Wednesday, April 26, 2017
Hair company apologises for advert featuring white women
A HAIR product company that specialises in enhancing the natural curls of African-American women has apologised for an advert featuring white women.
Shea Moisture sparked heavy criticism on social media for the online commercial in which the women, along with a woman of colour, talking about “hair hate” and how Shea is their go-to product.
“Wow — we really f-ed this one up! Please know that our intent was not, & would never be, to disrespect our community,” the company’s official Twitter account, @SheaMoisture, posted.
Longtime customers expressed outrage over the brand’s comparison of embracing red hair to embracing natural black texture, a highly politicised issue in the US.
Shea Moisture posted a longer apology on its Facebook page, including: “You guys know that we have always stood for inclusion in beauty and have always fought for our community and given them credit for not just building our business but for shifting the beauty landscape.”
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3 comments:
Just another appogising to those dumb little snowflakes now imagine if some of these whining little snowflakes demanded we conservatives all appoligise for hurting their little feelings by tellting truth about Che we should tell them to GET A LIFE
After reading the source article I'm still confused. Is the company's product manufactured for black people exclusively? Or are the black people angry because someone indicated that white people also use hair products?
Or maybe it's only another instance of the perpetually offended finding a non-issue to be outraged about. Talk about a tempest in a teacup.
Or maybe it's only another instance of the perpetually offended finding a non-issue to be outraged about. Talk about a tempest in a teacup.
Other articles shed a little more light on this.
Shea started by making products for people of color. That has been their traditional base. One of the discussions within the black community is hair and how some / many don't like the curly / kinky limitations. In fact, some / many hate it.
(Before someone says that's stupid, remember that some / many blondes don't like the fact their hair is thinner and flatter. Redheads often deal with unruly hair. Most people try to look their best and hair is a part of their look.)
The Shea ad as started with a black woman talking about hating her her and even the tag "hatehair." After the Shea product was used, the company showed a blonde and a redhead - neither of color - to show the the "hatehair" was corrected.
The implication or what many people read into the ad - rightly or wrongly - was "don't be black and we can solve the issue of unruly hair for you with our products."
The ad made the company's client base mad.
It may seem silly, but imagine if you will a product that was touting it's West Virginia roots and how proud it was to be "from Appalachia made by Appalachians for Appalachians" and using a southern California valley girl as a spokesperson.
:"Like this is you know, totally awesome!"
The company missed the target in who they were trying to advertise to.
Frankly, people have the right to say "that ad stinks." They have the right to say "we won't buy that product because of your actions as a company." (Target supermarkets / stores anyone?)
How vicious the "backlash" of this was is conjecture. Certainly there was some, but whether it involved 100 people or a million is unknown. That being said, the ad violated a cardinal rule of advertising which is "expand your base into new areas but don't tick the base off and forget them."
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