Sephora's First Mini Beauty Studio in the Philippines

Timeline: March-June 2019

Background

Sephora is currently only on e-commerce in the Philippines. Although the market has high propensity to spend on beauty, with consumers allotting 10% of their income on makeup and skincare, market e-commerce penetration is only 3%, so there’s a lot of untapped potential on retail-loving beauty junkies. Therefore, it’s important to have brand visibility and offline presence in key seasons, if not on an always-on basis.

Problem

Sephora cannot have any commercial activations and strong direct offline marketing due to legal and FDA registration reasons.

Solution

Thus, we partnered with retail giant Forever 21 for on-the-ground and PR event initiatives, acting as a co-presenter of their key launches. From May to June, Sephora had an interactive booth in the biggest branch of Forever 21.

This is the first onground presence of Sephora in the Philippines. The booth offered an interactive and welcoming experience to every passerby. They are able to swatch and try on the products, get advice from beauty advisors, and avail of free makeover. Most importantly, the booth urged beauty junkies to download the app and purchase at sephora.ph via enticing them with discounts and GWPs. This is also the company's most resourceful local non-cosmetic brand collaboration yet. Sephora became Forever 21's official makeup partner in their launches and fashion shows, while Forever 21 provided the venue for the booth.

Results

- 100% ROI

- 35% sales uplift in products featured; an indication that onground trial resulted to online purchases

- 5 million earned media impressions. Unpaid social posts and articles from some of the biggest beauty and fashion names: Preview.ph, Cosmopolitan, Metro, ABS CBN, Philippine Star, to name a few

- 40% traffic uplift

My role in this project

I am overall initiator, lead, PR head, and project manager. I closed the deal with Forever 21, managed the events agency, invited all the press and celebrity attendees, coordinate with Paid Marketing, Social, and Creatives to come up with digital push strategy and content.