Having a Grammy-nominated R&B singer tell her 2.7 million Twitter followers that a Sephora clerk had flagged her as a potential shoplifter could have been a branding nightmare for the cosmetics boutique.
Instead, the Paris-based company turned it into an opportunity. It’s closing all its U.S. stores on Wednesday, June 5, for an hour of inclusivity training, a move that telegraphs to a large and lucrative market of millennial shoppers that it not only values their business, it shares their values.
While the session echoes the response of Seattle-based Starbucks to a situation with similarly racial overtones in 2018, Sephora says it was planned months earlier to coincide with its “We Belong to Something Beautiful” marketing campaign, which emphasizes beauty across race and gender boundaries in contrast to the fashion industry’s oft-criticized embrace of a thin, white, and youthful female aesthetic.
The timing was fortuitous, to say the least. Now shoppers who might have been turned off by the experience that singer SZA, who was born Solána Imani Rowe, recounted on Twitter on April 30 can see Sephora and its 460 stores in the Americas from a more flattering angle.
Not only are they more likely to keep shopping there, those who frequented Sephora’s competitors might now give it a try, said Eric Yaverbaum, who runs New York-based Ericho Communications and has 35 years of experience in marketing and public relations.
“I know a lot more about them today than I did yesterday, and it’s all positive,” he told the Washington Examiner. “If there were products in Sephora that competed with products I bought, I would go there now.”
More broadly, Sephora’s training shows the growing emphasis that businesses including retailers place on attracting millennials, the 92 million people born between 1980 and 2000 who make up the largest generation in U.S. history, outnumbering even baby boomers.
So-called digital natives, they’re prone to using technology for both networking and comparison shopping, according to research by investment bank Goldman Sachs. That makes staying abreast of social media narratives crucial for companies they frequent, and sheds light on why SZA — who, with a 1990 birthdate, is a millennial herself — tweeted about her trip to a Sephora in California and why her comment drew 63,000 likes and more than 8,000 retweets.
“We had a long talk,” SZA tweeted, referring to store personnel and musing about why she couldn’t simply “buy her FENTY,” referring to fellow singer Rihanna’s beauty brand, in peace. Nominated for five Grammy awards, SZA sang a duet on the 2018 hit “All the Stars,” the lead single from the “Black Panther” movie.
Though the incident wasn’t the genesis of Sephora’s campaign, it “does reinforce why belonging is now more important than ever,” said a spokesperson for Sephora, a division of the French LVMH conglomerate that controls luxury brands including wines such as Dom Pérignon and Veuve Clicquot as well as fashion labels such as Givenchy, Christian Dior, and singer/actress Rihanna’s FENTY.
Sephora’s plan to close its U.S. stores, distribution centers, call centers, and corporate office for a one-hour inclusivity workshop with 16,000 employees was in development for over six months, the company spokesperson said. “We’ll be discussing what it means to belong, across many different lenses that include, but are not limited to, gender identity, race and ethnicity, age, abilities, and more.”
While the training itself may not transform behavior, as a Harvard sociologist told the New York Times, it’s nonetheless an improvement and represents far more than simple public-relations gloss, Yaverbaum said.
“We’re seeing the immense power social media influencers wield to change the conversation around a particular brand,” he explained. “These brands are making conscious decisions to go in favor of younger buyers.”
In the case of Seattle-based Starbucks, executives not only closed stores for a half-day of anti-bias training in May 2018, after a video of the wrongful arrest of two black men in one of the chain’s coffeehouses went viral, they hired outside consultants for advice on diversity efforts.
“Will a day of diversity training change people’s opinions completely? Probably not,” Yaverbaum said. “Will it change the way they might act in public? Maybe. Will it help a brand with a market they’re trying to resonate with? Absolutely.”
