Cosmetics giant Sephora has launched its newest campaign, and it is all about Black beauty, reported Glossy. The “Black Beauty is Beauty” campaign shows how Black culture has influenced the beauty industry, and the campaign will dovetail with a spotlight on Black-owned brands.
Sephora’s 60-second ad runs through various scenes that show Black people engaging in beauty rituals. The opening line is, “What is beauty without Black beauty?” In one scene, there’s a beauty parlor. In another scene, people in a dressing room are preparing for a drag show. The purpose is to shed light on the trends and tools of beauty history and their connection to Black culture.
“When [society] was going through its racial reckoning [in 2020], there was a huge search increase in Black-owned brands and efforts to support Black-owned restaurants or stores, but that has dropped off,” said Abigail Jacobs, Sephora’s vice president of Integrated Marketing and Brand. Sephora is not interested in seeing that trend wane, so the business has decided to throw its support behind Black-owned beauty brands.
On June 10, 2020, Sephora committed to reserving 15% of its shelf space to Black-owned brands. This is more of a long-term goal that the company hopes to reach in the future. Thus far, Black brands are 5% of its total portfolio. The company also reconfigured its 5-year-old Accelerate program to include more BIPOC brands. The Accelerate program offers mentorship, grants, and funding in a bootcamp-style set-up.
Despite over 100 years of Black beauty brands, the market has gone relatively ignored in the mainstream space due to the perception that Black-owned businesses only make products for Black people. Sephora is attempting to change that. JCPenney and Ulta have also begun their own diversity initiatives to introduce more Black beauty brands into the mainstream.
The Sephora campaign will run on major networks such as BET and OWN and streaming platforms Hulu, HBO Max, and YouTube.
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