Why Brands Are Going Offline to Win Online

Hi there,

On June 6, Ulta ran nine straight hours live on TikTok Shop. Not from a studio. From the floor of their Chelsea store in New York [3].

Founders, creators, and brands, all shoppable in real time, for anyone watching from anywhere or in store. Ulta was the first specialty beauty retailer on TikTok Shop, and now they are pushing the format as far as it goes.

Their Chief Merchandising and Digital Officer, Lauren Brindley, said exactly why they ran it from a store and not a set: "The store is where discovery gets real. You touch it, you test it, you decide. The livestream is how that moment travels to you. Not a digital channel running next to the store. A digital channel running on top of it."

I read that and thought: that's the whole shift in one line.

The play isn't analog. It's offline-to-online.

For two years everyone's been bracing for AI to swallow discovery. And while it is making drastic changes, what's also happening is stranger and more interesting. Brands are racing back to the physical world, but not to escape digital. They're building real-world moments engineered to produce digital.

That's the offline loop. The activation isn't the end. It's the content engine and engagement.

I said this before and I'll say it again here: there's a complete snapback to in-person and experiential, but it's done with the goal of getting consumers to take videos and post on TikTok and Instagram. We're seeing an offline-to-online world, where you create real-life experiences specifically so the consumer brings them back to the digital world to create virality.

Ulta is the loud version of this. Alix Earle did the same. Her skincare launch seeded a physical teaser built almost entirely to generate social content before the product was even available [4]. The point was never just the object. The point was the post.

Screen fatigue is pulling people back to the real world

This isn't a hunch. 70% of marketers now say brands should increase investment in physical touchpoints over the next year, with experiential retail and pop-ups at the top of the list [2].

And the trust data is even more striking. I was at Possible this year when a slide stopped me cold: among active AI shoppers, the number-one source for product recommendations isn't ChatGPT and isn't social. It's the physical store, at 19% -- just ahead of gen AI at 18% [1].

Let that sink in. In the year AI was supposed to own discovery, the highest-trust recommendation source is still the shelf you can walk up to and touch.

There was a shopper quote on that same slide I haven't stopped thinking about. A woman named Anita said it perfectly: "AI shopping is robbing me of that dopamine hit I get when I purchase something by myself." People don't just tolerate the in-person moment. They crave it.

The catch: the loop is invisible unless you close it

Here's the uncomfortable truth. Most brands can build the moment and earn the post, and still have no idea who showed up.

The shopper who films and posts your activation and purchases offline is highest-intent customer you'll meet all quarter. She trusted the shelf over the algorithm. She cared enough to make content for free. And in most setups, she walks out completely anonymous: a great day with nothing to show for it downstream.

That's the gap the offline loop has to close. If an in-person moment is designed to drive digital, then that moment also has to turn unknown shoppers into known ones, and feed that signal back into the channels you're already spending on. Otherwise you're running the loop with the wires cut.

Lauren Brindley had it right. The store isn't a channel running next to digital. It's the channel digital runs on top of. The brands that win this next chapter will be the ones who can see who's actually in the store, capture it, and act on it.

So here's my question for you this week: when your brand creates a viral moment, do you have a way to know who they are by the time they leave?

Talk soon,

Kait

A few extras:

Some of my favorite brands are hiring…

1. Away - Brand Marketing Manager

Sources:

[1] Accenture, "Me, my brand and AI: The new world of consumer engagement" (Consumer Pulse Research 2025, 18,000 respondents across 14 countries), June 2025. https://www.accenture.com/us-en/insights/consulting/me-my-brand-ai-new-world-consumer-engagement

[2] ANA "Signals from the Stage" report, via MarTech, "Consumers want less digital, more real world from brands in 2026," November 2025. https://martech.org/consumers-want-less-digital-more-real-world-from-brands-in-2026/

[3] Lauren Brindley, Chief Merchandising & Digital Officer, Ulta Beauty, LinkedIn post on the June 6 Chelsea store TikTok Shop livestream, June 2026.

[4] Fast Company, "Alix Earle launches skincare brand Reale Actives," 2025. https://www.fastcompany.com/91515224/alix-earle-launches-skincare-reale-actives

[5] Retail TouchPoints, "Ulta Beauty to Begin Selling on TikTok Shop," 2026. https://www.retailtouchpoints.com/news/ulta-beauty-to-begin-selling-on-tiktok-shop/617851/