When Inertia came to us this year, they had a strong story in Korea and almost no name in the U.S. Four female scientists from KAIST had built a pad with no plastic in the absorbent core. They'd sold more than 10 million pads at home, and Prism Pads were the top feminine care product at Olive Young. None of that meant anything yet to an American editor.
So we didn't start with the shopping editors. We started with the trades and the founders.
Why trades come first for a new brand
An editor considering a new brand is going to look it up first. If the only results are the brand's own site and an Amazon listing, it's a harder yes. Trade coverage fixes that. It's written by reporters who cover the category for a living, and it gives every later pitch something real to point to.
Trade reporters also want what a new brand actually has: the technology, the founders and the numbers. Inertia's story was the material science. Their core, LABOCELL, is made from plant cellulose instead of the plastic-based superabsorbent polymers most pads use, even many labeled organic. That's a hard sell in a 40-word gift guide blurb. In a trade story it's the whole point.
What ran
Beauty Independent ran a feature on the U.S. launch, with co-founder Seungmin Lee on why "organic" labels weren't solving the core problem.
WWD and BeautyMatter covered the brand for the beauty business.
Nonwovens Industry ran an exclusive with CEO Hyoyi Kim on how the core is built, and Tissue Online covered the technology too. Those are the trades the people who make pads read.
Founder interviews ran in FemTech Insider, Future Femme Health, FemTech World and Authority Magazine.
Each one reached a different reader: beauty buyers and investors, the femtech world, and the materials industry.
Then TIME
That body of coverage is what an awards panel sees when it looks a product up. In October, Prism Pads were named to TIME's Best Inventions of 2026. For a brand that was unknown in the U.S. at the start of the year, that's the line that now goes on everything.
It was a six-month program built on credibility and founder visibility, not commerce. That was the right order for a brand nobody here knew yet.
What we'd tell any brand launching here
Lead with what's actually new. For Inertia it was the core, not "clean" or "organic," which every competitor already says.
Get the founders talking. Almost every story above quotes a founder. Reporters want the person who built it.
Do the trades before the gift guides. Shopping coverage is an easier yes when an editor can see the brand has already been covered seriously.
Have your proof ready. Inertia had third-party certifications on hand (USDA Certified Biobased, Dermatest 5-star), so reporters didn't have to take the brand's word for it.
Getting a brand from unknown to award-winning in a new market doesn't happen in one hit. It happens in order.