AQA A-Level Media Studies - Sephora

Production

Marketing company ‘R/GA Media’

Directed by Garrett Bradley

Produced in response to SZA’s tweet calling out Sephora for racially profiling her in store (audiences are likely to support SZA - this is the two-step flow theory)

Binary Oppositions

Patent designs vs modern day usage

Lyda Newman - patented first hairbrush with synthetic bristles

Shows their integrity and research as a brand

Belief driven buyers and mainstream social activism

BLM movement and the dominant ideology - people want their brands to allign with their beliefs

The Edelman Earned Brand study shows 86% of consumers expect brands to take one or more social actions beyond their products

Actions sephora took for belief driven buyers

Closing stores for diversity training

Comissioned a study finding BIPOC shoppers use “coping mechanisms” to avoid racial bias (e.g. keeping hands out of pcookets and wearing expensive clothes)

15% pledge to have black owned beauty product brands on shelves

David Gauntlett

Reflection of changing attitudes and complex representations

Supports target audience’s desire for change and positive representations could empower them

Representation of race/ethnicity

Diverse cast with diverse beauty routines - encoded message that many mainstream trends have roots in black culture. bell hooks argued that beauty in the mainstream has always been “encoded as white”

Draws attention to the racial bias in society - even things like google searches show a racial bias

Paul Gilroy - post-colonialism

Double consciousness - respondents to Sephora’s survery said they “ struggle to be seen beyond the physical” - have to bring designer handbags and interact with employees to let it be known they are spending money

Hence the advert avoids sephora stores - instead focusing on familiar places like beauty parlours (community and friendship) and a home of a mother and daughter (cozy and close)

Judith Butler - performativity

Gender is a ‘framework’ - drag subverted typical concepts of gender. It shows that gender is just a “stylized repeition of acts”

Representation of drag queens applying makeup - Sephora is celebrating and realising drag’s influence on mainstream beauty and recognising the fluidity of gender

Todorov

Equilbrium - Trad values, beauty seen as “white” and people not realising true origins of beauty products/techniques due to search engine bias

Disruption - BLM, big voices speaking out on social media

Recognition - Sephora closing down stores for diversity training and commissioning a study

Repair - Black beauty is beauty campaign (#blackbeauty for easy sharing online), sharing brand values to target audience

New equilibrium - Understanding the importance of black culture in the beauty industry and celebrating black owned brands

Barthes Codes

Cultural - “no baby hairs and laid edges” “cut creases” and more slang terms related to black culture

Enigma - “what is beauty without black beauty?”

Semantics - Colours in lights, purple/pink in club bathroom for socialising, warm lighting in home for comfort and warmth

Symbolic - split screen used throughout symbolises the deep history and effect on evolution that black people have in the industry

Proairetic - someone creating their own shea butter → transitions to people using it getting ready for some sort of festival

Stuart Hall - Reception

Intended - meant to make sephora feel safe and diverse

Negotiated - may appreciate the sentiment but feels that this is not enough

Oppositional - corporate diversity and are simply attempting to get more profit