Sephora Launches $25 Million U.S. Ad Campaign

Sephora, a Paris-based beauty and cosmetics retail group, has launched its first-ever U.S. advertising campaign, coinciding with the Oct. 14 opening of its flagship store at Rockefeller Center in New York City and the launch of its Web site.

The campaign, designed by DDB New York, uses a series of elegant Rorschach-type inkblot images in various colors and forms “to embrace the Sephora experience of freedom, discovery and imagination.” The tag line “beauty is how you see it.”

The integrated campaign includes magazine, television and Internet advertising, and outdoor in New York City.

“The Sephora experience is about personal freedom and the luxury of defining beauty for yourself. This is what led us to recreate the inkblot, or Rorschach test, for the Sephora campaign, as it is an icon representing personal interpretation,” said Steven Landsberg, co-chief creative officer at DDB/NY.

First launched in France, Sephora is a fragrance, cosmetics and well-being product retailing concept. Cosmetics are sold in a setting that allows customers, without assistance from sales associates, to sample and select products.

The company’s e-commerce site is designed to allow customers to experience the Sephora retailing concept online, the company said. Sephora operates 182 stores on Europe and 37 stores in the U.S.