Sephora Black Beauty Is Beauty CSP

 Blog tasks: Sephora Black Beauty Is Beauty CSP

Work through the following tasks to make sure you're an expert on the Sephora CSP and particularly the wider social and cultural contexts.

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?

Make it known that they are not racist and they are inclusive and accept black beauty.

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

a drag show dressing room,  beauty parlour and a Black mother with her daughter.

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

OWN, Hulu, HBO max, BET

4) Why does the Refinery29 article suggest the advert '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. 

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.

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?

Establishing shots of location to show the settings where black people create beauty and show love.

close ups are a classic convention of beauty campaigns.

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

make up and hair tools and styles created by black people. there is a man wearing makeup which subverts gender roles.

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

Split screens used to show how black beauty influences everyday life for many people.

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

Voiceover tells the audience the history of black beauty and credits them

5) What is the overall message of the advert? 

to credit black history and culture for the impact they had on the beauty community

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? 

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?

Judith Butler: Gender fluidity

Butler argues that gender is not strictly divided into two

categories, male and female,

David Gauntlett: Identity

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”.

bell hooks: Intersectionality

Hooks’ notion that black women are excluded from mainstream

media representations is contested in this text.

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

The camera pans Medium close-up shots  split screens

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

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?  

I think this advert, reinforces consumerism , reinforces identity, reinforces gender fluidity