Beauty Doesn't Have a Language // A Conversation with Ulta Beauty, Made by Mitchell and Cymbiotika

0:00Jim Stengel:If you were a chief marketing officer in consumer products, I want you to think about something for a moment. You have creative that works. You have campaigns that capture attention. But somewhere between that moment and the register, the signal gets lost. You cannot see what actually drove the sale. You are making optimization decisions on inference, not truth. Well, that changed in February. Infilion acquired Catalina. Four decades of deterministic purchase intelligence. 130 million U.S. households, 70 retail banners,$600 billion in verified annual consumer spending. And here is what really matters.

0:34Jim Stengel:Over 90 % of consumable purchases still happen in-store. Infillion and Catalina together can close the dupe from digital advertising to in-lane purchase and incentivize the next one. This is not a measurement tool you consult after the campaign. This is a live signal that runs through your media while the campaign is in flight. You can now optimize from attention to action in real time against people whose actual purchase behavior you know. A consumer products brand needs return on ad spending. It needs foot traffic. Infilion now delivers all of it. Not as separate vendors you reconcile later as one connected platform.

1:11Jim Stengel:That is what closing the gap looks like. But before I was a founder, I was a makeup artist for five, six years and I'd traveled the world teaching beauty. and I think what I really realised that beauty didn't have a language, it was everyone can understand it because everyone can see it and everyone can feel it no matter what language that you spoke. I'd travelled from Australia to South America to everywhere, you name it, I'd been there. And what I'd learnt from that experience of meeting people from all walks of life is just how much people love to feel beautiful in their own way, you know, not in what society classes and deems as beautiful, but what they deem as beautiful.

1:50Hi, I'm Jim Stengel.

1:51Jim Stengel:I've helped hundreds of major brands discover and activate their purpose. Because when a brand's purpose is clear, compelling, and authentic, profit naturally follows. Each week, I welcome the CMOs, the chief marketing officers of your favorite brands, to speak to how their job is so much more than marketing. These leaders share their inspiration and challenges, along with how they try to build a full, healthy, and happy life in and out of the office. And it's that energy that reaches everyone they touch. And we're glad you're here to feel that energy and to learn from these remarkable leaders.

2:25Jim Stengel:So here we go. One of my favorite moments from today's conversation came from one of our guests, Mitchell Halliday, who said, beauty doesn't have a language. No matter where you come from or what language you speak, what's important is how beauty brands make you feel. That's what today's conversation is all about. Building brands that people don't just buy, but genuinely want to be a part of. This week, I'm joined by three leaders who understand that idea from very different perspectives. First is Kelly Mahoney, Chief Marketing Officer at Ulta Beauty, the U.S.'s largest beauty retailer with more than 1 ,400 stores and over 45 million loyalty members.

2:59Jim Stengel:Kelly is helping redefine what beauty means by expanding beyond cosmetics into wellness while creating one of the industry's most trusted retail brands. Next is Mitchell Halliday, founder of Made by Mitchell, one of the beauty industry's fastest growing founder-led brands. Mitchell turned a global makeup artistry career into a community-first business. His motto, Made by Mitchell, but made for everyone. And finally, Dorana Elmi, founder, chief creative officer, and chief experiential officer at Symbiotica. Since launching her wellness brand with her husband in 2018, Dorana has helped build one of the fastest growing supplement companies in the country, centered on transparency, education, and the belief that true luxury begins with your health.

3:41Jim Stengel:Here's my conversation, recorded live aboard the Beanstalk Yacht during the Cannes Lions Festival with Kelly Mahoney, Mitchell Halliday, and Dorana Elmi. Well, welcome you three to the CMO Podcast. We have two returning guests. Dorana, you were on about a year ago. Such a good episode. Thank you. It was so emotional. Your story is so amazing. So thank you for coming back. You were just on this summer. It's such a good episode, such a great discussion. You have such a big heart. You're so smart. You're so engaged. You represent the brand well. And Mitchell, you're new. Thank you for having me. I don't know what I'm doing here, to be honest.

