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?

• The campaign is part of the retailer’s broader commitment to advancing racial equity in the beauty and retail sectors.

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

•  beauty parlor
• a drag show dressing room
• and a Black mother with her daughter.

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

• The campaign was across TV networks and digital channels like BET, OWN Hulu, HBO Max and YouTube; branded content and podcast advertising through Vox and New York Magazine’s The Cut; and digital ads across social media networks. 

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

• Thanks to Bradley’s vision, inclusion of history and all body types, orientations and races, Black Beauty Is Beauty doesn’t feel performative. No one feels left out. The film has more inclusion in its under-a-minute runtime than two hour features have in their whole film. Rather than dipping a toe in “diversity,” Bradley and Sephora fully submerged us and created a beautiful film that sees us. And we didn’t even have to wait until Black History Month to be acknowledged. 

5) What is the 15 per cent pledge and why is it significant?

• Sephora pledges on June 10, 2020 that at least 15% of their shelves for Black-owned brands.

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?

• Sephora came to R/GA ready to do something about racial equity in the beauty industry. The company had already signed the 15% pledge—a commitment to dedicate at least 15% of shelf space to Black-owned brands. It had already commissioned a study on racial bias in retail and was making plans to combat bias in its own stores. Sephora was doing the work above and beyond posting a “black square,” but needed their help to talk about its commitment.

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

• They helped Sephora share a truth Black people have known forever: The ingenuity and influence of Black people have led to many of the beauty trends, ingredients, tools, and language we all enjoy. In short, Black Beauty Is Beauty. It was time to give credit where it’s due and encourage the beauty industry to do the same.

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

• The work was equal parts thesis and campaign spelling out the influence of Black beauty culture on mainstream beauty. Our launch film credited Black beauty for the cut crease, the hairbrush, and many more beauty staples we all enjoy. An editorial partnership with The Cut and an SEM takeover allowed us to continue sharing that history and giving Black beauty culture the credit it deserves.

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?

• At Sephora, we believe in championing all beauty, living with courage, and standing fearlessly together to celebrate our differences. Today’s mainstream beauty trends, tools, and products have deep roots in Black culture—and not everyone knows it. As a leading beauty retailer, we are able to—and have a responsibility to—shine a spotlight on the Black voices, creators, and brand founders whose contributions have shaped the beauty industry. We hope you’ll join us in supporting the Black beauty community.

2) What statistics are highlighted on the website? 

• 3% of brands at major beauty retailers are Black owned
• <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 whose work focuses 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 for her film Time. The film was also notably nominated for Best Documentary Feature at the 2021 Academy Awards. This is her commercial debut.

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?

• Tracking shots
• Close up
• Zoom
• Camera pan
• Handheld camera
• Extreme close up

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

• Image of mother and child, warm light, loving, appreciative
• Positive images that challenge negative stereotypes about black communities in media
• Mixing products, black women
• Drag queens show black lgbt community also contributes to black beauty
• Male presenting people wearing makeup
• Relatable images that are familiar to audiences, suggesting sephora is a familiar brand

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

• Splitscreen between old and new
• Contrast between black history and modern beauty trends
• White woman doing cut creases to black drag queens doing cut creases

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

• Styles we cant wait to post, online beauty vloggers, cultural appropriation and misrepresentation online where celebrities and influencers will take credit for ideas without acknowledging minorities
• Join sephora suggests that sephora as a brand is at the front of equality, presented as inclusive, promotion deliberately presents company as willing to fight for ethnic diversity despite previous racism controversies
• Focus on message rather than product

5) What is the overall message of the advert? 

• The overall message is how the mainstream beauty and popular trends that are followed across the world all stem from black beauty culture. Sephora wants to relay this message and claim back what originally belonged and celebrate black beauty.

Media factsheet

Finally, go to our Media Factsheet archive on the Media Shared drive and open Factsheet #259: Sephora Online Advert - Black Beauty Is Beauty. Our Media Factsheet archive is on the Media Shared drive: M:\Resources\A Level\Media Factsheets. If you need to access this from home you can find our factsheet archive here (you'll need to use your Greenford login).

1) Look at the exam hint on the first page. How does Sephora as a brand and the CSP specifically reflect contemporary social and cultural contexts? 

• The advert is an example of a contemporary media product and should be used to support the study of the theoretical framework (media language and media representations). It should also be used to explore the theories and debates required within the specification. It will also enable a discussion of the relevant social, cultural, historical, economic, and political contexts. Detailed study of the Sephora Black Beauty is Beauty advert should enable an understanding of how conventions of advertising are socially and culturally relative, dynamic, and can be used in a hybrid way.

2) Media theory: how are Butler, Gauntlett, bell hooks and Gilroy applied to the CSP?

