ULTA Beauty Selects Mullen as New Agency-of-Record

ULTA Beauty, a nationwide retailer of beauty products and salon services, has selected Mullen, an Interpublic Group (NYSE: IPG) owned agency, as its new advertising agency-of-record following a competitive review. Mullen prevailed based on strategic and creative thinking, as well as deep retail, beauty product and marketing-to-women expertise. The agency formed a multi-office team with personnel from its Boston headquarters and MullenNC presenting to the ULTA team.

Mullen will begin working with ULTA immediately developing creative and media content for implementation in key markets later this year.

“ULTA is focused on continuing to build a leadership brand in beauty and Mullen’s combination of outstanding brand strategy and breakthrough creative will help us accelerate our efforts,” said Dave Kimbell, Chief Marketing Officer and Senior Vice President at ULTA Beauty.

“ULTA has a visionary leadership and marketing team with a compelling plan for evolving the brand,” said Mullen CEO Alex Leikikh.

Mullen has been active in the beauty products category in the past with its work on Unilever’s treSemme brand of hair care products. The agency has also worked with numerous national retailers, including Barnes & Noble, T.J. Maxx and Zappos. Additionally, Mullen operates Frank About Women, one of the leading marketing-to-women consultancies in the country, a key area of relevant expertise in the beauty products category.

The ULTA review was managed by the Mercer Island Group management consultancy. The win represents continued growth at Mullen, on the heels of gaining the Indeed.com business late in 2013 and the truTV brand earlier this year.

About ULTA Beauty

ULTA Beauty is the largest beauty retailer that provides one-stop shopping for prestige, mass and salon products and salon services in the United States. ULTA Beauty provides affordable indulgence to its customers by combining unmatched product breadth, value and convenience with the distinctive environment and experience of a specialty retailer. ULTA Beauty offers a unique combination of over 20,000 prestige and mass beauty products across the categories of cosmetics, fragrance, haircare, skincare, bath and body products and salon styling tools. ULTA Beauty also offers a full-service salon and a wide range of salon haircare products in all of its stores. As of February 1, 2014 the Company operates 675 retail stores across 46 states and also distributes its products through the Company’s website: www.ulta.com.

About Mullen

Mullen is a “hyperbundled” agency, integrating disciplines from creative to digital marketing, media planning and buying, mobile marketing, public relations and social influence, design, CRM and performance analytics. Mullen specializes in working with thought-leader brands, including Acura, Google, JetBlue, Zappos, U.S. Cellular, FAGE, American Greetings and iRobot. Mullen has been named to the Advertising Age Agency A-List and as one of Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies. The agency is headquartered in Boston, with additional offices in L.A., San Francisco, Pittsburgh and Winston-Salem, NC and is an independent brand within the Interpublic Group of Companies (NYSE:IPG). For more on Mullen, please visit mullen.com, twitter.com/mullenunbound or facebook.com/mullenunbound.