4:17But thank you for having me. It's always a good thing to be on a yacht. Especially with you two. Always, always. You're two beautiful ladies as well. So is it true you have seven cats? Not anymore. I have six. Yes, I have definitely had seven cats. Okay, so why? I'm obsessed with cats why not why not do they all get on well? so a huge age span so my oldest one is 25 I'm 27 so I've had one of them two of them since being living at home with my parents so those two aren't necessarily the most kindest cats out of all of them but the others are all good yeah they definitely don't get on them once but they're that old but they kind of don't need to get on them

4:54Jim Stengel:do you sort of manage them like a CMO like a leadership team? I try they manage me do they have different jobs? Exactly, yeah. I would like to give them that, yeah. And you've also been on The X Factor, is that right? Oh, that's coming up. Yeah, yeah, right? Yes, so before I got into the beauty industry, I had sang since before I could talk. So it was kind of just a natural progression from going to music college. We ended up getting scouted. Well, I got scouted to be put into a boy band. And we got quite far on in the process of X Factor and then got kicked off. and I think that was just I'd been doing it for so long that I just fancied a change and I was so I was bored of people not listening to me to be honest so I tried something new at the time my friend opened a salon and I thought I'd just do some Saturday work in the salon and ended up falling in love with beauty and makeup and cosmetics and here we are nearly well 11 years later yeah so how did you handle getting kicked off there's a case of resilience right oh yeah it was um quite an embarrassing moment to look back at i really did stomp off the stage you know like they do on x factor um but you know i think what i realized through that experience was it was entertainment so it wasn't necessarily a reflection of my talent not saying that i'm the best singer in the world but i think at the time i really thought that this just meant oh my god well i've got nothing going for myself but as i got older i was like oh no this is tv you know um and i probably did put on a good show by stomping off but i only did it to my own dismay so yeah just um perspective is everything isn't it perspective and i think i also now look back and i'm so grateful that that never went any further because i wouldn't be in the position i'm in now doing what i love you're a brand now right yeah i'm a brand now yeah so our topic today is brands people really want to be a part of they really want to choose and make a special relationship and impact on people i think you both you all three represent brands that are like that So my first question is, we're going to talk about Ulta and your two brands, but is there a brand that you admire that for you personally is something you love being a part of?

6:59I've got a lot of bad habits.

7:00Jim Stengel:Okay. Let me start out with, as a child, I always looked up to Chanel. And I'll tell you why, because I grew up in... And you're wearing it today. And I'm wearing it today. But I love what it represents. It represents that you can be feminine without being a man and without being too masculine. I grew up just loving what the brand stood for. And Coco Chanel always put out a lot of quotes about women and empowerment and just feeling really comfortable in your femininity. And so that's what I love to embody. And a lot of the things about Chanel, which is like, Chanel's a classic brand. It makes you feel, you know, just, you know, I say I was never just into the products per se, like to have a Chanel bag.

7:43I was into like what it represented and what it meant for me as a woman. For me as a woman is just embrace the woman that you are. And you can be in the same room as men without being masculine. You can still embrace your femininity. And I think a lot of the things that they make from their solouettes to their accessories, it's understated, but they're timeless pieces. And I hope to one day represent that for my two daughters is how can I be a brand in the world and what I'm creating that we create something timeless, something that feels luxury without being overstated and more understated and really to empower and inspire people.

8:21Jim Stengel:So Chanel is sort of a muse for your brand right now in a very different category. In a very different category. But again, it's about how can you build community, community and people that believe in this mission. And the mission of Chanel has always been to empower women. And it's been about just feeling comfortable with who you are. and you know i always say like coco chanel went so against the norm and that was okay and i love that and so symbiotic was also against the norm well we'll get into that but so yeah there's a lot of similarities and i just a lot of the characteristics and attributes of chanel is what i personally like to embody and what i personally like to just be a part of and so it's part of my kind of ecosystem of what i believe and i hope to um you know create something that will be timeless.

9:09Jim Stengel:Now, Kelly, you see a lot of brands, right? How many do you have in your stores? 600, over 600. Yes. That's quite a database. Yes. Yeah. So what's one brand that for you really stands out that you think represents who you are? I mean, besides these two amazing ones that are sitting right next to us. We'll get to them in a minute. Yeah. I mean, I love all of the brands that we carry. I really do. But right now, I'm really studying Revolve. I'm studying Revolve because it's a great example of a multi-branded retailer that I think is showing up in a really interesting way, leveraging culture, leveraging lifestyle.

9:42And so I've been really inspired by them lately.

