Tag Archives: business ethics

RE: The Empire of Inexpensive Clothes Revealed

As a loyal shopper at Forever 21, I found Selina’s blog post on the dark side of this massive franchise very intriguing. Not surprising – I wrote a paper on sweatshops during my first year in uni – but intriguing nevertheless.

Now the true powerplay is in the hands of the marketers, specifically the PR team. How would YOU deal with this kind of negative publicity that may tarnish your brand image? The infamous Kardashians certainly aren’t a role model in PR. In 2011, their shoe lines were accused of horrific working conditions for factory employees who “often work up to 84 hours a week in non-air-conditioned facilities and earn only $1 an hour”. The rep’s response: “This story is not true.” That was it.

I’ve noticed that most companies who face issues with sweatshops try to disregard the negative media as much as possible until it goes away, like Forever 21. One company that demonstrated themselves as a role model in this kind of situation dealing with sweatshops, however, is Nike. Ironic, I know.

I’m sure most people have heard about the Nike scandal several years ago. It was one of the first companies to have their factory workers’ conditions be exposed and challenged by the public.

“Nike wasn’t the only or worst company to use sweatshops. But it was the one everybody knew.”
– Max Nisen, Business Insider

Nike initially denied these claims and shift the blame onto others, all of which resulted in even more lashbacks. Hence they adopted a comprehensive “rebranding” in terms of their corporate social responsibility and openly addressed the issue by not only releasing tons of data on their manufacturing conditions but also making public announcements on how they will improve those conditions.

Does this mean that the sweatshop practices in Nike is eradicated completely? Of course not. It’s been in place for years and there’s no easy fix for such a complex and sensitive predicament. I still do think it’s a step in the right direction, though. Change begins from the inside, and I have faith that brand management will play a powerful role in driving these companies to maintain fair and safe manufacturing practices.

Selling Through YouTube Fashion & Beauty Gurus: OK or Not OK?

One of my guilty pleasures is watching fashion and beauty gurus on YouTube. What kinds of videos do fashion and beauty gurus upload? Their videos range very widely, from make-up tutorials and shopping hauls to fitness routines and vlogs of their personal lives.

I’m unsure as to when I noticed this, but I discovered that these fashion and beauty gurus have a become a highly valued commodity… to fashion and beauty companies.

It started when I saw that certain gurus included a disclaimer in the video description or the video itself, promising the viewer that the items featured in the video were not “sponsored” by anyone.

Now what does that mean?

It means that no companies were feeding the guru money to say positive things about the products, or at least implied this intent by sending them products for free, and that the guru had purchased everything with their own money and whatever opinions she expressed in the video were her own, honest and genuine.

A special example would be Michelle Phan, easily the most famous beauty guru on YouTube. She now owns her own make-up brand, em cosmetics, which is now used in every one of her make-up tutorials since its launch and hence promoted to all of her subscribers, somewhat subtly. You’ll see what I mean in her most recent make-up tutorial:

The question is: is this okay? Clearly this is beneficial for the companies because this is an excellent way of getting their name out, through (self-claimed) experts who have already earned the trust of hundreds and thousands of viewers out there. I know I’ve certainly been tempted to shop at many of the stores mentioned during a video.

I personally don’t mind because I learn about stores or brands I wouldn’t have known about otherwise, and I’m capable of judging whether or not something is trustworthy regardless of someone’s opinion. However, I can’t say the same for the more vulnerable viewers – the younger shoppers, the shopaholics, the trend followers – who may be easily convinced to spend on things that their role model gurus gush about. This is such a grey area of ethics that cannot be simplified by regulations because companies and gurus are technically not doing anything wrong.

This sponsoring trend has only come to life in the past one to two years and it’s spreading fast, from gurus like Michelle Phan with millions of views to new gurus with only thousands of views. This concerns me in regards of the potentially wasteful purchases that vulnerable members of the YouTube audience will make, and I can only hope that gurus will be aware of their influence on their viewers instead of taking advantage of them for their own benefit.

If You Don’t Donate Now, This African Child Will Die.

Do you ever feel awful whenever you ignore ads using images like these? As if by not donating, you have… no soul?

Then congratulations to the marketeers of non-profit organizations, who may argue that this strategy “helps” the people of Africa because it gets what it wants: money.

I know this is a worn-out topic. After my trip to Ethiopia in July with the ARC Initiative, however, this has become very personal and real to me.

This is an iconic song written for the famine in Ethiopia during the 1980s. It even led to the Live Aid concert in 1985, which had an estimated global audience of 1.9 billion and was broadcasted across 150+ countries as it took place simultaneously in London and Philadelphia. The image of famine has stuck with Ethiopia since.

And this is Sintayehu, our driver and Ethiopian father during our month-long stay. When asked about how Ethiopians feel about how Africa is portrayed in the media, this is (roughly) what he said in an unusually aggravated tone:

“We absolutely hate it. Sure, there are people who struggle like that. But that does not define us. There’s so much more. We are proud people. Even if we are materialistically poor, we are rich inside.“

I know that the aim of pity marketing is money. But distorting the image of the people of Africa beyond their control is unethical and manipulative. It’s not only against their will but it desensitizes people’s perception of poverty. Many people skim over these images mindlessly nowadays.

The people of Africa are proud and strong, and I believe that showcasing their beauty is much more powerful than pity marketing. I am a first-hand witness to their love for life and willpower to survive and I know that there is so much more to them than what the media has established. Fortunately, this pity-marketing trend has been dwindling as of late – I had to search pretty thoroughly for the photo at the top – and it’s a sign that we are on the right path. A sign that we are one step closer to truly knowing the incredible people of Africa.