quickly as consumer culture, technological change, and social movements themselves.
In an era where a TikTok trend can create demand for a niche product category overnight, and where consumer preferences can shift dramatically within months, traditional brand-building timelines become a competitive liability.
E.l.f. Beauty's organizational design, technology infrastructure, and decision-making processes have been deliberately architected to minimize the lag between identifying an emerging trend and mobilizing resources to capitalize on it.
This requires fundamentally different structures than legacy beauty companies, which often require months of consensus-building, budget approvals, and governance reviews before executing a marketing campaign.
In contrast, e.l.f. Beauty's digital-native structures enable rapid resource deployment, real-time campaign optimization, and the ability to kill unsuccessful initiatives without major financial loss.
This velocity advantage compounds over time. The company that identifies an emerging trend six months before competitors and begins building brand association and community engagement will enjoy substantially greater competitive advantage than the company that eventually copies the strategy.
Gen Z consumers particularly value authenticity and first-mover positions on emerging platforms, as being early to a trend carries cultural cachet while being late appears opportunistic and derivative.
By maintaining organizational agility, data-driven decision-making, and genuine cultural curiosity, e.l.f. Beauty has positioned itself as a brand that shapes trends rather than following them.
The conversation between Matt Britton and Ekta Chopra reveals that speed of culture is not simply a marketing slogan but a fundamental organizational principle that influences hiring decisions, investment priorities, technology choices, and even compensation systems.
Leaders and teams demonstrating the ability to sense emerging trends, quickly evaluate their relevance to the brand, and rapidly mobilize resources receive organizational recognition and career advancement.
Conversely, leaders who default to "wait and see" approaches or demand extensive proof before allocating resources to emerging opportunities find themselves increasingly peripheral to core decision-making.
E.l.f. Beauty's differentiation stems from an authentic combination of value pricing, ethical commitments, and genuine cultural connection rather than superficial attempts to appear trendy. The brand's 100% cruelty-free and vegan positioning reflects genuine operational commitments, while its value pricing democratizes access to quality cosmetics.
Most importantly, the brand's digital-first strategy ensures that products and marketing messages are designed specifically for how Gen Z consumers actually shop and engage with content, rather than adapting legacy approaches.
The #EyesLipsFace campaign generated 5 million user-generated videos and 10 billion views by commissioning original music designed specifically for TikTok rather than attempting to adapt traditional advertising.
This approach created authentic participation opportunities that felt native to the platform rather than corporate and extractive. The success of this campaign positioned e.l.f. Beauty as a brand that understood Gen Z cultural preferences and created opportunities for consumer participation rather than passive consumption.
Technology serves the organizational mission of moving at cultural speed and understanding consumer preferences at scale. E.l.f. Beauty's investments in data ecosystems, digital infrastructure, and emerging technologies like AI enable rapid testing, real-time optimization, and the ability to identify trends before competitors.
Rather than technology driving strategy, technology enables the execution of strategy focused on consumer connection and cultural relevance.
Brands can apply e.l.f. Beauty's principles by first authentically identifying organizational values that resonate with target consumers, designing digital-first strategies that reflect where consumers actually congregate, investing in infrastructure for rapid testing and iteration, and building organizational cultures that reward velocity and calculated risk-taking.
Success requires genuine cultural curiosity about target consumers rather than performative attempts to appear trendy.
The conversation between Matt Britton and Ekta Chopra on Speed of Culture reveals insights that extend far beyond the beauty industry into broader questions about how brands will compete in an era of rapid cultural change and technological transformation.
The principles that enabled e.l.f. Beauty to dominate among Gen Z consumers—authentic values, digital-first organizational design, test-and-learn methodology, and organizational velocity—apply across consumer categories as digital natives mature and gain spending power.
For business leaders seeking to understand the evolution of consumer marketing in an age of artificial intelligence and digital transformation, Matt Britton's work through Suzy and his book Generation AI provides essential frameworks for understanding how technology, culture, and consumer behavior intersect.
Leaders tasked with digital transformation in their organizations can benefit from exploring Britton's insights as an AI keynote speaker or accessing deeper learning through Speaker HQ.
As e.l.f. Beauty continues to scale, acquire complementary brands like Rhode, and expand its platform capabilities, the company will serve as a laboratory for how digital-native companies compete and grow.
The real test will come as the brand scales beyond its core Gen Z demographic and proves that authentic, values-driven positioning combined with cultural velocity can sustain competitive advantage across broader audiences.
If Ekta Chopra and her team successfully navigate this scaling challenge while maintaining the authenticity and cultural connection that enabled their initial success, e.l.f. Beauty will stand as a case study in how to build sustainable competitive advantage for the digital age.
Moving at e.l.f. Speed: Ekta Chopra's Digital-First Strategy for Gen Z Beauty Dominance | Speed of Culture
Discover how Chief Digital Officer Ekta Chopra transformed e.l.f. Beauty into the #1 Gen Z brand through digital-first innovation, authentic values, and cultural velocity. Insights from the Speed of Culture podcast with Matt Britton.
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