Last year, Sephora debuted an ad highlighting Black culture’s role in beauty trends and products. It came roughly a year after it was the first major retailer to join a pledge to allocate 15% of shelf space to Black-owned brands.
Shannon Washington, SVP and executive creative director at R/GA New York, the agency behind the ad, told Marketing Brew that Sephora didn’t want its commitment to be perceived as self-congratulatory. According to Washington, Sephora recognized that the 15 Percent Pledge “was something that they should be doing,” so it “sparked the conversation away from making an ad about a CSR opportunity.”
What they came up with instead was more of a thesis, she said, disguised as a short film. Directed by Academy Award nominee Garrett Bradley, “Black Beauty Is Beauty” is just one-minute long, but packed with historical references to the Black community’s influence in the beauty industry. We chatted with Washington to discuss the creative vision behind the film.
Bridging the gap: “The biggest misconception when it comes to Black-owned brands, women-owned brands, Asian-owned brands, etc. is that when you put that signifier in front of something, generally, the public thinks that product is for that signifier only,” Washington told us. That’s why, she said, it was important for the ad to highlight beauty items and techniques that people of all races use, thanks to the work of Black inventors. One example featured in the film is the synthetic-bristle hairbrush, patented by Lyda D. Newman, a Black inventor, in 1898.
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Inclusivity: “[Black beauty culture] has always, typically, been a very safe space for trans people, for LGBTQI+ people as a whole. And so we wanted to honor that,” Washington said. The ad celebrates ball culture and its makeup innovations, like “baking.”
SEO overhaul: “Black beauty is behind many of the trends, products, and styles we love, but it rarely gets the credit it deserves, especially online,” states a follow-up to the short film. According to Washington, one of the team’s goals was to boost the phrase “Black beauty” on Google so search results show the history and trends related to Black beauty instead of surfacing results for the 1877 novel of the same name. “Both RG/A and Sephora invested [in] and essentially influenced the algorithm and influenced the search results, so if you started to then search Black beauty, especially on the image search, the first thing that you would see is our spot.”
Hit rewind: When it comes to historical context, the short film shows and tells. The voiceover tells us that “without Black beauty,” there would be no “cut creases,” no “beat faces,” and that its “influence is universal.” Washington said the accompanying music was intentionally thought out. “The main goal was to keep you grounded in the story,” she said, emphasizing the need for music to weave together the different scenes and create a sense of place.