2024 Winner

CASE SUMMARY

Sephora is a leading retailer with a purpose to expand the way the world sees beauty through its brand platform. They Belong to Something Beautiful. In 2023, Sephora wanted to bring new people in through their proprietary shade-matching tool, Colour iQ.

Colour iQ is an advanced technology for matching makeup to skin tone. Current shade matching only accounts for depth and undertone of skin colour, excluding those with darker skin. Colour iQ uses a specialized camera to capture skin shade, using depth, undertone, and saturation.

With AI, it recommends the best shade for a wider range of skin colours. Given Canada’s diversity, Colour iQ is powerful and nuanced enough to capture every Canadian’s beauty. Their objectives were to increase awareness, improve perceptions of inclusivity and get people into stores.

Even within Canada’s diverse population, many feel unseen by the beauty industry, including 63% women of colour — and most struggle to find makeup that complements their skin tone, especially for BIPOC individuals, 80% of whom struggle. They realized they could position Colour iQ as a tool for belonging and inclusivity.

Building on the belief that beauty thrives in diversity, the campaign was built around the insight that the uniqueness of your skin tone is a defining part of your beauty. They set out to show Canadians that every shade is beautiful and the diversity of Canada is something to celebrate.

In their pursuit of deeper engagement and attention-grabbing strategies, they harnessed multiple platforms and media channels, employing novel approaches to
captivate their audience.

They visualized existing data from 140,000+ unique Colour iQ scans, in a demonstration of Belonging. The marquee element was an immersive digital installation akin to a work of art. Located in downtown Toronto, a week-long event showcased Colour iQ and pushed people to the Sephora store across the street.

Their interactive experience turned 140,000+ Canadian colour matches into points of light across four enormous screens where visitors brought the data to life with motion and sound. Afterwards, visitors could discover their own unique shade with a
Sephora Beauty Advisor.

The installation launched with a press event that included a panel on diversity, and a partnership with entertainment show, eTalk.

TV and OLV featured a world of illuminated lights, representing all the shades of beauty found in Canada. Social included TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. Digital out-of-home boards extended the motif with city-specific executions encouraging people to discover their match in-store.

Through this multi-faceted and innovative approach, “Sephora Illumination” aimed not only to capture attention but also to immerse consumers in a celebration of individual beauty and diversity, resonating deeply across a wide range of platforms
and media channels.

They showcased the incredible spectrum of beauty that exists in Canada, and empowered people to feel confident in their unique beauty. It put Sephora on people’s minds, improved brand perceptions, and brought people in store.

The campaign earned over 240M impressions across news, fashion, and entertainment media. More than 12% believe Sephora to be an inclusive brand and 11% believe Sephora is a brand for someone like them. Sephora’s in-store scans increased by 60% nationally during the campaign period.

Overall, they demonstrated that celebrating individual beauty can drive business and inclusion simultaneously.

Credits

Agency: Zulu Alpha Kilo
Creative Chairman: Zak Mroueh
Chief Creative Officer: Brian Murray, Jenny Glover
Chief Design Officer: Stephanie Yung
Associate Creative Director / Copywriter: Christina Roche
Associate Creative Director / Art Director: Andrea Por
Designer: Ana-Marija Matic
Managing Director, Zulubot: Leslie Uy
Director of Interactive Production, Zulubot: Ece Inan
Account Team: Lisa Walton-Rixon, Shauna McKenna, Chris Rosario, Mike Sutton
Strategy Director: Heather Segal, Patrick Henderson, Elyssa Seidman
Client: Sephora Canada
Clients: Allison Litzinger, Vanessa Mosakos, Caitlin Lindsay, Candice Dixon, Sheila Legault, Kaleigh Henderson, Amy Scott
Media Agency: Zenith Media
Media Team: Nicole Macpherson, Rahmeen Fazal, Nima Bellefeuille
PR Agency: Middle Child
PR Team: Jackie Kleinberg, Courtney Steinhart, Laura Linden
Director of Integrated Production: Ola Stodulska
Agency Producer: Teresa Bayley, Jesse Brook
Production House: Zulubot
Executive Producer: Adam Palmer
Director: Jimmy Vi
Director of Photography: Jack Chen
Line Producer: Adam Rodness
Production Manager: Roman Hul
Coordinator: Steve Goetz
Photographer: Genevieve Charbonneau – Fuze Reps
Photography Producer: Daniela Favot
Offline Edit Company: Zulubot
Offline Edit Producer: Siddhi Patel
Editor: Micah Rix-Hayes
Editor Assistant: Adrian Gluvakovich
Colour Transfer Company: Alter Ego
Colourist: Eric Whipp, Andrew Ross
Colour Producer: Genna McAuliffe
Online Company: Fort York
Online Artists: Marco Polsinelli, Serina Choi
Online Producer: Erica Bourgault-Assaf
Recording Studio: Pirate Sound
Creative Director / Engineer: Ian Boddy
Voice Director: Alex Nursall
Audio Producer: Maggie Blouin-Pearl
French Agency: The French Shop
Account Manager: Jessica Dubois
Production Coordinator: Jennifer Lankry
Creative Studio: Superbien
XM Agency: Wondermakr
Studio Mac Artist: Pavel Petrycki
Studio Editor: Cecilia Bernach
Studio Retouching: Nabil Elsaadi
Printer: Seamliss Graphics