A total PR nightmare
Celebrity caught shoplifting?
It was the 30th of April, 2019. In sunny Calabasas California when Celebrity Singer SZA was racially profiled and the recently famous pop star was racially profiled and had security called on her cause a staff allegedly accused her of stealing.
Sza happened to handle the situation calmly claiming she had a long chat with Sandy (who was the staff that accused her) before leaving the store, but It didn't Just end there. She went ahead to tweet about the incident and led to a huge uproar on twitter against Sephora, with fans and Social media users defending Sza and calling the employee disrespectful. The tweet read “Lmao Sandy Sephora location 614 Calabasas called security to make sure I wasn’t stealing. We had a long talk. U have a blessed day Sandy,”.
When the conversation started heating up, Sephora replied SZAs tweet to help pacify the situation, they thanked her for calling their attention to the situation.
After about a month of social media backlash Sephora released a video on Facebook that all stores and offices would close for an hour of centralized diversity training. At its heart, crisis management is about reaching your audience and consumers. Sephora’s direct response to SZA’s tweet demonstrated that its team was paying close attention to what people were saying online sharing on social media platforms humanized Sephora and signaled to the world that they were are ready for a conversation.
Thinking about this situation in retrospect and other similar situation like the Starbucks issues involving two African Men. Could it have been avoided? my Answer to that is Yes and No. I see it as more of an individual stereotype/bias against people of color and that was what Sandy fell into. Also, comma It could have been avoided if Sandy or other staffs of Sephora were trained properly in situations whereby they are suspicious of customers stealing.
Overall I think their reaction to the situation was strategic and very effective.
Thank you!
See you next week
