GWP AT SEPHORA
A Gift With Purchase Experience for Merit Beauty
Client
Merit
Year
2025
INSPIRATION
A product launch only lands if the customer remembers it. For Merit Beauty at Sephora, the goal was to create a moment of discovery that felt worth keeping.
The inspiration came from warmth. Rich, tactile materials that whisper luxury without shouting it. Merit came in with Pinterest boards as early reference points, but Whitestone took those loose signals and built something entirely its own: a cohesive gift-with-purchase (GWP) collection that could hold its own next to the product it was meant to celebrate.
PLAN
Getting a GWP right at scale requires more than good taste. It requires process.
Whitestone led product selection from the start, identifying custom lipstick holders, satin pouches, and leather mirror cases as the right trio to reinforce Merit's premium positioning. From there, the team developed full tech packs and managed an extensive sampling process — going back and forth with manufacturers to dial in every detail, from Pantone-matched fabrics to material weight and finish quality.
The GWPs were designed for new customers shopping at Sephora, distributed in-store with purchase through a nationwide rollout supported by Whitestone's field team. Rather than a passive shelf placement, this was a hands-on execution — our people walking product into locations and ensuring the experience landed exactly as designed.
PRODUCT
The final collection consisted of three fully custom pieces, each built to complement Merit's hero product at launch.
The custom lipstick holder was designed as a keep-worthy case — structured, weighted, and finished in warm tones that mirrored the brand palette. The satin pouch offered soft contrast: smooth to the touch, with a refined simplicity that elevated even the act of reaching inside. The leather mirror case rounded out the set with a material richness that gave the full gift an unmistakably premium feel.
Production ran at significant scale across all three SKUs — built to match the scope of a national Sephora launch.
Every element was custom. Nothing was pulled off a shelf.
RESULTS
The GWPs debuted nationwide at Sephora as part of Merit Beauty's product launch, placed directly into the hands of new customers at the point of purchase. With Whitestone's field team supporting in-store rollout, each piece arrived as intended — not as an afterthought, but as a deliberate extension of the Merit brand experience.
The project demonstrated Whitestone's full-service capability across custom product development and sourcing, tech pack creation and sampling management, Pantone-matched material development, and coordinated field distribution at national retail scale. When the brief calls for something that has never existed before, Whitestone builds it.