Sephora wanted to boost awareness of the launch of its first-ever new perfume line and test a completely fresh approach to its digital advertising messaging and creative. In this first-of-its-kind exploration, I worked alongside a super talented Facebook team including Becky Owen, Jane Han, Josefine Billström and Calle Sjoenell, supporting the development of the campaign creative strategy and consulting on creative and technical implementation of the AR experiences.
When Sephora decided to launch its first perfume, “Do Not Drink,” by building a campaign that moved beyond the traditional approach and creative for fragrance. Neuroscience shows that scent and taste share the same receptors in the brain—and taste can act as a powerful proxy for scent. So for its fragrance launch, Sephora decided to build a new eye-catching campaign with the theme “Smell with Your Eyes” that incorporated images to suggest certain tastes.
To translate specific scents into visual interpretations of the fragrances’ ingredients, Sephora chose to collaborate with Instagram creators with diverse voices who could produce original, mobile-first assets to run on Facebook and Instagram. Specifically, Sephora teamed with Jessica Herrington and Roman Bratschi.
Jessica is a neuroscientist creator specializing in digital sensory experiences whose doctoral research translated fragrance notes into analogous visual cues. She created three different Augmented Reality (AR) filters that played with three different fragrance ingredients’ textures, colors, shapes and movements. Roman, a 3D animation designer, created eye-catching videos that highlighted the different notes in the fragrances and evoked each scent as a sensory mashup.
Sephora Collection France then ran Augmented Reality ads that used the filters in Facebook News Feed, and promoted Jessica and Roman’s 3D videos in both Facebook and Instagram News Feed.
To understand how well this new strategy worked, Sephora ran a split test consisting of its business-as-usual, brand-only creative assets in one cell, compared against a second cell with a combination of the creators’ assets plus brand-only assets. The team showed the ads in both Instagram and Facebook feed and Stories.
Sephora measured the results of its August 10–25, 2020 campaign using a Facebook brand lift study and reporting data in Facebook Ads Manager, which revealed:
17-point lift in ad recall with creator assets plus business-as-usual assets, compared to business-as-usual assets alone
6.6-point higher lift in ad recall from creator assets plus business-as-usual assets, compared to business-as-usual assets alone
2.4-point higher lift in standard favorability from creator assets plus business-as-usual assets, compared to business-as-usual assets alone
1.3-point higher lift in purchase intent from creator assets plus business-as-usual assets, compared to business-as-usual assets alone
Facebook for Business
“we needed a bold new digital ad strategy to successfully stand out in a crowded category”
- SAMANTHA ETIENNE, CEO, SEPHORA COLLECTION