Chrōm Toothpolish

THE CHALLENGE
Chrōm Toothpolish sells peelable color for teeth: nail polish, but for your smile. In January 2022 one TikTok made it go viral. By early 2024, sales were down 56% year over year. The brand had no trouble reaching people. It had trouble keeping them.

Brand & Marketing Strategist
Client: Chrōm Toothpolish

THE PROBLEM
I worked inside the business before I wrote the strategy: content, social and UGC design, marketing emails, customer service, the influencer framework and production sourcing. Of 81,795 customers, only 2,955 ever bought again. That is 3.7% retention.

The viral video sold Chrōm as coverage for damaged teeth. Only 2,000 of 80,000 viral period buyers came back. Chrōm went viral for the wrong reason, to the wrong customer.

I mapped 22 brands across whitening, tooth accessories, expressive beauty and K Beauty. Whitening was nine brands selling one result. The opening was in beauty, where Starface, ColourPop and Glow Recipe turned color and play into repeat purchase.

THE SOLUTION
Stop competing with whitening and sell Chrōm as makeup for teeth. Build CRM around color buyers, not impulse buyers. Fix the product and operations issues customers kept naming. Then own the channels beauty brands grew on: website, Instagram, email and SMS first. Beauty creators and shade drops next. Beauty retail, and TikTok Shop for drops, once repeat rates hold.

Going viral for the wrong reason brings the wrong customers. Chrōm's market was never whitening. It was beauty.