Motion, CGI, VFX, Video
Medik8 Sephora US Launch
The secret was out. Medik8 was coming to Sephora US.
Brief
For years, Medik8 had built its reputation through the people who know skincare best. Dermatologists, aestheticians, beauty editors and skincare obsessives had helped turn the British brand into something of an industry secret, with clinically advanced formulas earning a loyal following around the world. Now, that secret was about to reach a much bigger audience with Medik8 launching into Sephora North America.
One Agency Media was tasked with turning that major retail moment into a social-first launch campaign that could build intrigue before the announcement, create excitement around the reveal and ultimately drive demand for Medik8 at Sephora, both online and in store. The challenge was to introduce the brand to a new US audience while holding onto the clinical credibility, expertise and sense of discovery that had made Medik8 so desirable in the first place.
Process
The creative challenge was to reveal just enough without giving the game away. Working from Medik8’s “Secret’s Out” platform, we built a social-first campaign that unfolded in stages, taking audiences from intrigue to reveal and ultimately to Sephora. The visual language brought two distinctive worlds together: Medik8’s clinical, science-led identity and the unmistakable black-and-white codes of Sephora. Early teasers deliberately
kept those signals fragmented, using laboratory environments, molecular forms, confidential messaging and flashes of Sephora stripes to invite audiences to work out what was coming.
From there, our creative, production and motion teams built out a complete visual world around the launch. Live-action shoots moved between laboratory, clinical, warehouse and retail environments, supported by physical set builds, product styling and bespoke props. Alongside them, our 3D motion and CGI work gave the campaign another dimension, building on our experience creating 3D beauty campaigns for some of the world’s leading skincare brands. From storyboarding and modelling through to animation, compositing and final production, every asset was developed as part of one connected creative system rather than a collection of standalone posts.
As the campaign progressed, the clues became harder to miss. Crystal Retinal moved from the lab into packing and warehouse environments before the reveal brought Medik8’s clinical credentials and Sephora’s visual identity together explicitly. A gloved hand placing the product into a Sephora bag, clinical treatments meeting striped medical trays and content captured in-store transformed the campaign from something is coming into the secret is officially out. The approach gave the launch a clear narrative arc while building on our experience delivering international skincare launches, keeping Medik8’s professional skincare heritage at the centre of its introduction to a much wider US beauty audience.
The result was a flexible suite of social-first creative built to work across Meta, TikTok and YouTube, with content produced across 1:1, 9:16 and 16:9 formats. Rather than adapting one hero asset for every channel, the campaign was conceived as a sequence of teasers, reveals and retail-focused content designed to carry audiences through the launch story from first clue to final reveal.
Outcome
The campaign delivered a complete creative toolkit for a major moment in Medik8’s global growth, taking the Sephora launch from first tease to final reveal through a connected mix of live action, 3D motion, CGI and social-first content. Built across multiple formats for Meta, TikTok and YouTube, every asset shared the same visual language while giving each stage of the campaign its own role in building intrigue, revealing the partnership and driving audiences towards Medik8 at Sephora.
More importantly, the work turned a relatively simple creative starting point into adistinctive campaign world that felt unmistakably Medik8 while embracing the visual codes of Sephora. From clinical environments and scientific cues to polished 3D product work and the final retail reveal, the campaign gave Medik8 a flexible body of content designed for one of the biggest milestones in the brand’s US journey.
The partnership didn’t end with the launch. Following the campaign, Medik8 has continued to work with One Agency Media on further creative toolkits, extending a relationship built on our ability to translate the brand’s clinical expertise into creative that works across markets, platforms and formats.