Reply from the Body Shop re JKR... just so dreadful...

A few years ago I made a comment to the Body Shop Twitter about Black Friday promotions, saying it was a shame that they’d moved so far from their ethical and campaigning beginnings. They wrote back that I was remembering something from a long time ago and maybe their brand was no longer for me.

While this is probably true it seems a shame as I think the drive to conserve the planet has become much more mainstream today than it was in the early 80’s when I was young.

Body shop outsourced all their marketing and brand management to 3 agencies last year. Jessie probably came in to do this bit.

One of the more hipster London based ones manages their social media strategy. They are named in the drum article above. Brands itself as ‘Making Awesome Shit Happen Since 2007’. Cool.

The whole thing is an example of big corporations (BS sold out to a massive cosmetic brand ages ago) using something called ‘social movement marketing’. A cheap and effective way of jumping on a disadvantaged group or cause, to reach a ready made audience, sell your product and gain market share through profile.

I doubt the board or CEO will even remember or care about what cause they are promoting. It’s all just strategy and media visibility stat’s.

Someone at the agency will tell BS it’s all great and they are leading the way in provocation and social activism. Template letter provided to comm’s department for complaints etc.

I emailed, got no response at all. I may have been a bit ranty. Maybe they were lost by the word misogyny

I give up! This is why I don’t post 😂

*document posted in Fabtaora’s post.

Typo: TBS

New to posting. Avid reader/lurker for a few years.
Jessie MacNeil-Brown mentioned in document as TVS campaigns Unit Manager, check her out on LinkedIn.
Background - worked for Amnesty Int as Global Campaigns Manager. Describes herself as “a feminist“. Left TBS in March 2020. Just started at IKEA. Is this a leftover from her legacy or is the new Head of Global campaigns responsible? Questions??

Bodyshop board members - guys, if you're reading this (and we know you are guys) - we might be invisible older women to you, but by and large we have disposable cash, perimenopausal skin, a very clear understanding of biology, drier hair than we used to, massive compassion and interest in women's causes around the world, a willingness to pay a bit extra to support genuine fair trade and enterprises that benefit women, a nostalgia for dewberry and white musk, and a severe intolerance to misogynist bullshit. You could have cornered the scented bath product market here by knowing who your customers are and being courageous. Instead you decided to try to get in with the popular kids by joining in with the bullying.

Brilliantly put.

It doesn't especially matter. I can't see the Body Shop surviving the coming economic crash, anyway. They're over-priced, what they sell now is tat, and their shops are always empty. They're only still around at all because they have an MLM model - and again, in a huge recession, there are only so many over-priced, under-delivering products women will buy from their friends.

I'll be very sad for their staff when they go into administration. But I will gloat for the senior management's unemployment, after this. Their contempt for women is disgusting. They chimed in on a thread in which endless rape threats were being made to a woman who had been open about her own sexual assault, in a manner which supported those threats, in agreeing to cast her as the one in the wrong. And they are still refusing to properly apologise for it. That's skin-crawlingly fucking awful, on every possible level.

Ironic, that a company flogging soap should choose to be such utter filth.

I’ve had an insight. I recently followed a younger female relative (she’s mid 30s) on social media.

I don’t know her very well (geography) but know she is a mum to a little girl and has been sexually assaulted (mum not the girl).

Just a peek into the mentality of today’s women - pro choice (ok), pro guns (in the US, so I understand that nonsense), very very very pro-lgbt - she doesn’t realise that T wasn’t there before. She was recently wailing about a change in the law that would protect LGB people from being fired on the basis of their sexuality (but it covered sex not gender, so T wasn’t covered). It was put as ‘lgbt rights destroyed (crying emoji)’.

Not a single message, meme, link, rant etc about women’s rights or issues. Not a single one. No critical thinking or analysis. I don’t want to get into a bun fight so I’m just going to mute her.

Will her daughter turn to her later on and say ‘mom, what did you do to protect my rights?’ I would have hoped having a little girl might have opened her eyes a bit.

Imagine how different all this would have been if they'd sent that bag to JK in genuine solidarity with her as a woman, a survivor of domestic abuse and a victim of vile trolling and online bullying

"Aww, have some bath salts"

Yeah, as horrific as that would have been, I guess that's actually still marginally better.

I couldn't be more sick of this shit if I tried. Absolutely sick of it. I have no issue with what people identify with, but why are people so offended by gender??? I feel like the Suffrage movement and feminism never happened.

I'm not in retail or marketing but it's baffling to me why they're trying so hard to ride on Lush's rainbow coloured tailwind when the blue hairs (who have little disposable income anyway) are already loyal to that brand.

Imagine how different all this would have been if they'd sent that bag to JK in genuine solidarity with her as a woman, a survivor of domestic abuse and a victim of vile trolling and online bullying. Still a cynical marketing move, sure, but I bet their figures for the past week would have looked a whole lot more healthy if they'd gone with #IStandWithJKR.

Bodyshop board members - guys, if you're reading this (and we know you are guys) - we might be invisible older women to you, but by and large we have disposable cash, perimenopausal skin, a very clear understanding of biology, drier hair than we used to, massive compassion and interest in women's causes around the world, a willingness to pay a bit extra to support genuine fair trade and enterprises that benefit women, a nostalgia for dewberry and white musk, and a severe intolerance to misogynist bullshit. You could have cornered the scented bath product market here by knowing who your customers are and being courageous. Instead you decided to try to get in with the popular kids by joining in with the bullying.

Bad business move. In the words of one of the spokesmen for your chosen movement, 'enjoy ur erasure.'

In that email to the mlm consultants... What in God's name is a Menstrual Movement?! 🙄 Still really considering sending back to their HQ the tiny amount of hemp handcream I have left, as I can't bring myself to use it!

What do they mean by men have periods?

That's just totally bizarre.

I don't expect the Body Shop to be run by a team of gynaecologists, but you don't need to study medicine at Oxford to know that men don't have periods.

In a bizzare twist the agency hired to work on brand strategy is called Mother.

www.thedrum.com/news/2019/06/25/body-shop-brings-three-agencies-help-it-shout-about-its-purpose-based-heritage

Does anyone know how we can find out whether these companies are actually being funded by the trans lobby (or rather, the taxpayer via the trans lobby?)

I doubt it - suspect they were more likely trying to score some woke points with a younger demographic because all their current customers have realised they don't actually need scented soaps in their life at the moment.

Are there laws about who can make request to view their accounts? Would you have to be a shareholder or board member, I wonder?

No, it's a private company, so there are no shareholders to answer to - their accounts are freely available on companies house, though.

It's owned by Natura, a Brazilian company that also owns Aesop.

Im disgusted at the Body Shop. Let the menz smell like 1990. JK Rowling is amazing for standing up and being counted.

www.bond.org.uk/person/jessie-macneil-brown

Who would have guessed. Women's Equality Party. Behind the troll JKRowling campaign.

Activist hubs . "Brand purpose" to focus on gender equality
Have they forgotten they're selling skincare?!

Picked this up on the boycott body shop hashtag. They made the mistake of picking libfem pomo airheads in their quest to be a "real" feminist brand.

Fascinating fuck up.

Won't be buying from them anymore.

Crazy what we have to be grateful for in these strange days.

Very! But tampon makers who know what a woman is, in these times, get my approval.

I was going to joke about who other could have tested them than women. Then I remembered. Not the image I want before bed!

Hell no! (not envy)