Rihanna’s Response to Snapchat’s Offensive Ad
Back in 2018, Celebrity Entrepreneur Rihanna took over her Instagram story to bash Snapchat after the platform showed an offensive ad featuring Rihanna to users. The ad created by a third party was for a smartphone game called “Would You Rather?” One of those “Would You Rather’’ asked the users if they would rather “Slap Rihanna” or “Punch Chris Brown”, drew a lot of criticism from users.
The Criticism Cost Snapchat $800 Million
After a call-out post on Rihanna’s Instagram Story, the Platform lost over $800 Million. Although the ad was created by a third party, it went through Snapchat’s final approval process. The ad was later taken down by Snapchat after it had cost a lot of damage to their company. According to the Wall Street Journal, the Snapchat Stocks fell by 3.6% after the Pop Star called out platform for their offensive ad.
The ad made a very thinly veiled reference to the infamous incident of 2009 where Chris Brown assaulted his then girlfriend Rihanna violently. Brown assaulted Rihanna to a point where the Pop Start had to be taken into the hospital. According to Grazia, Chris Brown was sentenced for five years of probation and six months of community service.
Snapchat’s Response
The Monday after the weekend it all happened, Snapchat apologized for the ad after pulling it down in a statement, “The advert was reviewed and approved in error, as it violates our advertising guidelines.”
Rihanna was not impressed with the apology! Rihanna went on Social Media again and called out Snapchat saying “You spent money to animate something that would intentionally bring shame to DV victims and made a joke of it!!!” she posted on her Instagram story on Thursday. “This isn’t about my personal feelings, cause I don’t have much of them . . . but all the women, children, and men that have been victims of DV in the past and especially the ones who haven’t made it out yet. You let us down! Shame on you. Throw the whole app-ology away.”
Following Rihanna’s statement, Snapchat responded by apologizing again: “This advertisement is disgusting and never should have appeared on our service. We are so sorry we made the terrible mistake of allowing it through our review process. We are investigating how that happened so that we can make sure it never happens again.”
Overall, Snapchat did the right thing by apologizing over and over again. However, if the apology had come early, it would’ve saved the company millions of dollars and their reply was all words and no action. They should have taken some action regarding the safety of users in regards to domestic violence.
Could’ve been avoided?
It may seem rather difficult to avoid such a situation but if Snapchat had the right people to do the job it would’ve never happened. Snapchat should appoint someone who knows about Pop Culture to review these types of ads. It all started with their approval of the ad and one person who actually knows Pop Culture would’ve never missed this blunder because everyone in Pop Culture knows about the Rihanna-Chris Brown incident.
