Brands and the Black Lives Matter Movement

In 2017, L’oreal ended their contract with Munroe Bergdorf, a black trans model who had spoken out about a white-supremacist rally in the USA. Now you would think for a brand that has hired ad worked with multiple African American women that they would be supportive of Munroe’s views when it came to the white- supremacist rally – sadly that was the case.

Now within the week brands have begun to show their support for the black lives matter movement via videos, posts, messages and more and one of these brands happened to be L’Oreal. This is what brought my attention to Munroe as they called L’Oreal out on their platform. By no means in this blog post am I saying that L’Oreal is a racist brand, but many brands just hop on to trends and movements as they don’t want to be seen as not being diverse or supportive of what is happening in the world. I can imagine that this has brought a lot of attention to L’Oreal and what their values and beliefs are when it actually comes to this movement.

But brands like Nike and Glossier are two brands that have really taken it a step further than just a small post. Nike’s newest video “Don’t do it” was shared across the globe and I know that when I watched it, it made every hair on my body stand up. Glossier have also released a statement saying the they are donating $500k to organisations that combat racial injustice and an extra $500k in order to help black own business. NOW THIS IS HOW YOU DO IT. These two brands are so aware of what is going in the world, they aren’t just trying to get our money out of our pockets, they’re connecting with us on levels that other bands would never think of doing. Especially during a time where a change is so desperately needed. I think that every brand should take a leaf out of Nike and Glossier’s book when it comes to the Black Lives Matter Movement.