Advertising: Sephora Black Beauty Is Beauty CSP

 Wider reading on Sephora Black Beauty Is Beauty

Read these articles on the Sephora campaign: 

The Drum: Black Beauty is Beauty by RGA
Glossy: Sephora celebrates Black beauty in new digital and TV campaign

Refinery29: Sephora’s ‘Black Beauty Is Beauty’ Short Film Celebrates Black Innovation

Complete the following questions/tasks:

1) What was Sephora trying to achieve with the campaign?

In this campaign, Sephora was trying to highlight everything about "black beauty" and diversity by showing the history of make-up and beauty and how they were made mostly by the black community and the men that are shown to be wearing make-up in the advertisement.

2) What scenes from the advert are highlighted as particularly significant in the articles?

Some scenes that would be highlighted would be the split screen images of the makeup and the archived image of the salon with black women in them, there is also another split screen image of a plan of a hairbrush which was made by the black community, all of the videos of people wearing make up including some men show the diversity side of the advertisement.

3) As well as YouTube, what TV channels and networks did the advert appear on?

Oprah Winfrey channel and the BET channel so that they can show black entertainment on American TV

4) Why does the Refinery29 article suggest the advert 'doesn't feel performative'? 

It talks about how no one is left out in the advertisement and how it is very inclusive, they say that "instead of dipping the toe in 'diversity'" they are "fully submerged"

5) What is the 15 per cent pledge and why is it significant?
It is the pledge the company made that they would aim to have 15% of makeup products made by black-owned brands, this was in hopes of increasing the success of the brands that were being included.

Advertising agency feature

The Black Beauty Is Beauty advertising spot was created by global creative agency R/GA. Look at their website feature on the project and answer the following questions:

1) Why did Sephora approach R/GA to develop the advert?

They "already had a plan ready" in order to "do something about racial equity in the beauty industry". They had come to R/GA to combat racial bias in their stores and wanted to do more then post a "black square" but in order to do this they needed help to talk about it to R/GA about its "commitment" to the cause. 

2) What was the truth that R/GA helped Sephora to share?

They said that "black beauty is beauty" which shows that there is no other form of beauty but one and it is to not be separated by race. They had also shown all of the things that they enjoy doing in their community like how they have different tools and beauty trends.

3) How did the advert 'rewrite the narrative'?

They showed how the black community had come up with the beauty products, tools and styles such as how they had come up with the "cut creases" and the design of the hair brush and many of the other types of styles they had come up with.

Sephora website: Black Beauty Is Beauty

Visit the Sephora website page on Black Beauty Is Beauty. Answer the following questions:

1) How does Sephora introduce the campaign?

They introduce the campaign by trying to get an image of being inclusive of everyone, they then talk about the history of how makeup was introduced by the black community. They also talk about how they have a "responsibility"

2) What statistics are highlighted on the website? 

-3% of brands at major beauty retailers are Black-owned

-less than 1% of venture capital funding goes to Black-owned businesses

-78% of shoppers across the retail industry don’t see enough brands owned by or made for people of colour

-2 in 5 shoppers across the retail industry have personally experienced unfair treatment on the basis of their race or skin colour

3) What do we learn about Garrett Bradley - the director of the advert? 

Garrett is an American artist and filmmaker who works on themes including race, class, and the history of film in the US. 

In 2020, she was the first Black woman to win "best director of a Documentary" at Sundance. The film was nominated for Best Documentary Feature at the 2021 Academy Awards.

Media language: textual analysis

Watch the advert again and answer the following questions that focus on technical and verbal codes. Use your notes from the lesson to help you here.  

1) How does the advert use camerawork to communicate key messages about the brand?

In the advert there are a lot of close-ups and extreme close up which may be used in order to highlight the different products that the people in the advert are using, this can also be to highlight the "beauty" of the people in the advert so that the "black beauty" slogan is more related to what is going on, on screen.

2) How is mise-en-scene used to create meanings about black beauty and culture?

Props such as hair brushes are shown which the first plans and hairbrushes were designed by the black community, we can also see that there are more traditional themes such as the dancers in the carnival costumes and how some of the archive footage shows the old clothing that they used to wear. This shows how long and prominent black culture in fashion and makes has been and to further shows that none of these would have happened without these people.

3) How is editing used to create juxtapositions and meanings in the advert?

In the editing, we can see that it has a lot of references to older times such as the screen wipe used and the multiple square boxes and how some of the shots are split-screened to show some older pictures of people in a salon, this is used to juxtapose the current to the past and to show how far people and the development of makeup has come.

4) How are verbal codes used to create meanings in the advert - the voiceover and text on screen? 

In the advert we can hear a lot of repetition about "black beauty" which reinforces and empowers the cause that the advert is trying to convey, we can see that the company is trying to relate to the audience when they say that "we can't wait to post". There is also a use of the rhetorical question "What is beauty without black beauty?".

5) What is the overall message of the advert? 

I think that the overall message is that if these people from the black community were to never make any of these types of products then makeup would be a lot smaller and would not have these ideas which revolutionise them. I also think that it brings light to the works that the black community has done and how most of was unknown until the advert.