Skin By Sherin gets elegant in skin patch campaign

Another challenge presented was determining Skin by Sherin’s brand identity. As an introductory campaign, the creative team was working with an emerging brand with limited public identity. The onus was on them to get it right.

“There’s a lot of big questions and freedoms to explore with a brand that hasn’t quite committed itself to the World yet,” Newman said. “It’s Sherin’s baby, and she’s trusting us not to drop it. That’s kind of a special feeling.”

A scroll down Sherin’s Instagram page reveals mostly warm posts with an almost gentle quality. For a director with a reputation for shadowy, high-contrast work, this presented both a challenge and an opportunity.

“Honestly, I was excited to get a little more bright on this one,” he chuckled. “I always say the project I most want to do next is the thing I haven’t done. Or at least, wasn’t the last thing I did… This one felt like a breath of fresh air, and I’d love to do even more!”

A big part of how Newman created this brand aesthetic was Sharin’s own appearance. The crew aimed to achieve a simple yet elegant look and to ensure that nothing she wore, nor her makeup, drew too much attention from the product.

Sherin wears a simple white dress in the video. This more contemporary aesthetic, unorthodox for beauty product advertisement, allowed for a natural expression of Sherin’s beauty. Newman elaborated, “Clothes with light fabrics that can billow in the wind always resemble that effortless and light feel.”

This aesthetic carried over to Sherin’s makeup as well, opting for a simpler look. Newman explained that if her face had been more made up, it wouldn’t have fit with the brand and product. He elaborated that had it looked like the patches gave you a “highly-countoured,” and made-up look, it would have been “a lie.”

It was stylistic choices like these that helped Newman showcase the product. “Toeing that line between effortless and aspirational without feeling too much like a conventional fragrance commercial or something [was tricky],” He admitted.

This visual style becomes very clear when watching the finished product, which is mystical and ethereal. It ends with a series of rapid cuts of different shots leading up to the final, wide shot of Sherin running through a field.

“I knew sound and some quick flurried moments would drive this dreamy tinge and amp up the build,” reflects Newman on the ending sequence. “That rapid end montage gets me every time.”

Also unique about this project and the product at large was Sherin’s holistic involvement. In addition to being the face of the brand, she was the only on-screen talent in the campaign.

She also put a great deal of effort into the product’s development, traveling to Korea a few days before the shoot to meet with her suppliers. This level of involvement and this drive to ensure the product she’s selling to her audience is top-notch made her as invested in getting it right as everyone else involved. 

“We lucked out with Sherin,” Newman said. “There wasn’t any song and dance needed to coddle an ego. She was there for the greater good and knew that input equals output. Hats off to her for showing up ready to commit.”

Turns out, that commitment yielded results. The campaign film, embodying simple beauty through its stunning shooting location and minimalistic wardrobe and makeup design, went on to become her most viewed instagram post to date, racking up 11.3 million views in 9 days and 350k likes, also the most liked post on the page.

This breathtaking video, put together on such a tight timeline, is a spectacular product debut, worthy of an influencer who strives to help her followers achieve their most beautiful selves.