Ulta Beauty began the year with a Golden Globes sponsorship. Then, it showed up at the Super Bowl. Now, the pop culture train is still chugging, and the brand is also keeping an eye trained on DEI initiatives and the effect of tariffs, all with a new marketer at the helm.
At the end of February, Kelly Mahoney, who has been with Ulta Beauty for the last decade, was promoted from interim CMO to CMO, succeeding Michelle Crossan-Matos, who left the beauty retailer in January. We spoke with Mahoney about how the brand is balancing its various marketing priorities in this next phase, and what it will take to pull it all off.
“Beauty is a cultural force,” Mahoney said. “At the center of that is just where you show up, from a culture perspective. Because that’s about relevance, and that’s about making sure that you’re able to live authentically in your purpose, where your customers and where your guests are.”
Courting culture
Right before Mahoney stepped into her official CMO shoes, but while she was still wearing her interim role, the Super Bowl happened—famously a super casual event for brands!
Many brands show up to the major marketing moment with an ad spot, but this year, Ulta Beauty showed up on the ground and on social. That included sponsoring For The W, an event with the publishing brand Gallery Media Group and Chanen Johnson, the wife of New Orleans Saints wide receiver Juwan Johnson, that hosted women in sports. Beyond that, the brand partnered with Brittany Mahomes, the wife of Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, to provide her glam for the big game, and it partnered with singer-songwriter SZA and her makeup artist to get the star ready for her halftime performance. Mahoney said choosing this route instead of an ad spot was aimed at optimizing an authentic social media connection with Ulta Beauty’s audience.
“Relevance is one of those things where it’s equity-building, and building your followers and seeing engagement in the posts that you’re doing,” Mahoney said. “This was one of the most successful social and influencer campaigns that we’ve ever done at Ulta Beauty in the sense that we saw the most impressions in such a short amount of time.”
For Mahoney, who said she has roots in loyalty marketing, making connections with customers on social is essential to long-term success, especially around cultural events like the Super Bowl.
“Maybe we’re starting our relationship for the first time, and it’s going to pay out in the long term because we just created a very authentic, two-way conversation in that moment that made somebody feel like Ulta Beauty is very relevant, and Ulta Beauty is showing up in a powerful way in a very important moment in time,” Mahoney said.
Get marketing news you’ll actually want to read
Marketing Brew informs marketing pros of the latest on brand strategy, social media, and ad tech via our weekday newsletter, virtual events, marketing conferences, and digital guides.
Social isn’t everything in the cultural marketing sphere, though. For the Golden Globes, the brand took a digital sponsorship approach, which was centered on total impressions and showing up as a sponsor of the awards show, Mahoney said. While the brand doesn’t appear at every awards show, the awards circuit is a natural fit since many beauty brands sold in Ulta Beauty stores are founded by celebrities who show up at these events, she said.
“It’s very relevant for us to show up in a space where [our partners] might be in such an authentic way as a show of support to not only grow our business, of course, but to grow their business and to be supportive of them as well,” Mahoney said.
Socially and politically minded
Ulta Beauty has more cultural moments up its sleeve, but the beauty brand is also prioritizing its customers and community by reaffirming its commitment to DEI initiatives in a moment when many other retailers, including Target, Amazon, and Walmart, are stepping back. In February, Ulta Beauty CEO Kecia Steelman released a statement to Beauty Independent affirming the company’s ongoing support for DEI. Mahoney shared that same assurance with us, noting that the brand “always has been about accessibility and inclusivity.”
“It is a part of who we are,” Mahoney said. “Doing anything differently is almost impossible.”
DEI efforts at Ulta Beauty are largely focused on how the brand shows up in the marketplace, Mahoney said. From community-focused messaging to accessible locations to representative store associates, Mahoney said the brand’s approach to diversity is more of an “ethos or DNA, rather than a specific program.”
At the same time, Mahoney is also paying attention to the impact of tariffs, dropping consumer confidence, and economic uncertainty, and is focused on ways to assure Ulta Beauty’s customers that the brand will remain an accessible part of their lives through details like its loyalty program.
“Everybody that’s in business right now should probably be tuning in to what’s happening with tariffs,” Mahoney said. “We are on top of that, and we are partnering with our all of our partners in this space, whether they’re the brand partners that are doing a lot of the manufacturing, as well as our own partners for the fixtures and things that we have in our stores, to ensure that at the end of the day, we mitigate any risk.”
Read the full article here
