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?

They were trying to show how black beauty is the blueprint for most of the popular makeup styles, this was after one of their security guard stopped SZA because she was black

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

Lyda D. Newman was an inventor and activist for women’s suffrage. She patented the first easy-to-clean hairbrush with synthetic bristles. In Black Beauty Is Beauty, Newman gets her flowers, with her patented hairbrush design highlighted in the film. 

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

Black Entertainment Television (BET) and Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN)

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 preformative. 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

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

Sephora pledges at least 15% of their shelves for Black-owned brands. Useful information about the challenges Black brands face is also on the page, plus a link to apply for their brand incubation, Sephora Accelerate, helping founders of colour create a successful business. 

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?

Lots of shots that highlighted domestic settings which reinforces how much we use products invented by black artists and how we all use it which emphasises the importance of their inventions and how useful they are. 

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

The domestic settings show how we use black beauty products daily and the different cultures and genders shown emphasise how influential and how everybody uses them.

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

they use split screen effects to show how they are historically influential and they use a collage to help show how many people use black beauty products 

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

They also help emphasise the influence and the importance of black beauty products and how global it is.

5) What is the overall message of the advert? 

That Sephora celebrate black beauty and wants the audience to as well

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? 

It enables the discussion of it and how is is relevant to society 

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

Butler - Gender is a performance - drag queens

Gauntlett - Identity is not fixed - the video presents a range of different representations for people of colour

bell hooks - Black women are excluded from mainstream media - no longer marginalises black people but instead celebrates 

Gilroy - Racial hierarchies - the advert does not reinforce the hegemonic stereotypes of white eurocentric beauty but celebrates the beauty of the underrepresented BAME community 

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

different close ups, mirror shots, split screens and binary opposition

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.

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?  

I agree that Sephora reinforces these but I think that they didn't mean to reinforce some of them like consumerism

Consumerism

The preoccupation of society with the acquisition of consumer goods

Identity

A person’s sense of self, meaning how they view themselves compared to other people

Capitalism

An economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production

Gender Fluidity

Denoting a person who does not identify themselves as having a fixed gender