Madison Reed, Ulta Expand Partnership Nationally

San Francisco-based Madison Reed is expanding its partnership with Ulta Beauty to bring the prestige hair care brand and its "Madi” chatbot to roughly 1,200 stores in the U.S.

The expansion comes about two years after the duo’s first collaboration, which brought Madison Reed products to select Ulta stores and ulta.com. Now, the Illinois-based retailer will offer a full array of the brand’s “salon-quality” hair care, in stores, including radiant hair color kits, color reviving gloss, root touch-up powder, color-protecting shampoo and conditioner and hair care primer.

Nearly all Ulta stores will also carry the brand’s Light Works balayage highlighting kit, which originally launched in 100 locations in 2018 and won an Allure "Best of Beauty Breakthrough Award" that same year.

Madison Reed also integrated the “Madi” chatbot it first introduced in 2017 to the exclusive partnership with Ulta. Shoppers can text a selfie to “34757” and the AI-powered Madi will do what she normally does: ask a few quick questions and make a hair color recommendation. However, rather than directing shoppers to madison-reed.com to purchase the suggested color, it directs to a “radiant hair color kit” e-commerce page within ulta.com.

“Ulta Beauty’s commitment to hair color and hair care has been unwavering, and they are the undisputed market leader in hair as a result,” said Amy Errett, chief executive officer and founder of Madison Reed. “Our expansion into stores nationwide reflects the mutual admiration our companies have and the strong performance of [our] products to date.”

Madison Reed was a finalist in CGT's 2017 "SMB Award" competition.