Tal Burgan Rosen, VP Global Marketing, Alma Lasers

Ross: Let's start with an easy question... who are you?

Tal: My name is Tal. I am 45 years old, a mother of three, and happily married from Israel. I was born in the US, moved to Israel when I was five.

From a very early age, I knew Marketing is what I wanted to do when I grew up. As the daughter of an international marketer, I was very focused. I went to college, knew exactly what I wanted to study, and had a vision of what I planned to do. I can't see myself doing anything else, but I do enjoy moving around and the transition across different industries. I started in entertainment, then shifted to cellular, then commodities, and for the past seven years, I have been working in the medical device industry.

Talk me through the Alma Lasers marketing operation that you lead today and how this may have transformed in recent years.

When I joined Alma seven years ago, we were a very small team of four people. I started as a Marcom manager, then I was promoted to be the Director of Marketing. Marketing then got a more dominant position and role in the company, with a lot more trust because management started noticing and recognising the value we were bringing to the operation.

We also went through a very big shift. The former CEO who established Alma left five years ago, and he was very R&D orientated. He was one of the founders of Alma Lasers, he led the company to be what it is today, he was a true innovator and a hard-core R&D guy, a brand in its own and very famous in the optic world.

When he left, Lior Dayan, Alma's current president and CEO, took over and things changed rapidly because he was more of a sales and marketing-oriented person. He navigated the company in a different direction, and it's all about timing. I was in the right place at the right time, and we got more budgets and more attention, which was awesome.

What lasting impact has this had on how the Alma marketing department operates today?

That let us expand our marketing activities and the team. We are soon going to have 20 people, and we are now recruiting even more. We are divided into four different teams: We have the digital team, which masters all of our digital asset and social media channels. We're active in all big social media networks.

Then we also have a brand and content team which is responsible for generating content continuously: videos, graphics, different marketing concepts. As in the medical device industry, it’s not like you can launch a new product every 2 or 3 months. So sometimes when you know things are dry from R&D point of view, we always try to figure out new ways to generate a dialogue with customers.

We have a video creator and editor in-house, as well as a graphic designer. I believe that you need to keep as much in-house resources as possible, so you have almost full control over what you do, rather than outsourcing work. It’s a marketing trend these days - opening your own mini agency, rather than outsourcing things.

The brand team is responsible for monitoring our brand, which is a challenge today because we do so much and need to create that brand recognition, but it’s very hard to measure. So, we have our ways to monitor where the brand is going, just to make sure that all of our marketing activities are taking us in the right direction.

We then have the product team, consisting of three product managers and a product leader who are the channels between R&D and the actual fields, the clinics, the doctors, making sure that we are developing the right product, products that carry through a USP, a unique selling point. We make sure that we keep up with the trends and know where the industry is going. They are constantly making improvements to the existing products and working hard on new products, working closely with the marketing team to fine-tune the USPs and make sure that we have strong & clear differentiation vs. our competitors.

The last team is the events team, which takes a very big chunk of the budget. The medical aesthetics industry is very active when it comes to events, so we participate in trade shows and also conduct our own Alma academies which have now become a stand-alone desirable brand. I would say that's my personal biggest accomplishment in the past few years.

For those who aren't aware, talk us through the Alma Academy – What is the purpose of it and how does it work?

The first Alma Academy was conducted in 2019 on the Greek Island of Rhodes, and that was the first time we tested the waters to make sure people liked it. It was a combination of knowledge and fun, consisting of about 70% clinical, marketing, and business sessions with a lot of demos, and 30% fun consisting of amazing parties.

Alma's academy usually lasts for three nights and gathers aesthetic doctors from all over the world, which has turned out to be a huge success. After COVID, we went back to it, and since then, we've conducted another three. A total of four so far, and the demand is insane! We're starting to do them twice a year so we can match the demand. We have a balance of education and fun so that it works so well, also the mingling. We manage to bring people from the entire globe to have that opportunity to connect and interact with other doctors from Latin America, Asia, UAE, Israel & Europe.

The most recent Alma Academy was conducted in Dubai in November, and we had 500 people from 46 countries. This was a huge achievement.

Usually, we are very picky with our venues because we want to be very precise with our needs and we love having a huge stage and screen. We invest a lot into that and a very big meeting room so people can connect, but also focus on good venues for a party. We really like to have one night which is authentic; it depends on the place but when we did the academy in Athens, we closed the streets, and we had a Greek street party which was lots of fun, with music and drinks. In Dubai, we had a desert night, and everybody came dressed in white, I think this is one of the activities that really positioned Alma as a premium brand and really strengthened its awareness.

What values, mantras, or principles do you live by in your professional or non-professional life?

