Let’s face it, Black Beauty is behind many of the trends, products, and styles we love. However, we rarely get the credit or recognition we deserve—especially online.
When you Google search Black Beauty, you are met with pages upon pages of search results, highlighting a black horse. Although the horse is both beautiful and mystical, the lack of diversity in the search results definitely warrants the question: Where are the images of Black women and men that showcase our beauty? Where is the wealth of information and stories about our many rich shades of melanin? We deserve better representation.
Starting today, Sephora is starting the initiative to change the way we see, discover, and learn about our beauty. As an extension of Sephora’s successful “Black Beauty is Beauty” campaign — which launched earlier this month — R/GA Media is embarking on a project to bring real Black Beauty to the top of the search results on Google.
Currently, when you search “K Beauty,” “French Beauty,” or “J Beauty” online, you will get images of people and products that represent these cultures, but when you search “Black Beauty,” you will get content about a fictional horse, which is strange especially since Black people spend a whopping $1.1 billion on beauty products annually. And that doesn’t even include the boatloads spent on weaves, extensions, etc.
To bring Black Beauty to the top of the algorithms, R/GA’s team devised a strategy to own the search experience on Google and YouTube in order to push our beauty content higher to the top and improve discoverability. The partnership is also calling on people to tag their content with #BlackBeauty to help bring real content to the top of search results.
“With this effort, we set out to change the search experience, and correct an overlooked error via a simple, but smart search hack,” says Ellie Bamford, SVP, Global Head of Media and Connections at R/GA. “Media has the ability to change people’s experiences, and this idea, in particular, will help shed bias and shine a light on the bias that does exist in the everyday search experience today. Because when you search for Black Beauty, you shouldn’t see a horse.”
Now that you are informed, what are you willing to do to help change the narrative? To learn more about The Black Beauty is Beauty campaign, visit Sephora.com
