Sephora and Director Taika Waititi Make Christmas Gifting Easy

In a bold first-time collaboration, Sephora joins forces with Academy Award-winning filmmaker, Taika Waititi, on an all-new campaign titled, 'Don’t Overthink It. Give Something Beautiful.' to refresh holiday marketing through his signature wit and humour, offering a new twist on the festive season. 

Giving 'something beautiful' shouldn’t feel like rocket science. Heralding a return to a gifting approach that's frivolous, fun, and simple, Sephora gives shoppers a cheeky reminder that getting the right gift for all the people in your life can actually be wildly easy. 

To support this thinking, Sephora has enlisted Taika (in his first foray into beauty,) to bring his mastery at creating relatable, funny characters in a series of spots featuring your fabulous 'Aunt Ava,' your 'BFF’s Kid, Xander' and more, who help showcase how Sephora can be the solution to some of our most common gifting dilemmas.

Launching October 30th, this brand work marks a disruptive tone shift for Sephora and for the beauty category by leaning into humour and simplicity instead of sentimental holiday perfection. 

This stray from sentimental holiday tropes into the witty was born from the insight that the beauty category often takes the usual pressure to buy the 'perfect' gift to the next level. 

Research shows that 28% of the brand’s audience says shopping for beauty is too specific/personal, and 37% report the beauty store to be an intimidating place. 

The bottom line is that beauty products are viewed as hyper-personal, and it’s hard for stressed, prospective gifters to feel like they’re getting the right products for somebody else.

“Holiday gifting should be joyful, but for many, it often brings stress in the search for the perfect gift. To address this, we’ve created a campaign that highlights how seamless great gifting can be when you shop at Sephora,” said Zena Arnold, chief marketing officer at Sephora US. “We were excited to partner with Taika Waititi to capture the spirit of getting that perfect holiday gift through our ‘Don’t Overthink It. Give Something Beautiful.’ spots. At Sephora, we make the gift finding process easy, and I’m excited to bring this to life in a new approach based in consumer insight and storytelling.”

“The fine folk at Chiat and Sephora were very collaborative and made the shooting experience super fun. I was drawn to their scripts which were small and simple, yet big on heart. The stories appealed to my sensibilities, so it was an easy fit,” said Taika Waititi, Academy Award-winning filmmaker. 

"Venturing into humour and wit for our holiday campaign is an exciting new direction for Sephora, and collaborating with Taika on this campaign has been an absolute creative dream come true. We’re thrilled that our partnership with Sephora has resulted in such a fresh approach to the season. Pairing that with Taika’s filmic charm has allowed us to reimagine holiday storytelling in a way that feels both bold and fun." said Kirsten Rutherford, ECD, TBWA\Chiat\Day LA.

A seamless extension of the brand’s values of embracing authenticity and community, the campaign shamelessly celebrates that not every gift has to be deeply meaningful and thoughtful. A little bit of effort goes a long way at Sephora. A good gift is a good gift - it's not that deep.

Created in an ongoing partnership with creative agency TBWA\Chiat\Day LA, the campaign will launch with a series of :30s and :15s and additional cutdowns across TVC/Cinema, OLV/Paid Social and extending beyond to Streaming Audio, and OOH.