What you need to know:

• Former Modibodi CMO, Liana Lorenzato, has become the new joint general manager and marketing chief for Australian sexual wellness product manufacturer, Vush.
• The business has been experiencing triple-digit year-on-year growth and is expanding quickly across the global stage, operating in Australia, the US and UK through DTC, etailers and bricks-and-mortar retailers.
• Having earned her scale-up stripes as well as taboo subject marketing credentials at Modibodi, a period and incontinence product maker, Lorenzato says she’s looking forward to the challenge of tackling the sensitive subject of sexual wellness and diversifying Vush’s brand positioning and engagement in market.
• Fundamentals and structure go hand-in-hand with the marketing remit for Lorenzato. She says: “For any business that’s a startup, gets to scale then starts seeing exponential growth, you don’t have time to do that and you’re running before you are walking. I’m a big believer you need that fundamental structure without slowing the business down or pace in order to scale well and profitably.”

Liana Lorenzato is certainly not afraid of tackling taboo subjects. As the former CMO of period and incontinence product maker, Modibodi, she spent eight years challenging traditional advertising norms, even winning a battle against Meta to have the brand’s confronting 60-second film, The New Way to Period, go live on Facebook.

Now holding the title of both general manager and CMO of sexual wellness product producer, Vush, she’s looking forward to the intricacies of navigating through another dynamic yet sensitive industry as a brand builder.

Lorenzato exited Modibodi in February as one of several redundancies across marketing and creative. Established in Australia in 2013 by Kirsty Chong, Modibodi was sold to Swedish firm, Essity in July 2022 for $140 million.

A new days later after exiting, Lorenzato was approached by Vush co-founders, Elliot Viasman and Luke Vucinic, to help spearhead its next phase of development. Vush is an Australian business based in Melbourne that has seen exponential growth over the last six years.

The private company has seen triple digital percentage growth year-on-year and is now among the ranks of multi-million-dollar scale-ups, selling hundreds of thousands of sex products and boasting 750,000+ fans on Instagram. For the celebrity savvy, it also counts Cardi B as a fan.

“It’s a brand that triumphs over taboos, is not afraid to challenge the norm and have those conversations,” Lorenzato tells Mi3. “When I met the co-founders personally, they really came across as a passionate pair who want to continue driving the brand and business globally. That excited me. They wanted me to be part of the executive team, to lead the business and the team.”

Vush has 10 full-time staff, supported by a network of boutique partners, across five locations internationally and a 100 per cent remote working policy. It ships its products including vibrators, pleasure products and lingerie from global warehouses primarily to ecommerce players, but also has bricks-and-mortar stockists. Locally, these include Myer, David Jones, Adore Beauty and The Iconic. It’s also in the US through Sephora plus others, and similarly in the UK.

“I’d been following them for a while, and they’re really established themselves as ahead of other players,” Lorenzato says. “We did have similar category issues several years ago at Modibodi, and I do love a challenge.”

There are other similarities besides sensitive product matter. Both businesses are founder-owned scale-ups at a point in time where getting the foundations and structures right is critical to further scale.

Lorenzato’s to-do list starts with getting fundamental processes in place. “For any business that’s a startup, gets to scale then starts seeing exponential growth, you don’t have time to do that and you’re running before you are walking,” she comments. “I’m a big believer you need that fundamental structure without slowing the business down or pace in order to scale well and profitably.”

Operating inside a founder-owned business has other quirks. You get exposure and a seat at the table, but it can be tough translating the desires of founders so the team is clear on the North Star.

“Someone called me a business translator, for startup / scale-up businesses. So bringing that to the team tasked with implementing and growing that and communicating that vision. That’s my sweet spot,” Lorenzato says.

In terms of what she has to work with, the potential is huge. Vush has been seeing exponential growth off the back of strong organic brand awareness and customer engagement.

“The great thing about Vush is it’s data-driven with a passionate team. And we have very engaged customers: They’re so passionate. That guides what we do and how we speak to them,” Lorenzato continues. “We gave great plans this year already to expand the business and brand, and really make a difference in this category.”

Combining GM and CMO

You’d be forgiven for thinking as both the general manager and marketing chief, Lorenzato could well be battling her own conscience as she tries to balance growth and risk-tasking with insisting on proving out the commercial value of marketing. But she says having been part of the Modibodi executive team meant being in the thick of operational and commercial decision making.

“I was extremely cross-functional. I do love the operational elements to business, and I have an accounting background. So financially, connecting the dots comes quite naturally to me,” she says.

“The role here combines all my learnings in past roles and bring this into Vush to make those informed decisions. I feel I’ve intentionally been broad in my career to lead me to this role and lead the business forward. I’ve not been isolated into just the marketing space. As a CMO you’re not of course, but in a scale-up business you have much more hands-on exposure than at a traditional larger corporate.”

As to Vush’s positioning from a marketing perspective, it’s been an organic build so far.

“The category we’re in is not as open to us as a general fashion brand, so that’s a learning curve. It’s understanding what we can do, how far we can push boundaries,” Lorenzato says. “The short-term levers really working for us include affiliate and key opinion leaders in social. Organic is a huge lever for us and we continue to test-and-learn in that space as a social-first business. But we don’t use Meta for advertising.

“There’s opportunity for channel expansion in the long term, but in the short term, we are testing and learning with our content, understanding what our audience wants from us.”

Further building aided awareness, as well as gaining sophistication around the customer journey, are other musts for Lorenzato.

“We need to try to be in as many channels as possible so we diversify and don’t rely on just one channel,” she says. “I have a great exec team including our two co-founders as well as a supportive team of brand and creatives, who really understand customers. I’m taking them on that journey of what that means with a commercial lens, so every decision they make is being made through that lens. It’s the idea it’s one per cent better each time.”

As to navigating the sensitivities of sexual wellness products, Lorenzato points to positioning, words and phrases as the minefield.

“It’s not so much a channel challenge, as they all have their policies, it’s particular words and phrases. I’m used to having these challenges with Modibodi and we had a massive campaign in 2020, ‘The New Way to Period’ which was banned from Facebook. But we were then able to change the policy Meta had to run our advertisement,” she says.  

“Trying to navigate that in this space is the challenge. But we have high-quality, medical grade, thoroughly tested, silicon products – there are unique differences that make this brand such a strong one.”