• Butler argues that gender is not strictly divided into two categories, male and female, but rather exists on a spectrum of gender identity. Gender is a social construct in which individuals “perform” their gender. This is represented in the advert when drag queens, who are anatomically male, perform traditionally female rituals by applying make-up.
• The Sephora advert reinforces Gauntlett’s ideas that there is now a much broader range of representations in the media, challenging traditional notions of gender identity. Gauntlett discusses the idea that identity is not fixed, and audiences can use media texts to help shape their sense of self by selecting versions of ourselves we want to “adopt”. Gauntlett says, “Identity is complicated, everyone’s got one.” The text provides the audience with an array of options for how  people of colour could present their identity.
• hooks’ notion that black women are excluded from mainstream media representations is contested in this text. In the advert, the Sephora brand aims to attract a diverse audience, and all the females featured are people of colour. They are no longer marginalised; instead, “black beauty” is celebrated and recognized for its impact on the industry.

3) What aspects of media language are highlighted on page 3 of the factsheet? 

• As the advert starts, the scene is established in a beauty salon for black women. The camera pans across the salon in a typically fluid motion, a common convention of video advertising that creates a sense of momentum and energy. Medium close-up shots of the tools of the “trade” are used to communicate the idea that beauty comprises many elements that can be attributed to black origins. The advert then utilises split screens and mirror shots to provide origin stories for tools and to showcase the products in action, creating a binary opposition between old versus new. There are parallels drawn between black beauty inventions, history, current trends, and beauty products.  A close-up of a hairbrush is shown, which was patented by Lyda Newman, an African American activist and hairdresser who invented the bristle hairbrush. As the advert progresses, there are mentions of “cut creases” and “beat faces”, which are terms used within Black American and drag slang culture. The phrase “these icons” is used while showing old footage of black icons in fashion, emphasising how black history and culture are responsible for many iconic beauty looks and trends. An image of a mother doing her child’s hair is shown, and the voice-over references “a mother’s love”. Warm light is used to reinforce this positive moment between a mother and her daughter. This then transitions to a shot of smiling, dancing people, presenting a very positive image of happy individuals that helps to challenge the often negative stereotypes of black communities that are presented to us via the media.

4) How does the factsheet summarise the advert on the final page?

• At the end of the advert, the message “Join Sephora in supporting and celebrating Black beauty” conveys the idea that Sephora is a brand leading the campaign for equality. This may be an effort to address past racial controversies and present Sephora as a company championing ethnic diversity and equality. The capitalisation of the letter “b” in the word “black” emphasises the notion of black power, its dominance, and importance. Overall, the advert deviates from the conventional focus on individual products or brands and instead centres on the message of inclusivity and diversity. The audience is encouraged to relate to the depicted images of people in their own homes, bedrooms, and beauty salons, implying that this positivity is associated with the Sephora brand.

5) What are the four ideologies in advertising highlighted in task 8 on the final page of the factsheet? In your opinion, do you feel the Sephora CSP advert challenges or reinforces each of these?  

• Consumerism
• Reinforces
• Identity
• Reinforces
• Capitalism
• Reinforces
• Gender fluidity
• Reinforces

A/A* extension tasks

Read this Marketing Dive feature on how Sephora is trying to alter Google search trends and highlight racial bias in algorithms and machine learning. You may then want to think about the following questions: 

1)How is the Sephora advert an example of recent changes in media representations of ethnicity?

• Traditionally within media representations of ethnicity, Black people were marginalized and either underrepresented or portrayed with negative stereotyping. This is even more relevant with the beauty industry, considering the Eurocentric beauty standards of the West that often devalue Black women and their appearances. The Sephora advert subverts this by promoting positive images of Black beauty that honour and appreciate what black culture has contributed to modern beauty trends. 

2)What does the advert tell us about the way new technology is changing the way adverts are constructed?

• New technology has allowed adverts to break free of limiting time constraints and gives companies the ability to reach a much wider audience due to the global nature of the Internet. Adverts are also not bound by their conventions anymore, shown by the Sephora advert that focuses on its message of racial equality rather than directly displaying products from its stores. 

3)Why have brands moved towards online and social media platforms in their advertising?

• By choosing to spread their advertising campaigns through online and social media platforms, brands are now able to directly engage with consumers and forge relationships with them, shown by the Sephora advert which is deliberately made to be relatable to Black audiences. 

4)How does the idea of ingrained racial bias in algorithms link to some of the postcolonial ideas we have studied recently? 

• Ingrained racial bias in algorithms is reflective of a key postcolonial concept known as 'othering', defined by Paul Gilroy, where people from ethnic minorities are excluded and displaced to the margins of society. As ingrained bias in algorithms is caused due to the discriminatory selection of data and rules that it is trained with, it can be seen as a digital form of othering people of colour through technology that is written with unchecked biases.