Sephora SZA Incident Causes Outrage
In Collaboration With: Litzzy Delgado and Yaneli Moreno
Body Word Count: 943
Sephora, a personal care and beauty retailer, was founded in 1970. A French based retailer that features high-end makeup, perfumes, body care, and hair care. In April 2019, singer and songwriter SZA was shopping at the Calabasas location when an employee called over security to ensure she was not stealing. Following the Sephora incident, SZA took to her personal Twitter to call out Sephora for racially profiling. In June 2019, Sephora closed all its locations for an hour to do a workshop on racial profiling. Sephora said it was not due to the SZA incident and that they already had a campaign in the process. “we belong to something beautiful “The public was infuriated to hear the unfair treatment that took place at this Sephora location. Many others have had similar encounters like SZA’s in their stores. This outraged them due to the company promoting an inclusive and diverse environment to their customers.
Sephora Social Media Backlash
As the Sephora SZA incident reached Twitter the backlash grew. The backlash reached Barbadian singer Rihanna who ended up surprising SZA with a Fenty Beauty gift card for having a bad experience at Sephora. According to NBC News, Rihanna wrote on the envelope "Go buy yo Fenty Beauty in peace sis! One love- Rihanna" while SZA responded with "Tanks queen!" on her Instagram story in May. The Guardian media group summed up the views and backlash Sephora received after the Sza incident. The Guardian said, “After SZA’s tweet following the incident, Google reviews for the Calabasas store spiked, with many users criticizing Sephora over the incident. ” Customers like Nell Monet wrote, “Who just calls security on THE SZA? Sad.” on the online google reviews of the Calabasas Sephora location. The customer gave the location a 1-star rating like many others. With the outrage and backlash kept growing, Sephora should have responded as soon as possible.
Sephora Accountability
“But Was it Enough Sephora?” an article published by Bozell, a PR and Advertising agency in Nebraska.
As a PR firm they questioned Sephora’s crisis plan as they state “In the world of crisis communication, “waiting three weeks is too long to respond to a situation.” They also criticize Sephora for not mentioning the SZA accident as a reason for the workshops which ended up bringing more attention to the SZA incident and the idea that racial profiling has been a big issue in different locations.
Forbes, reported on a study on the impact of an hour-long workshop and announced “published recently in the scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of sciences. It found that while the one hour of training changed attitudes, it didn’t do much to change behaviors.” They concluded by expressing that closing down stores helps the brand image as it shows they are serious about the allegations but that one training session is not enough to change employees’ behaviors but rather clean up brand image.
Sephora Takes Action
Sephora has publicly responded and apologized to SZA over Twitter on May 1st saying, “Hi, SZA. We're sorry to hear about your experience at our Calabasas store and appreciate you bringing this to our attention”. The company ended the Twitter thread by tweeting, “You are a part of the Sephora family, and we are committed to ensuring every member of our community feels welcome and included at our stores” after publicly speaking about the event that took place at the Calabasas location. After taking accountability and apologizing for the experience SZA had gone through, Sephora stated they would be closing all stores for an hour on Wednesday, June 5th to host inclusion workshops for all its employees. They made this announcement after stating they already had a campaign planned addressing inclusivity in their stores denying it was influenced by the SZA incident. Sephora posted a few words via Facebook that read, “These values have always been at the heart of Sephora, and we’re excited to welcome everyone when we reopen''. The company posted this alongside a video introducing their new release “We Belong to Something Beautiful campaign”, its main focus being inclusion and diversity within the beauty community.
Lessons Sephora Should Have Learned
Sephora should've already incorporated inclusion and diversity training into their work environment to prevent incidents like these from occurring to anyone in any location. This would help avert any unpleasant shopping experiences to customers.
Acknowledge the crisis in a timely manner, fans are more forgiving if brands apologize in time.
Provide training material to the public in order to keep them up to date. Example: After Starbucks closed down stores, they made their training plans open to the public and then publicly changed their policy to where a purchase was not necessary to lounge in store. During this crisis the public was never aware of what happened to the employee that profiled SZA.
They could have provided better customer service and communication and handled situations like these more appropriately as SZA shared her experience of unfair treatment as a customer at one of the store's locations.
Emphasizing work on inclusivity and communication throughout the company and making sure these practices are actually being put at work and providing a pleasant shopping experience to all customers no matter their skin color, gender or ethnicity.
Always have a plan on how to treat celebrities when they are out in public due to:
Fans showing up in large amounts to visit since an artist is spotted.
Workers recognizing celebrities to not have bad incidents happen with them.
Brands and influencers continue to get canceled due to racial comments and discrimination, it's crucial that brands understand how to tackle the issue without infuriating more people.
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Sephora closes all stores for inclusion training following the SZAincident. Sza accuses Sephora of racially profiling her at the Calabasas store location.(156 characters with spaces)
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Sephora workers attend “we belong to something beautiful” workshop
