How SET Active chose community over influencer marketing.
For the launch of its Coastline collection, SET Active took over the Clam Bar in Amagansett and handed out free lobster rolls to anyone passing by, no guest list needed. Founder Lindsey Carter built the brand from her apartment in 2018 and grew it into an eight-figure business without a single paid ad, so she knows a thing or two about getting people talking. Here's why she put the budget into customers over influencers, and how she knows it paid off.
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Hey Lindsey, for anyone crazy enough not to already know… who are you and what do you do?
I'm the Founder and CEO of SET Active. I'm focused on building this brand from the ground up, from our product and creative vision all the way to how we connect with and build community around SET. A huge part of my role today, besides the nitty-gritty of growing the business, is designing meaningful experiences that make people feel like they're part of the brand, not just consumers of it.
I created SET to solve a real, daily dilemma for women, and eight years in, my daily reality is still rooted in that same customer-first obsession.
Tell us about the Clam Bar takeover. What did you want it to feel like, and were there things you ruled out early on?
On August 14th, we took over Amagansett's iconic Clam Bar to celebrate our Coastline collection. We wanted it to feel like SET was genuinely showing up for the community by bringing our world into a staple spot people already love.
The goal was simple, make it completely accessible to anyone passing by. You could walk up, grab a lobster roll, fries and ice cream, and experience SET without needing to be on a guest list or have a pre-existing relationship with the brand. Early on, we ruled out making it feel exclusive or like an influencer event disguised as a community gathering.
Most brands would have put that budget into flying creators out. What made you want to spend it on whoever walks past instead?
There's value in creators and in the reach they provide, but our high-impact IRL activations work because they're community-focused. For SET, community isn't a byproduct of marketing, it's the culture itself. Whether someone has bought SET for years or just stumbled upon us for the first time at Clam Bar, everyone deserves to experience our world in person.
When you treat everyday customers like ultimate VIPs, organic word-of-mouth advocacy naturally becomes your most powerful marketing tool. The trade-off is giving up some of the guaranteed impressions and content from a traditional creator activation, but in exchange, you build something far harder to manufacture: genuine participation and a real, unscripted connection with your community.
This isn't your first go at it, Cowboy Carnival came before. What did that one teach you?
Cowboy Carnival really reinforced that people want to participate in the brand, not just watch it from the sidelines. Bringing that entire experience to life for our Austin community was a huge undertaking, but the best validation came when an attendee looked around and said, "This feels like an influencer event, but for us."
Behind the scenes there's always that pre-event stress, but the second doors open and you watch two complete strangers introduce themselves and end up exchanging phone numbers like old friends, you realise SET is so much more than the clothes we make.
If another brand wanted to try this, what would you tell them to copy, and what was harder than you expected?
Start with the community, not the content.
Ask yourself what would make your customers excited to participate, even if there were no cameras or social posts involved.
From there, find a way to make that experience feel authentic and in tune with the place and the people you're inviting into it. And don't write off creators while you're at it, the balance hasn't shifted away from them for us, it's just become more intentional, they drive discovery while community experiences deepen the relationship.
The harder part is letting go of control. When you open something up to everyone, you can't completely predict who will show up, what they'll do, or what the content will look like, but that unpredictability is also what makes it feel real.
Where's the line between having fun and staying on-brand?
Our approach to content is grounded in responsibility, trust, and maintaining a strong duty of care towards both our customers and colleagues. While we want our social presence to be engaging, creative, and capable of surprising and delighting our audiences, we also recognise that we are a trusted voice. As a result, we are mindful that adopting a more "unhinged" style of content (such as some brands known for highly chaotic social personalities) would not always align with what our customers expect from us.
Because customers rely on our network and services, we are particularly careful not to make light of issues or disruptions that impact them. We also take care to protect our customers by not using them purely as content opportunities to drive engagement.
You're giving up the guaranteed reach doing it this way, so what are you looking at instead to know it's landed?
We look at the metrics that actually matter for long-term brand health: community advocacy and customer retention. Organic word-of-mouth advocacy is incredibly sticky.
At our Cowboy Carnival event, our community generated over 300 organic posts and 1.4 million impressions simply because they were excited to share their experience. That said, we're looking at the quality of the interaction, not just the quantity. Did people show up, did they stay and engage, did they discover something new about SET, did existing customers feel more connected. Those are harder to put into a single dashboard, but they're incredibly valuable when you're thinking about long-term brand loyalty.
The customer shouldn't always be relegated to watching a brand experience through a phone screen at home. Sometimes, they deserve to be the person grabbing a lobster roll, making a real-world connection, and living it in person!
A huge thank you to Lindsey for being so generous with the behind the scenes, and for showing that the most powerful marketing tool you've got might just be the customer standing in front of you.
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