The Body Shop’s “Valentine’s Day” Event Featuring “No.9” Cho Gue Sung Prompts Massive Backlash — Apologizes To Fans
Popular beauty store, The Body Shop, is currently in hot water with consumers after its Valentine’s Day event featuring Cho Gue Sung was alleged to be unfair.
Recently, The Body Shop held an event featuring football star Cho Gue Sung. After posing a question to consumers, the event stated that a winner would be announced among those who answered correctly, tagged a friend, and uploaded a story.
What gift is perfect for Valentine’s Day?
*Hint: The fragrance matches Cho Gue Sung.It’s Valentine’s Day next week.
How about a special present?As gifting scents have become a trend, we believe this fragrance from The Body shop makes the best gift.
What is the fragrance you want to gift Cho Gue Sung?
(hint: The video clip was uploaded on February 1)Of those who answered correctly in the comments, we will give five winners a chance to meet Cho Gue Sung and a player’s signed ball.
(Those who hashtag The Body Shop in a story and tag a friend will have a higher chance to win. Link the story in the comments. Winners will be announced on February 14.)
— The Body Shop
Controversy erupted, however, when it was revealed that four of the five winners announced were influencers who didn’t upload a story or write the correct answers.
Netizens criticized the company for allegedly cheating fans of Cho Gue Sung, while others were insulted that the company thought fans wouldn’t notice.
- “They’re pathetic.”
- “If they are going to use influencers to market their products, then they should. But don’t make consumers look stupid in the process.”
- “It’s like they wanted their marketing campaign to go viral but wanted to give the products to influencers. They are so transparent. I think whose ever idea this was, is an idiot.”
- “No wonder. I thought actually meeting Cho Gue Sung sounded too good to be true.”
- “I just checked the winning accounts, and all of their posts are sponsored, LOL. (The Body Shop) is so see-through.”
- “Why are you abusing fans’ love.”
- “Woah. These days even personal accounts that do something similar are cursed out. I can’t believe a company would do this.”
- “Wow, this is so gross.”
Due to the backlash, The Body Shop has since released an apology.
Hello, this is The Body Shop.
First, we would like to thank all of you for the high number of participants.
We would like to apologize for making so many people uncomfortable due to the mishandling of our Valentine’s Day event.
We used an event program that is widely used to choose random winners. We used the program to choose random winners, but we didn’t verify if they had tagged a friend, used hashtags, or if they had uploaded a story.
We are aware of the disappointment we have caused many of you.
Also, this has given us an opportunity to look back on all of our past events and ask ourselves if there weren’t any shortcomings.We sincerely apologize again.
For those of you who weren’t chosen as winners, we will do our best to livestream the event. Also, we will separately contact each participant to send our apologies.
We will be more careful in the future.
— The Body Shop
The apology, however, did little to improve consumers’ sentiments toward the brand. Many participants criticized the apology for not addressing why they were upset and asked that the brand pick new winners.
- “I’m just laughing here.”
- “Fans aren’t upset that they can’t go. (The event)It wasn’t fair, nor was it transparent, LOL. I bought the product with a happy heart, but now you guys have become a brand I don’t even want to look at. Goodbye.”
- “Why are you guys digging your own grave?”
- “Did you not think fans would notice? Fans aren’t dumb. You guys should have tried harder to conceal it.”
- “I think it would be better for you guys to pick new winners.”
- “Since you guys didn’t check closely, pick again.”
- “Shouldn’t you guys pick again? LOL.”
What are your thoughts?
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