Black Lives Matter is a movement that was started in the USA to counter the continued growth of instances of racism, specifically regarding police profiling brutality against African Americans and other people of black descent worldwide. The movement started as a social organization aimed at countering police brutality against black people immediately after police knelt on the neck of George Floyd in Minneapolis until Floyd died out of suffocation and inability to breathe. The organization gained immediate international recognition, with thousands of US citizens joining in and carrying out extensive demonstrations across the country, protesting against the violations of African American rights and the extrajudicial killings of black people by the police over the years.
Other parts of the world expressed solidarity with it when protests emerged in European cities such as Berlin, London, and Paris, among others, to echo the voice of gaining recognition of the value of black people throughout the world and, thus, end discrimination against black people or Africans in many countries around the world. Many companies responded to this movement’s cause by either promising direct support or getting involved directly with the agenda of the Black Lives Matter Movement. One of these companies was Lush Cosmetics, which got involved by directly responding to police brutality against black people and got involved directly by formulating an action plan constituting things to do to get involved with the agenda of the Black Lives Matter Movement. The assessment herein reviews how Lush Cosmetics responded to the Black Lives Matter movement in the summer of 2020 and how the Company made follow-ups after making the direct response.
Shortly after the Black Lives Matter Movement was founded in the USA and immediately after several companies expressed support for the cause of stopping racial discrimination and brutality against people of black descent, Lush Cosmetics USA responded by expressing support and collaboration with the organization to stop police brutality against African Americans. Lush USA, on its website, posted an interview with Amara Enyia, who was the research coordinator and policy formulator for the Black Lives Matter organization (Lush, 2021). The interview with the BLM coordinator clearly showed that the Company did not have a spokesperson who was to come out directly to address the Company’s status on the matter. Instead, the Company formulated six key questions directed at Enyia, whose answers brought out what was of great interest to Lush Cosmetics USA.
The reliance of Amara Enyia was perhaps founded on the need to contact someone who was qualified and had a great understanding of the causes and activities of Black Lives Matter so that the Company’s audience could get direct information from the primary source on what the organization was all about, their focus, their involvement, and subsequent calls for involvement. On the company website, there was no direct spokesperson for the action plan that was laid there, despite it being expressed more simply and clearly defining the duration of its existence to 90 days. The above lack of a direct spokesperson suggested that the Company should have put in place its public relations officer so that it would express its corporate social responsibility as pertains to the immediate social concerns of the people, specifically, as it relates to social issues of discrimination and police brutality when they become interconnected and conjoined.
Lush Cosmetics USA used three main channels to communicate its critical messages: YouTube videos, website content, and social media posts on Instagram. These methods are very effective because each channel was meant to deliver a specific message, as outlined in the following sentences. Firstly, the contact with Amara Enyia was done via video interview, whose content was posted on YouTube and subsequently posted as an embedded video on the Company’s website. This method was effective because the audience gets to see Enyia directly addressing these questions and, thus, getting direct contact with the primary source. The second channel was the Company’s website, detailing the action plan during the 90 days stated. The laying out of the plan on the Company’s website was very effective because it shows in writing what the Company intended to do during that time, to show solidarity with Black Lives Matter, making it easy for anyone to access the plan and get to know the progress of its activism and internal adjustments. Thirdly, using social media platforms such as Instagram to post content was also highly effective because, during this time, many people were highly active on Instagram, providing quick and trendy access to the actions being undertaken. However, there need to be more specific dates when most of these messages were posted. One that had a date was the video interview on YouTube, which was posted on May 25, 2021, almost a year after the death of George Floyd and the subsequent emergence of the Black Lives Matter Movement. The dates of the other posted contents need to be clearly indicated on the pages where they are posted. However, assumedly, the action plan was formulated and posted in June 2020, just a few days after the movement began. The date of content shared on social media was not stated, and the subsequent removal of the Instagram post made it difficult to find out the date it was posted.
The overall key message was that the Company had started to make internal adjustments to show support and solidarity with the Black Lives Matter Movement, especially in handling issues related to racial discrimination and police brutality. The video content posted on YouTube indicated the main areas of concern for Lush USA. The Action plan indicated the Company’s efforts to ensure that it was moving forward with Black Lives Matter’s efforts. Specifically, the key message was changing its internal organization to reduce racial considerations among its employees, mandatory training of its staff on anti-racism by focusing on inclusion and diversity, and strengthening policies related to these issues (Lush, 2020). The organization was further involved with donating to Black communities’ efforts to end racism and injustices and eradicating all barriers that made it impossible for employees to belong naturally and experience social growth.
Almost two years later, the progress of the changes that were formulated to be implemented has been completed so far. The internal action plan to end racism and discrimination to promote inclusion and diversity has born results. Company employees have become one group that does not discriminate against other employees. The Company has also formulated a policy that ensures that racism is against company ethics and, thus, shall be handled in accordance with the law. The reaction by some of its employees, such as on June 5, 2020, a complaint about the Lush UK CEO gifting the police and calling for people to give them love and care, brought to the surface people’s reactions to the loss of direction of the Company’s position concerning Black Lives Matter and police brutality. The CEO was forced to give a statement indicating that such instances would not repeat themselves in the future. Therefore, the Company has been under constant pressure to implement its policies and ethics regarding its position on police brutality and injustices against people of black descent.
Given a chance to lead the Company’s responses to the Black Lives Matter activities when the protests were being carried out in the summer of 2020, it would be necessary to change some sections of the organization’s response, specifically how internal coordination was communicated. Instead of leaving every branch of the organization to speak for itself, such as letting the Lush USA, UK, and Australia speak for themselves, there would be a need to dedicate a department to speak for the Company’s involvement with Black Lives Matter. The most notable big companies that responded well to the activities included Reebok, which expressed concern to its customers and the people in society to take a moment and forget about buying the Company’s shoes and instead walk in the shoes of African Americans or black people, who were being brutally discriminated and harmed by the police and white supremacists. Another company that made a favorable response was Nike, which requested people, for once, to go against its main motto of, Do it, by telling people not to do it (Mirzaei, 2020). The meaning of not doing it was that people should not discriminate against one another. These responses showed clearly that these companies used their mission statements to get involved directly with the plights of black people around the world.
References
Mirzaei, A. (2020). Big brands take a stand and support Black Lives Matter. The AdNews Network. Retrieved on December 9, 2022, from https://www.adnews.com.au/news/big- brands-take-a-stand-and-support-black-lives-matter
Lush. (2020). Our Action Plan. Lush USA. Retrieved on December 9, 2022, from https://www.lushusa.com/stories/article-our-action-plan.html
Lush. (2021). Black Lives Matter. Retrieved on December 9, 2022, from https://www.lushusa.com/black-lives-matter.html
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