9:46Jim Stengel:Wow. Are they in Cannes? They are in Cannes. No, not in Cannes. Yeah, probably too early. Mitchell, how about yourself? I think for me, even though I run a beauty brand, I think a lot of my influence when it comes to creating a moment for the brand is led by fashion brands as well just like you said really because i think they're the easiest gateway into creating a lifestyle brand as well because it's something that no matter what you do you wear clothes every single day i mean it's a lot of newer brands to be honest that i really look at now because i find that they are doing things differently doing things in a way that kind of once upon a time would have been frowned down upon so there's um actually one of my friends brands adenola they've created a complete new i guess category of activewear and community and how they come together and then there's another brand a london-based brand called kai collective just how they honor the culture it's a black on brand and how they honor the culture and color and representation is unlike anything else i've ever seen before so i think that really fits really well with my with my business model of being as inclusive as possible and so yeah i think sometimes i'll be honest the beauty world that is sometimes the things that we lack in so i like to take it from businesses that are led by lifestyle and kind of trying to implement that into my business model of beauty.

11:01So yeah, those are the ones I always look up to totally.

11:04Jim Stengel:Let's take it even more personal now. So you both have brands in Ulta. Okay. So I want you both to speak for a minute about Ulta and what you admire about that brand and what you think is special about them. You're honored to be here with you today. Thank you. But Ulta, at first I was a consumer before my products got in. And when I think about what Ulta meant for me, and like today my daughters are consumers, but it's like a Disneyland. So you go in there, you feel good, you feel, it's got everything in there. So I like the fact that it's thought of everything from the hair color to the beauty to the hair, all the beauty accessories that you need from the hair accessories.

11:45I just feel like it's all encompassing and it's a one-stop shop for everything. and so every time I've gone into beauty, I'm Ulta, I feel incredibly beautiful and I buy a lot of things that I probably don't need but what I love about it is again it's a one-stop shop and they've been very mindful of the brands that they brought in and Ulta has built such an incredible community of beauty enthusiasts so when you talk about community and movement, Ulta's done an extraordinary job of that so I really admire that you guys have done that and that they have such a strong collective of influencers and enthusiasts who follow the brand and who are so loyal and committed.

12:23So I think the community within Ulta is powerful. It's strong. It's a loyalist. And it's something that we aspire to be a part of and build for ourselves as well.

12:33Jim Stengel:Small brands build communities, right? They do that well, but they do it at scale. At scale. Which is crazy. And they've always been ahead of the trends as well, because for us, no one ever thinks about supplements or wellness going into Ulta. But the truth is there is an intersection today within beauty and wellness. And people more than ever, consumers are so smart and educated in terms of like, what's your ingredients? You know, how the ingredients help benefit me? What are the benefits? And so it's incredible that Ulta has really spearheaded the wellness category as well. And they've been a leader in bringing in wellness.

13:10And so that's been amazing. You guys have been incredible partners. of ours. We had a massive Ulta party in LA. It was a party. It was four hours. I wish I would have known you so you would have come. Got FOMO. Yeah. It was, you know, we had influencers there, we had celebrities there. And within a four hour party, we drew over 3 billion impressions, 3 billion impressions. And what we did is, so our four products that are inside of Ulta, we had created an immersive experience. So you came in and, you know, our magnesium, Like it was a Zen room. And so you're able to listen to like quiet music, but you're able to have our products through foods or through drinks or through your cafe or your matcha.

13:49And it was just it was a great experience. And I think Ulta has just been innovative. They've been leaders in the space and great partners.

13:57Jim Stengel:This is not an alt ad just for our audience. I know, and I'm flushing just a little bit. No, but it's really beautiful to hear you talk about that. That is what we aspire to do. I mean, Being Beauties and Wellness, best brand builders. Thank you for sharing that story, and I really appreciate everything that you're saying. We couldn't do it without incredible brands like both of yours. So the innovation and just the niche that you solve and the way in which you provide solutions and expression and inspiration for our guests is so appreciated. Well, thank you. And so the last thing, so the executive team is so— Your executive team?

14:35No, the Alta executive team is so incredible. And my team is as well. But we work with a lot of different large national retailers. And what I would say is I've never met a team that I really feel is invested in our success. And that's what's been really beautiful about this journey. We make quick decisions on the spot. We get on calls. It's not like you're going to send an email and get something back weeks later. But I really feel like they're invested in the success of brands like ours. And also driving experiential, which, as you know, is the future of marketing today. So we've been able to partner and do some experiential events on the store level.

