Marketing Over Milkshakes

How do you turn a small Instagram support community into a multi-million-pound DTC skincare brand with more than 100,000 customers?
In this episode of Marketing Over Milkshakes, we sit down with Tariq Kazemi, Co-Founder and CEO of BLD BRO, to unpack how a community created to challenge the negative narrative around baldness became one of the UK’s most exciting men’s skincare and ecommerce brands.
If you are looking to unlock the internet’s fastest growing marketing channel, connect with the team at RevWise https://revwise.com/
In this episode:
How BLD BRO grew from a small Instagram community into an award-winning DTC skincare brand serving more than 100,000 customers.
Why bald positivity, male confidence, customer research and purpose-led brand positioning helped BLD BRO create products specifically for bald men.
How one Meta video ad, word-of-mouth marketing and strong customer retention helped scale the business, with repeat customers generating around 50% of revenue.
How BLD BRO used LADbible talent, viral social content, TikTok, ITV advertising, PR, Bald Fest and celebrity partnerships to build national awareness.
Why the founders turned down Dragons’ Den and approached Amazon, retail expansion, profitability and cash flow with long-term discipline.

Key Moments:
0:00 – BLD BRO on reaching 100,000 customers, multi-million-pound revenue and 50% repeat sales
01:18 – Tariq Kazemi’s BBC, Times Radio and Good Morning Britain media blitz
04:03 – Building a men’s skincare brand around bald positivity, hair loss and mental health
05:26 – Introducing Tariq Kazemi, Co-Founder and CEO of BLD BRO
11:09 – How an Instagram community became a DTC skincare business
15:39 – Tariq’s ten-year hair loss journey and the fear surrounding male baldness
18:44 – Why self-acceptance and confidence are central to the BLD BRO brand
23:18 – Why helping men matters even when they never become customers
25:50 – Authenticity as BLD BRO’s greatest brand advantage and commercial limitation
27:05 – Global expansion and becoming the leading skincare brand for bald men
28:55 – Marketing differently to younger men and established bald customers
30:05 – Creating product-market fit for bald head skincare, SPF and shaving products
33:33 – The first Meta video ad, a failed Fiverr consultant and selling out the first product run
36:15 – Scaling beyond £1 million in revenue and adapting to Meta’s Andromeda update
38:45 – Why repeat customers generate around 50% of BLD BRO’s revenue
39:31 – Launching on Amazon and achieving rapid marketplace growth
40:20 – Why BLD BRO turned down an opportunity to appear on Dragons’ Den
43:01 – Hiring a former LADbible creator and transforming organic social media growth
45:18 – Turning a John Lewis-inspired YouTube advert into an ITV television campaign
47:13 – The impact of reaching eight million homes through TV advertising
48:12 – Retail expansion, payment terms, profitability and the danger of cash-flow growth
51:09 – How Bald Fest and Free Beer for the Bald became a viral community event
52:53 – The Bald Fest poster that was shared 23,000 times on Instagram
55:20 – Guerrilla marketing, celebrity partnerships and sending a bald man to a Turkish hair transplant clinic
58:44 – Running a UK ecommerce brand while living as a digital nomad
1:08:33 – Tariq Kazemi on leadership, trust and building a high-performing team
1:10:04 – BLD BRO’s biggest ecommerce mistake: product sizing, subscriptions and customer backlash

Can ecommerce brands turn their checkout confirmation page into a high-performing customer acquisition and monetisation channel?
In this episode of Marketing Over Milkshakes, we sit down with Jack Davies, Head of Partnerships at Sovendus, to unpack the fast-growing world of affiliate marketing, checkout monetisation, retail media, post-purchase rewards and performance-based brand partnerships.
If you are looking to unlock the internet’s fastest growing marketing channel, connect with the team at RevWise https://revwise.com/
In this episode:
How Sovendus helps ecommerce brands, retailers and DTC businesses monetise unused post-purchase real estate through checkout rewards, customer offers and performance-based brand partnerships.
Why the checkout confirmation page is one of the most overlooked revenue opportunities in ecommerce, affiliate marketing and retail media.
How post-purchase rewards generate incremental revenue after transaction, without disrupting checkout journeys or damaging conversion rates.
Why rewards-based activations sits at the intersection of affiliate marketing, retail media, customer acquisition, on-site monetisation and performance partnerships.
How brands like Trainline, Just Eat, HelloFresh and Freddie’s Flowers use checkout offers to drive new customer acquisition.
Why affiliate marketing is moving beyond last-click attribution into creator affiliates, influencer marketing, CSS, commerce content, first-party data and measurable ecommerce growth.

