Blog tasks: 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
Complete the following questions/tasks:
1) What was Sephora trying to achieve with the campaign?
1) What was Sephora trying to achieve with the campaign?
To improve racial equity in the beauty and retail sectors.
2) What scenes from the advert are highlighted as particularly significant in the articles?
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?
BET, OWN Hulu and HBO Max.
4) Why does the Refinery29 article suggest the advert 'doesn't feel performative'?
No one feels left out.
5) What is the 15 per cent pledge and why is it significant?
To ensure at least 15% of beauty products will be from the black culture and it's important as it promotes and gives credit to black culture.
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.
2) What was the truth that R/GA helped Sephora to share?
The truth that R/GA helped Sephora to share is the ingenuity and influence of Black people have led to many of the beauty trends, ingredients, tools, and language we all enjoy.
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. 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 deserved.
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."
2) What statistics are highlighted on the website?
- 3% of brands at major beauty retailors 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.
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?
There are many close up's and establishing shots. The close up are classic conventions of beauty advertising - both close ups of faces and products.
2) How is mise-en-scene used to create meanings about black beauty and culture?
The setting and lighting creates real warmth and love includes the living room, bedroom , kitchen and hair salon as well as the woman that is doing the voice over.
3) How is editing used to create juxtapositions and meanings in the advert?
The split screen crates division between old and new.
4) How are verbal codes used to create meanings in the advert - the voiceover and text on screen?
"Join Sephora in supporting and celebrating Black beauty"
'join' is an imperative that is asking the audience to join them or otherwise they might feel like they are peurposly ignoring the call for change sephora is trying to deliver.
5) What is the overall message of the advert?
The message on the surface is to promote and give awareness to the public on how black culture has impacted the beauty industry. However, it is easy to think that Saphora are only doing this due to the scandal that happened and are only trying to save their brand.
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?
Sephora is doing this by emphasising the importance of promote diversity. This further adds to the ongoing movement towards representation of Black mainstream conventions.
2) Media theory: how are Butler, Gauntlett, bell hooks and Gilroy applied to the CSP?
Butler argues that gender is a social construct in which individuals “perform” their gender. This is represented in the advert when drag queens, who are biologically male, perform traditionally female rituals by applying make-up.
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. 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.
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.
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
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