Madison Reed CMO Michelle Peterson Talks Firm’s Omnichannel Expansion Efforts

00:00 Speaker A

Madison Reed is entering its next phase of growth, expanding across e-commerce, retail, partnerships and its growing nationwide footprint of hair color bars. Joining us now is Michelle Peterson, the company’s new chief marketing officer, to talk about what’s driving that momentum and what’s next for the brand. Michelle, thank you so much for joining us. Happy to have you.

00:27 Speaker B

Thanks for having me, Lance.

00:29 Speaker A

So, you’ve helped scale several well-known consumer brands. What about Madison Reed’s mission and growth story made this the right next opportunity for you?

00:46 Speaker B

Yes, absolutely. So I’ve been inspired for many years on what Amy Errett has done founding this brand. And what inspired me was a few things. The first is the product and the experience. She saw this opportunity to disrupt a category and create a product that gives consumers stunning results and is a better for you product all at the same time. And I was really inspired by that.

01:21 Speaker B

The second is the opportunity to build after many years as a chief marketing officer, I was not looking for a company that’s just business as usual. and there’s so much opportunity here to grow awareness and bring this incredible brand to more consumers and really instill confidence in women. And the third inspiration was the people. Amy is a remarkable leader, incredibly business savvy, and very inspirational and empowering.

01:57 Speaker B

And she’s created this company that is the same with incredible talent and built on values like joy and responsibility and love. I mean, like who has love as a value in their company?

02:15 Speaker A

Yeah, it’s one of the most important for sure. and you’re taking the reigns of marketing, creative and product innovation. How do you plan to strengthen the Madison Reed brand as it continues to expand across both digital and physical channels?

02:40 Speaker B

Mhm. There’s such a great opportunity to build and bring those three functions together in a really cohesive way. And we’re going to be focused on three things in the coming year. The first is driving awareness through really being more culturally relevant. The brand has an opportunity to accelerate and be part of those cultural conversations that are really important to our consumer. The second area that we’re focused on is continuing to elevate our modern marketing vehicles with AI and consumer’s loving in real life activations.

03:13 Speaker B

There’s just constantly an opportunity to renovate how we talk to consumers. And then the third area is loyalty. We have a very important membership base to the business and we constantly look for ways to drive that loyalty and to really um drive the satisfaction of our very important consumers. So, consumers will see new campaigns for from us and new ways of talking to them and sharing content and then new perks in our loyalty programs.

03:52 Speaker A

Love that mention of loyalty. I always say if you don’t have loyalty, what else do you got? Your experience at Kendra Scott included leading marketing through a period of significant omnichannel growth. What lessons from that experience do you hope to bring to Madison Reed?

04:10 Speaker B

Yes, in some ways the brands are so similar. It’s a, you know, female founded and female led business. and much of the growth of Kendra Scott over the last many years. We’re first bringing to life this incredible story of how Kendra created the business. Um, a second similarity is cultural relevance. We’ve spent a lot of time over the last few years, whether it was through different collaborations, through different campaigns, really linking to culture.

04:47 Speaker B

And then we’ve learned a lot about really delivering on our consumer and giving her the right product and just a really special experience that delights her and brings her back many times.

05:05 Speaker A

Now, Madison Reed has nearly 100 hair color bar locations alongside its at-home business. And I think my wife’s even telling me that I I need to get my hair done. So I might be hitting up one of those locations. Now, how important is it to create a seamless experience between those two channels, right, the in person as well as the at home?

05:25 Speaker B

Yeah, that’s part of what um what my experience brings to this business is I’ve been in many omnichannel businesses across fashion and lifestyle. and in at Madison Reed, all of those areas are growing and changing. So we’re just about to open our 100th hair color bar and that experience is really important to consumers. It’s an incredible value and so convenient for just stunning, stunning results. We sell through many retail partners like Ulta and that business is doubling in size.

06:05 Speaker B

So again, really important for us to deliver a consistent product that’s better for you. And then through our own Madison Reed and digital channels, we’re having incredible growth. So us as a marketing team always focus on the omnichannel experience, delighting her in all of those ways, and then having a really consistent 360 message is um really what contributes to a lot of that growth.

06:33 Speaker A

Well, Michelle, let me be the first to uh preemptively congratulate you for that uh 100th Hair Bar when that time comes. Thank you so much for joining us here on NYC Live.

06:48 Speaker B

Wonderful. Thanks for having me, Lance.