Key Moments:
0:00 – Jack Davies on affiliate marketing, checkout monetisation and new customer tracking
8:27 – Introducing Jack Davies, Head of Partnerships at Sovendus
10:54 – How post-purchase rewards work
12:31 – How ecommerce brands monetise checkout pages and drive customer acquisition
13:39 – Trainline, app integrations and checkout pages as performance media
17:04 – Why brands are moving away from discounting, voucher codes and cashback
18:48 – Gift-with-purchase, subscriptions and lifetime value in affiliate marketing
20:14 – Checkout impressions, RPM and why post-purchase monetisation can outperform programmatic ads
21:48 – Why checkout monetisation can become pure bottom-line profit for retailers
23:25 – Closed-loop voucher offers, single-use URLs and fraud prevention
31:32 – Why affiliate managers struggle to sell checkout monetisation internally
39:21 – Retail media, relevance and matching offers to customer behaviour
40:49 – How quickly brands can see results from checkout rewards
44:24 – Brand safety, blacklists and controlling where offers appear
51:20 – Incrementality, new customer tracking and why affiliate attribution is misunderstood
58:06 – The reputation problem in affiliate marketing and why the industry needs better debate
1:01:02 – Should influencer marketing, creator affiliates and CSS sit inside affiliate?
1:10:10 – First-party tracking, affiliate networks and the future of affiliate technology
1:22:17 – How affiliate marketing has changed over the last decade
1:35:17 – The biggest opportunity most ecommerce brands are missing: checkout monetisation

Can TikTok Shop really become one of the most powerful growth channels for a direct-to-consumer brand?
In this episode of Marketing Over Milkshakes, we sit down with James Green, Founder of Nutriseed, to unpack how a bootstrapped UK health and wellness brand went from kitchen table startup to a fast-growing DTC business using cold pressed juices, customer loyalty, creator partnerships, TikTok Shop, Amazon and performance marketing.
If you are looking to unlock the internet’s fastest growing marketing channel, connect with the team at RevWise https://revwise.com/
James shares the full story behind Nutriseed’s growth, from his early career as a magician selling tricks in Hamleys, Harrods, Selfridges and Toys R Us Times Square, to launching a lifestyle magazine, building a health brand from scratch, and scaling Nutriseed through Groupon, ecommerce, cold pressed juice cleanses and repeat-purchase products.
The conversation goes deep on how rising customer acquisition costs forced Nutriseed to rethink its entire growth model, why TikTok Shop became a major top-of-funnel awareness engine, and how aggressive creator sampling, affiliate content, live shopping and channel-specific product strategy helped the brand reach around £200,000 in TikTok Shop GMV in January alone.
James also breaks down the hidden “halo effect” of TikTok Shop across Amazon, Meta ads, creator content and customer acquisition, including why brands need to stop judging TikTok purely as a last-click sales channel and start understanding how it drives discovery, trust and long-term customer value.

Key Moments:
0:00 – James Green on TikTok Shop, rising CPA and Nutriseed’s £200K month
03:17 – Introducing James Green, Founder of Nutriseed
06:45 – From magician to entrepreneur: Hamleys, Harrods and Toys R Us Times Square
14:39 – Launching a lifestyle magazine and learning the realities of business
17:44 – How Nutriseed started from a failed business and a passion for healthy living
19:40 – Using Groupon to scale a superfood product into 14 European markets
21:28 – Moving from marketplaces to DTC and owning the customer relationship
22:26 – Building a vertically integrated health brand and manufacturing in-house
28:29 – Why rising acquisition costs forced Nutriseed to rethink growth
34:50 – How TikTok Shop became a top-of-funnel growth engine for Nutriseed
37:43 – Losing money on TikTok Shop but winning through Amazon and repeat purchase
41:16 – The three biggest tips for winning on TikTok Shop
43:03 – Scaling production to 24-hour operation to meet demand
43:42 – Turning creator affiliate content into Meta ads and lowering CPA
45:56 – Why live shopping could be the future of ecommerce
50:20 – What TikTok Shop agencies get right and wrong
54:28 – Which brands can win on TikTok Shop and why product strategy matters
1:01:29 – Building long-term creator relationships and ambassador communities
1:05:46 – Nutriseed’s 30,000-customer community and the power of DTC feedback loops
1:11:56 – The plan to reach £1M a month on TikTok Shop
1:15:46 – Leadership, honesty and managing through difficult growth periods
1:19:14 – Why TikTok Shop is still the biggest opportunity most brands are missing

