SharkNinja CEO Mark Barrocas reveals how the company transitioned from infomercials to TikTok, emphasizing a "maniacal approach" to product innovation. Learn how identifying consumer problems and strategically leveraging new marketing channels, including social media and partnerships, drove their expansion into 31 product categories and 26 global markets. This episode provides a blueprint for brands looking to adapt their marketing for modern digital landscapes while maintaining a strong product-led growth strategy.
SharkNinja -- the company behind the Shark and Ninja household product brands -- sees TikTok as the late-night infomercial. The company has been around since the '90s, but has spent the last two decades specifically growing out its product catalog and finding new channels for marketing. Leading this charge is CEO Mark Barrocas, who joined the company in 2008 as president. Back then, SharkNinja -- then called Euro-Pro -- had fewer products and was mostly known as the brand behind items sold via long-form late-night infomercials. Then, it was mostly known for its Shark vacuums. "In 2009, we created the Ninja brand -- and really, from there, we started to kind of reframe the business around identifying either known or unknown consumer problems, and then building a technology and innovation company that was able to solve those problems," Barrocas said on the Modern Retail Podcast. Now, SharkNinja is in 31 different product categories, sold in 26 markets around the world. According to Barrocas, the key to SharkNinja's growth has been its focus on constantly innovating home products. "We take a very maniacal approach to product development," he said. Additionally, the company has been able to keep up with the times, marketing-wise. While SharkNinja still does produce late-night commercials -- those likely will never go away as long as linear TV continues to exist -- the brand has found a new channel with TikTok. "We built our social media team up tremendously over the last few years. We have products like the Ninja Creamy that have a billion impressions on TikTok," he said. This focus on new channels to find new eyeballs likely won't stop soon. "I continue to think that we'll invest more and more in social media, we'll invest more in partnerships, we'll invest more in events," Barrocas said. Get more from Modern Retail with the daily newsletter, sent out each weekday morning. Visit modernretail.co/newsletters to sign up.