Alma Lasers' marketing team is comprised of individuals who truly love what they do. They live and breathe marketing and are passionate about staying up-to-date and getting inspired by other industries. We frequently share information and updates in our WhatsApp group. Personally, I look for people with this type of passion and curiosity. I am a very optimistic person and enjoy being surrounded by positive individuals. Therefore, positivity is something that is very important to me.

We’ve established that you were drawn to marketing from a young age, but which other aspect took your interest first, was it the medical devices industry or the medical aesthetics sector?

I was initially interested in medical technologies when I was looking for a job. I was not specifically looking for an aesthetics company, but once I learned more about the medical aesthetics industry, I completely fell in love with it. From a marketing perspective, this industry is fascinating because the motivation that drives our customers to invest in aesthetics or consumers to purchase cosmetics is not always rational. When we create our marketing messages, we analyze exactly what drives our potential clients and conscious consumers to purchase our treatments or products. We find that it's not always logical, which makes it psychologically interesting. Additionally, we have the technological aspect, which is more scientific, and the combination is very attractive.

When I started leading the team, one of the most important things to me was to not speak about aesthetic transformation as that seemed very shallow to me, and I'm looking for meaning, so we started adopting a different language. We started talking about making people feel good about themselves. We show real people in our advertisements and in our marketing collateral, which reflects a natural look. We show defects such as acne or scars, so we love showing vitality, movements, and positive people smiling, and once again, we just want to have people feel good.

I think there are many poorly executed or directed marketing campaigns out there, not necessarily from medical companies, but focused on a specific aspect of a person, rather than being centered around making the person feel better.

Yes, definitely, and now we're also expanding to new domains, not only aesthetics. We are launching our first product for sexual wellness, which is amazing and super exciting because we want to make people feel better about themselves, their partners, and their relationships, and we can now utilize our technologies to help them do that. We want to make our consumers feel good about themselves through our treatments. This is also how we look at our partners, customers, doctors, Investors, and employees - that's why we were talking about the positive spirit that Alma carries, which is so special to me. We really work hard to maintain and preserve it because I think that's what makes us unique in this industry.

Last year, every person in our company, Consult, read a book by James Clear called 'Atomic Habits,' which focuses on the formation of habits and reveals practical strategies for forming good ones and breaking bad ones. Are there any specific habits that you regularly adhere to in your personal life that are essential to your professional success?

To wrap up my day, I think of one good thing that happened to me and one bad thing that happened that day. I'm so busy being a mother of three, so balancing my professional and personal life is a real challenge. This habit helps me focus and clarify my thoughts.

Who are your heroes or sources of inspiration that you would cite as influential in your journey?

My dad, not only because he did marketing but also because of his personality. He understands people and is a great listener. I learned from him how to actively listen, which I think is essential in most jobs today, especially in marketing. Analyzing marketing campaigns over dinner was also a big influence on me. He's also a person of movements. I truly believe that if you want to evolve, you need to move, not only physically, but mentally as well. That's something that I took from him.

In this ever-evolving landscape in medical technology, social media, and artificial intelligence, what do you predict to be the next real ‘game-changers,’ either for the medical aesthetics industry or specifically within marketing?

We are looking closely at what's going on and trying to think and see what this will be. We look at ourselves as early adopters, so we really want to be the first ones, at least in our industry, to adopt new technologies and new tools.

These new platforms can help us be much more efficient in many ways, but I don't think they replace people every day because, at the end of the day, you really need somebody who has that human sensitivity, especially since in marketing, you need to understand people. You need to understand exactly what motivates them and what drives them make decisions. So, I don't think there will ever be a true substitute for that.

What companies or technologies do you recognize as particularly impressive that are making a positive change to their consumer or their industry? Or are there any specific companies that you admire what they're doing from a marketing perspective?

I love Dyson. They have created a powerful brand, and as a marketer, I truly appreciate it. They have established themselves as leaders in their industry. I strongly believe in healthy competition; it can be beneficial. Sometimes, I get inspired by my competitors, and I know it happens the other way around as well.

Of all the big things that are set to happen for Alma Lasers in the next couple of years, what are the things you're most excited about?

Well, I'm really excited about our expansion. We've been discussing the possibility of expanding outside of aesthetics and into the realm of wellness in general. I believe this is where the industry is heading, especially in the post-COVID era, where people are becoming more willing to invest in their overall wellness and identity. We have a pipeline of ideas and technologies that we're eager to bring into motion.

We also aim to provide a unique offering to our clients by providing a more comprehensive solution, rather than simply relying on energy-based devices. We want to offer consumers full coverage, and that's something that really excites me as well.

Tal, thank you for taking the time to sit down with us. It’s been a pleasure to speak to you and best of luck to you and Alma Lasers in the future.