How did two young founders from Swansea turn a gold vodka bottle into one of the most recognisable drinks brands in the UK?
In this episode of Marketing Over Milkshakes, we sit down with Charlie Morgan, Co-Founder of AU Vodka, inside the brand’s incredible Swansea HQ to unpack the story behind one of the most explosive growth journeys in British drinks, ecommerce and culture-led marketing.
If you are looking to unlock the internet’s fastest growing marketing channel, connect with the team at RevWise https://revwise.com/
Charlie shares how AU Vodka started with just 2,000 gold bottles, no major marketing budget, and a simple belief that the brand had to look, feel and behave differently to every other alcohol company in the market.
From early struggles selling a premium vodka nobody had heard of, to the breakthrough launch of Black Grape, the Charlie Sloth partnership, the ecommerce explosion and the relentless problem-solving that took AU from hundreds of thousands in revenue to tens of millions, this is a proper founder story.
Charlie also breaks down the Tango collaboration, selling 3 million cans in three days, why AU cans have become the UK’s best-selling ready-to-drink alcohol brand by volume, and how product taste, cultural relevance and customer obsession have helped AU compete with some of the biggest drinks brands in the world.
The conversation also covers the infamous Eden Hazard ball boy moment, working with names like Snoop Dogg, Jake Paul, Fredo and the future of RTDs, international expansion, building a global brand from Swansea, and why the biggest opportunity for food and drink brands may still be direct access to their customers.
Key Moments:
0:00 – Charlie Morgan on AU Vodka, viral growth and the Tango launch
6:50 – Launching AU Vodka with 2,000 gold bottles and no marketing budget
11:10 – How flavoured vodka, Charlie Sloth and Black Grape changed everything
18:03 – The Fredo campaign, COVID growth and AU’s £43.3m revenue year
25:23 – Scaling through chaos, supply chain problems and hands-on leadership
31:08 – AU Tango, selling 3 million cans and becoming a major RTD alcohol brand
35:48 – The Eden Hazard ball boy story and building a legacy beyond it
46:04 – Turning AU Vodka from a Swansea brand into a global drinks business
51:23 – Taste, flavour development and building customer loyalty in drinks marketing
53:37 – Influencers, ambassadors, Snoop Dogg and authentic brand partnerships1:04:00 – Jake Paul, Tommy Fury and the viral AU Vodka tattoo campaign
1:17:23 – Liquid on lips, sampling strategy and why product taste drives growth
1:23:10 – How AU became the UK’s number one ready-to-drink alcohol brand
1:28:36 – Creating a new vodka category instead of chasing drinks industry trends
1:31:51 – Why AU rejected fake heritage and changed vodka marketing
1:36:16 – Growing AU Vodka globally and the ecommerce opportunity for food and drink brands

James Little and Hannah Wharrier are the founders of Affilifest, the UK affiliate marketing event bringing festival energy, community and creativity into a traditionally corporate conference world.
Hosted at Dreamland Margate, Affilifest has become one of the most talked-about events in the affiliate and performance marketing industry, combining serious business networking with rollercoasters, tattoos, beach breakfasts, live panels, karaoke, brand activations and a completely different approach to industry events.
If you are looking to unlock the internet’s fastest growing marketing channel, connect with the team at RevWise: https://revwise.com/
James and Hannah break down how Affilifest started, why they chose Dreamland Margate, how they built a standout event brand, and why memorable experiences create stronger business relationships than bland conference rooms.
They also explore the wider affiliate marketing landscape, including cashback incrementality, publisher discovery, cookie consent, ICO guidance, AI tools, media mix modelling, Women in Affiliate, leadership, personal branding and why brands need to think differently about partnerships.
We will be doing an episode of Marketing Over Milkshakes live from Affilifest, so if you would like to be in the audience live, get you tickets to at www.affilifest.com/register

James and Hannah share:
How Affilifest became one of the UK’s most talked-about affiliate events
Why Dreamland Margate became the home of Affilifest
How “festivalisation” is changing affiliate marketing conferences
Why memorable experiences create better business relationships
Why Affilifest is free for advertisers and publishers
How AI is helping founders, events teams and affiliate businesses move faster
Why Women in Affiliate became one of Affilifest’s proudest projects
Why brands need better ways to discover new and innovative publishers

Key Moments:
00:00 - Affilifest, Dreamland and the festival energy
03:17 - Work hard, play hard and affiliate industry culture
07:14 - Introducing James Little and Hannah Warrior
08:39 - Building the UK’s most talked-about affiliate event
09:43 - The story behind the matching tattoos
13:11 - How the idea for Affilifest started
16:44 - Taking Affilifest to the USA and Australia
17:06 - Why affiliate events matter to new agencies
19:49 - Keeping Affilifest free for brands and publishers
22:09 - Hannah’s journey from Affiliate Summit to AffiliateFest
24:06 - Why Dreamland Margate became the home of Affilifest
29:07 - Why work events should feel like Glastonbury
30:55 - Making events fun and valuable for business
35:10 - Bringing Affilifest to Manchester
36:45 - Brand roundtables and putting advertisers first
39:08 - Using ChatGPT to find event speakers
41:05 - The business model behind events
43:15 - Building a culturally confident brand
44:13 - Creating bold event formats that build brand
45:37 - Why not everyone has to like your brand
47:24 - Designing events for the next generation
53:28 - Platforming new affiliate industry voices
56:35 - Why Affilifest does not sell sponsored talks
57:26 - Using AI to improve live events
1:09:07 - James on TopCashback and cashback marketing
1:15:15 - The debate around cashback incrementality
1:18:05 - ICO guidance, cookies and cashback tracking
1:21:35 - Why better tracking can increase conversions by 30–40%
1:25:22 - Why passion matters in affiliate marketing
1:30:00 - How Hannah’s fiance used ChatGPT for engagement proposal
1:32:34 - How AI helps startups move faster
1:38:41 - Launching Women in Affiliate
1:42:16 - James’ proudest AffiliateFest moment
1:45:11 - Personal style, confidence and standing out
1:51:23 - Why Hannah changed her mind about panels
1:53:51 - What leadership really means
1:57:45 - The biggest opportunities brands are missing
1:59:37 - Why brands need better publisher discovery