(image: Ayesha Siddiqi, Twitter)
It’s Week 12, and I had decided to indulge myself by dropping in to LUSH after class on Friday to purchase some of their bath bombs, while ignoring the fact that I also had this final blog post to make on this site. As I drifted through the store, I considered – wasn’t LUSH’s marketing tactics almost entirely mired in the concept of ‘brand activisim’?
Thus, I figured, why not talk about yet another controversial campaign, from a brand that has always been considered highly political, and how it fit in their brand image. Let’s talk about perhaps, LUSH UK’s #SpyCops campaign, which drew almost nearly as much people initially foaming at their mouths as one of their bath bombs entering a hot tub.
Many critics immediately labelled the brand as anti-police and by extension, anti-state, with Brandwatch Analytics estimating that approximately 67% of LUSH mentions on Twitter being negative in nature.
As equal as the fervor of hate of this campaign, there were also just as many people in support of it, with some saying that the company had brought more attention to the issue in a single weekend than a public enquiry that was held 3 years ago.
LUSH has always been a company vocally dedicated to ethics and human rights, but its latest campaign seems a little far reaching – you would’ve expected them to stick to their campaigns about animal testing, since that’s kinda linked to how their products are made right? How would undercover police fit into this brand image?
“We find the term rather a difficult concept, because it seems to us that it is used to describe companies who try not to damage people or planet with their trade practices – when surely this should not be regarded as ‘ethical’ but as normal business-as-usual.”
– LUSH
But really I think this is just par for the course. LUSH has backed the US Black Lives Matter campaign and it campaigned for preventing fossil fuel mining and environmental awareness on global warming. While the move to raise awareness around Spycops may appear unconnected, it actually tracks for a brand like Lush, fitting into its image rather neatly.
LUSH appears to have a clear brand image for itself as evident on its previous campaigns as well as within the way the company operates. While the concept of brand activism new at all, the company almost seems founded and based the entirety of its business marketing strategy around it, and it’s use of social media drums up astounding amounts of attention to the causes they support, whether positive or not.
It’s a dangerous move overall, because of the division in target audience that could ensue. A political statement after all, is about as polarizing as a passerby’s reactions to passing a LUSH store and smelling the concoction of fragrances waft out. But really, with the direction the company has been going in from the beginning, it’s unlikely there were any at all.
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