15:10That has been incredible. and again it's about educating the consumers and being where they want to shop Mitchell how do you top that well you're gonna do yeah um again I think my experience with Ulta was different again I'm not from the states so I didn't grow up going to Ulta but I remember I did after I did X Factor um I did a tv show called American Beauty Star and it was basically like the America's Next Top Model but for makeup artists and hairstylists and at the time we was on ice so I couldn't leave my hotel while we were filming it for two months and I ended up being kicked off the show and it was like right you can leave now I was like okay and right around the corner from my hotel was an Ulta Beauty so it's the first time I've ever been into an Ulta and I'd always been into other competitors when it comes to beauty retail but I think what really stood out to me with Ulta was how friendly the approach was to selling me a product and that when I then started the brand many years later was always the approach that I really wanted to take with my consumer because I never really wanted anyone to feel force-fed you know this is the choice you can't always just come in and swatch a product but you don't need to buy it it's about learning about the product and whether that takes you to come in twice or 10 times until you convince yourself to buy it then I would always much rather take that approach because that that person really then wants it and they're not gonna complain about it on socials because they've really taken their time to understand if they want to buy it.

16:34And then I remember the whole reason we got into Ulta in the first place was I was in Miami for Miami Swim, and I took some of my curve cases over with me. And I thought, you know, I'm just going to go and do a video and put them on the shelves. And within 24 hours, the video had got millions of views. And three days later, I got a call with Ulta. So it really did happen so just magically. and I think what I really appreciated and why now I will always just really favor the relationship that I've built with Ulta is that how they really held my hand throughout the entire process because back then and even still now we're still a small infrastructure of a brand and being a small business that's bootstrapped it's it's intimidating to be able to do something like launch into Ulta we did 500 stars in January and that's a huge investment and it was completely rewarding but you know it's being thrown in at the deep end but we we all threw ourselves in at the deep end and I think that for me it's more than just what the consumer sees it's what what I feel when I am on the calls with with Ulta at 8 p.m at night and all my team are there as well and how that rapport has really been built as well and I'll be honest I just wouldn't have asked for a better retail partner ever and again this isn't an Ulta ad but it was always where I knew that the brand was going to be um one way or another I would always make it happen and somehow I just made it happen from that one little video and i'd really enjoyed how um it was just really natural really natural it nothing was forced and i think that's how i would like the relationship to keep building throughout the years totally the theme of the show was supposed to be brands that people

18:11Jim Stengel:want to be a part of i think it's more about partnerships honestly and that's part of it but when you develop partnerships like this it transcends everything and your customers notice that

18:26Jim Stengel:One of the things I have learned from years of talking to the best CMOs in the world is this. The question is never just whether your creative is working. The question is whether your infrastructure can keep up with it. Because a brilliant campaign still has to travel through an ad stack, through data, through decisioning, through supply, through measurement. And every hop in that journey is a place where value leaks out. Most platforms solve one piece of that, a data company, a DSP, a measurement vendor. You stitch them together and pay a fragmentation tax in performance, in speed, and in accountability.

18:59Jim Stengel:Infilion built something very different. Demand, supply, data, measurement, and creative connected in a single composable platform. The highest performing opt-in attention formats via Infilion's proprietary tech in the industry. Agnostic identity resolution solutions. And now Catalina, 130 million U.S. households of verified purchase truth running as live signal through every campaign they execute. No black boxes, no hops, no fragmented vendor relationships to manage. The only company I know of that can take you from the first moment of attention to the final proof of action for any vertical on any screen without leaving the platform.

19:37Jim Stengel:Open, composable, agentic. That is Infilion.

19:45Jim Stengel:I was talking to you, Kelly, in a separate conversation, and I asked you what brands you're admiring and so on. You said, I love founder brands, founder-led brands. So I don't know how well you know these two brands. You have 600 in your stores. But can you talk a bit more about that and why you as a culture have such a value to support brands like this? Yeah, well, you can hear it. When each of you talk about your brands, the purpose just comes shining through. Like you are creating a need. You're creating, you're answering a need that comes directly from your heart, your passion and the consumer.

20:17And I just you always have a story to tell. And I like being a part of founder led brands because I get to help tell your story, amplify your story. But that's why I fall in love with them. These two brands are in particular some of my favorites. I love the wellness commitment that we're making as a company. And Symbiotica has been such a great brand that we've introduced in the wellness category. story and then made by mitchell is an amazing brand with just so much color and it meets the needs of where i think the consumer is at right now they we need a color right yeah we need color but we also need inclusivity representation in the beauty space it's been something that has just never existed in the right way and you know when you go into a retailer sometimes they'll only give you a certain amount of space to showcase a certain amount of product but ultra have always allowed me to really do what i want when it comes to showcasing product because i could have just put two of my best selling shades of a curve case which is my best selling product on the shelves but i decided no we need to put all six of them on there so ulta really allowed us to have that space and to represent people that might not always be the top buyers but at least one once they do want to come and buy that option is there for them so yeah i think that's that's our mission as a brand it's really great to hear you say that i mean we do um we pride ourselves on being the welcoming, inclusive and approachable, accessible destination for beauty and wellness.

