Product, Experience And Content: How Beauty Industry Players Have Responded Authentically To BLM
In the wake of the latest Black Lives Matters protests and increasing calls for diversity over the past month, a seemingly endless list of consumer brands has announced donations and, to a lesser extent, pledges to address hiring and promotion practices. This is all a step forward.
Within the consumer space, the beauty sector deserves a closer look. Users have an intimate relationship with beauty and personal care products, keep them in the bathroom cabinets they open multiple times daily and must rely on them to address skincare and haircare needs that can vary by race and ethnicity.
But what is the right way for beauty companies to begin - or keep - talking about beauty and race at this moment? Shachar Orren, Chief Marketing Officer at EX.CO, a content marketing company, advises that any communications needs to be “authentic and not opportunistic.” She goes further to say that, “Companies of all sizes are asking themselves how they can take a stand or offer help in a way that provides value and is relevant to what they do or have done in the past, otherwise they could get called out on it.”
Coincidentally, Hero Cosmetics, maker of the best-selling Mighty Patch for acne, had just launched a new item in May. The product, Micropoint for Dark Spots, addresses hyperpigmentation, a condition affecting different skin tones in unique ways. So Hero had something very logical to discuss.
About her diversity marketing efforts, Hero cofounder and CEO Ju Rhyu explains, “We wanted to respond in a way that felt true to our brand. We knew that educating consumers about how our new anti-hyperpigmentation product works on different skin tones was one way that we could immediately speak to the needs of the Black community, as well as others with darker skin tones. Black Lives Matter revealed the need to understand our values and stay true to them in our own way and in our space within the beauty industry.”
In a mid-June e-mail titled, “Tough on pimples… and racism,” Hero pledged to share acne education for all skin tones. Content that followed featured tips for treating dark spots on darker skin, before and after photos of a Black customer and a handful Black-owned companies selling like-minded beauty and food products. This was a logical, and sensitive, way to use a product that already had launched to tell a diversity story.
Also leveraging e-mail marketing during the same week, Heyday, the chain of facial salons, outlined six new “commitments.” While heavy on copy, the length of the note reflected depth across employee training, culture and hiring. More impressively, it recognized that its approach to facials—called “personalized” on its website—is too general. Going forward, Heyday’s BIPOC employees will be compensated for leading staff trainings that are focused on treating different skin types.
At three and five years old, respectively, Hero and Heyday are relatively new. Natasha Mulla, who most recently was chief experience officer of Kindred, a network for responsible business leaders, and previously led marketing at Mashable, points out that, “smaller companies are building businesses for the future and have the opportunity to do so in a way that avoids the systemic challenges that historically have plagued us.”
But bigger players in beauty know they need to think differently, too. Sephora, with nearly 500 stores in the United States along, said on Instagram that it’s doubling down on its existing incubator, Accelerate, by using it to cultivate Black founders rather than just female founders.
Sephora was also the first retailer to sign onto the 15 Percent Pledge, promising to reserve 15% of its shelf space specifically for products made by Black-owned companies. While this is a material change that will require merchandising executives to reassess the supplier mix and allocation of inventory planning dollars, Sephora was already known for product discovery across both big and small beauty brands.
The products on beauty shelves are one part of the shopping experience. For many consumers seeking products that don’t have the white population as their primary target customer, the shopping experience also has included a call to a sales associate to take product out from under lock-and-key. Earlier this month, Walmart said it will stop merchandising “multicultural” products in locked cases.
Carryl Pierre-Drews, VP of marketing at Fullscreen, a social content company serving talent and brands, cautions that, “any action needs to be consistent with your brand and what you’ve build successes upon in the past, but companies need to have a transparent action plan for how their actions will support the movement going forward.”
Walmart’s move may seem inauthentic since the company elected not to unlock products when it came under scrutiny for the practice in the past. On the other hand, doing so now is a practical follow-up to many of Walmart’s other, non-race-related but socially responsible, announcements more recently.
Who will be reporting on companies in the beauty space and holding them accountable? Byrdie, for one. The popular editorial site declared earlier this month that it will no longer feature brands that don’t already showcase BIPOC in their marketing or are unwilling to diversify if Byrdie asks them to do so. Further, and consistent with the 15 Percent Pledge, 15% of the brands Byrdie features will be Black-founded or Black-owned and 15% of its Beauty Awards winners will be, too.
Byrdie’s own standard for diversity isn’t just 15%: The publisher says it will ensure one out of every three Instagram posts reflects diversity. It acknowledges that doing so will require historical cultural research, the avoidance of misattribution or appropriation and a deeper knowledge of Black beauty topics and needs. These changes are consistent with the depth of education being undertaken by Hero and Heyday, and undoubtedly tied to the learnings Sephora and Walmart will have as they implement their own changes.
This article was originally published on Forbes on 7/26/20.