Sephora Canada Turns Wishlists Into Billboards

In partnership with Courage, Sephora Canada has launched a new holiday campaign that blends social listening with real-world media.

The initiative leverages a simple but universal consumer insight: during the holidays, people routinely drop hints - subtle or otherwise - to get the gifts they actually want. Sephora’s approach amplified this behaviour by turning individual consumer submissions into creative assets, driving both engagement and real-world visibility.

The campaign invited consumers to submit their holiday beauty wishlists via Instagram DM for the chance to have them turned into large-format OOH placements, asking fans to message @sephoracanada with three details:

• the top Sephora product on their holiday wishlist,
• who they want it from, and
  
• the city that person lives in.
  

Select participants were then featured on billboards in Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal, transforming personal wishlist requests into public, high-visibility messages aimed directly at their intended gift-givers.

The campaign leverages a hybrid approach - combining user-generated content, social engagement, and paid media - to create an integrated holiday moment in one of retail’s most competitive periods.

By elevating user-generated wishlists into paid placements, Sephora created a hybrid model of participatory creativity and surprise-and-delight utility—ultimately giving consumers a platform while reinforcing Sephora’s role as a key holiday gifting destination.

“All season long, we hear our community talk about the products they’re hoping to receive, and this year we wanted to take that insight and bring it into the real world in a joyful, memorable way,” said Allison Litzinger, SVP, marketing, Sephora Canada. “By turning our fans’ wishlists into billboards, we celebrated their voices while highlighting Sephora as a destination for the most-coveted beauty gifts.”

“Our goal was to take a simple, human truth about holiday gifting and scale it into a national creative idea,” said Joel Holtby, founder and co-chief creative officer, Courage. “People drop hints every year, but Sephora had the opportunity to amplify those hints in a way that felt bold, fun, and unmistakable. It’s a great example of how social listening can fuel breakthrough OOH.”