21:38We didn't prepare that. It came out and it comes out really naturally and organically. So it's really nice to hear that from your perspective. Thank you. And that's always been my most important thing because my, I always say the Ulta staff are, they're my, the faces of the brand when I'm not there. So I want them to be able to really believe in what we're putting on the shelves so then they can sell it just as well as I would. So yeah, super organic. And I think that's when magic is made, when it just happens. Yes, authentically. Totally.

22:06Jim Stengel:The three of you have an aspiration and you're living it to build a brand people are proud to be a part of, that they choose to be a part of, that they feel an affinity to. So can you talk a little bit about how you did that? And I know you were building an audience before you built a brand and a business. So you had a very different so i'd like you to talk about your choice to do this your strategy how much of your teams talk about the brand and the kind of brand you want to be and the and the impact you want to make it in people's lives um well before i had the brand we launched october 2020 um right in the midst of lockdown we didn't know where we'd end up i never thought we'd end up where we're here where we are now but before i was a founder i was a makeup artist for five six years and i'd traveled the world teaching beauty and technique and I think what I really realized that beauty didn't have a language it was everyone can understand it because everyone can see it and everyone can feel it no matter what language that you spoke and I'd traveled from Australia to South America to everywhere you name it I'd been there and what I'd learned from that experience of meeting people from all walks of life is just how much people love to feel beautiful in their own way you know not in what society classes and deems as beautiful but what they deem as beautiful um and i think that's where my idea for made by mitchell really came about um i always say the motto is made by mitchell but it's made for everyone um and that's not just to do with skin tone it's to do with preference as well and i think the more that the brand grows is it becomes even more important to go back to that first mission of to just create something for everyone because the bigger we get, the more demand we get.

23:47So why not broaden that horizon of what we can provide to the consumer and the community? That's really what has led me to being this kind of founder and for the brand to be the kind of brand that it is today. Totally.

23:59Jim Stengel:And you put your name on the brand and you did not. So I want to talk about that. Why did you make that choice? The brand is Mahat. So it kind of, it made so much sense. I had named it Made by Mitchell because I knew one day that the brand would be way more than just beauty. and we were actually having the conversation a few weeks ago it was going to be called Mitchell Beauty and I think and I'm like that sounds terrible but made by Mitchell it just spoke more words than few you know and I was very proud to put my name on it very very proud not saying that you're not proud if you don't want to put your name on it I also think that's a very clever thing to do sometimes but it just felt really right and I wanted people to know that it was me that had created it and I still want people to know that I've created it with my amazing team of course yeah it just spoke to me and it's the if i was ever a brand it would be made by mitchell so it made so much sense how do you know with your customers that you're a brand that they're proud of how do you measure that how do you know when you meet them in person and when you see the varied kinds of people that you meet in person i've got mums i've got kids i've got you know people from every single country on the planet that shops up our product one way or another whether it's through a really boutique reseller that we don't know about or whether it's you know they fly to London and go to Boots or go to America and go to Ulta I think that's when I know that I can be proud of other people being proud of something that I've built because it's it's done exactly what I wanted it to do six years ago nearly to be made for everyone and everyone can see themselves whether it's in a campaign or a product or even in a model that I use on a tutorial that's educating it's always about just making sure that everyone can be a part of it or feel a part of it.

25:38And that's the first step into the brand. And yeah, that's my proudest part anyway, just meeting people in person and hearing how it makes them feel totally.

25:50Jim Stengel:Darana, we met a year ago and I met your daughters and your wonderful husband who's here and I might bring him into the conversation as I did last year. So get ready. And your business is now bigger. You're creating a brand that more people want to be a part of. So could you talk about that feeling. You're scaling. You're scaling a wonderful idea you had at one time. It was a very small idea. And it really came from two places. One, we both came from a corporate background. AT &T, right? AT &T, yes. And we realized that the greatest IP that we owned was our time. And we didn't have that. And then the second thing is that true luxury is your health.