Bria Jones, Tarte, and How Negligent Influencer Marketing Can End Your Brand

If you're not on TikTok, you might not know what went down with influencer Bria Jones and Cosmetics giant Tarte--but you need to, so I'm going to get into what went wrong here, and what every business needs to know to stay viable in 2023.

Part 1: What Happened

Bria Jones is a Black beauty influencer who has close to 500,000 followers on TikTok. Tarte is a cosmetics brand, which for a decade, has taken vloggers (YouTube and bloggers, then Instagram, now TikTok influencers) on lavish trips where they can have experiences and create content. After the Dubai debacle earlier this year, CEO Maureen Kelly confirmed that an influencers flight, accommodations, and experiences are paid for, but they are not compensated.

Now, here's where the wheels fall off (the first time).

Tarte--a brand with a history of accusations of racism and one Black member of their 20 person marketing team (CultureWork on Tiktok does a comprehensive breakdown)--does not offer the same experience to all creators invited on a recent Miami trip. Some influencers get small rooms in the house, and some get large rooms. Some get tickets to an F1 race--and some are flown home before the race even happens.

Guess which treatment Bria Jones and other Black creators received?

Bria took to her TikTok account, crying, that she would be flown home before the race when her white influencer friends had completely different travel dates.

So, Tarte needs to respond.

And here's where the wheels fall off, again.

CEO Maureen Kelly, while doing a makeup "Get Ready With Me" style video, begins by saying: "I woke up really sad today." She then tells a story about how she grew up in a house of siblings, is a "more the merrier" person, and would rather invite twice as many people and have a full house than have a half empty house where everyone gets "the big rooms". She says she didn't know F1 was a big deal and thought people would be just as happy to be there on different days and be at cabanas and in the club.

She does not apologize.

She not acknowledge Bria by name or make any reference to race.

But she makes it very clear that she feels victimized that anyone would suggest her brand didn't act from a good place when they just want to provide content creation experiences. And the unspoken defense is that since the brand didn't set out to be racist, it wasn't.

Part 2: What Brands and Marketers Can Learn From This

First, it's impossible to both "just invite everyone and not pay attention to who gets what" and say that "the influencers with the highest numbers will provide the brands with the highest ROI and so they should get the premium experience."

A brand who wants everyone present to feel welcome, would make sure Black creators weren't getting a lesser experience. If you have a house, where you're putting up influencers with big and small rooms. And if you have an itinerary with popular and practice f1 races, yes, someone on your marketing team needs to make sure that it's not creators of color, who ends up getting treatment that would make them feel what Bria Jones referred to as second class treatment.

(If you think this is a "woke" reach, imagine if men on a trip were given premium treatment, and women were told to just be glad they got invited along. Imagine if you were invited to a 5-star restaurant, people who looked different from you got a 5-course meal and you got an appetizer and told you should be grateful you got invited for free.)

Next, the followers premise is simply wrong. Have you heard of micro-influencers? Nano-influencers? Are you aware that influencers with less followers can have more engaged communities? Not to mention, the impact that treating Black influencers well vs. poorly will have not only on that influencer's audience, but on audiences that only support brands that align with their values.

So the trip planning was wrong.

Then, Maureen Kelly's statement was a case study in what not to do.

When you and your brand are in the wrong, you apologize.

Not apologizing suggests you don't think you are wrong.

Moreover, her starting point: "I woke up really sad this morning." Translation: "This is how the misinterpretation of my actions impacted me and made me feel" is unacceptable. When you hurt anyone as a brand, let alone if you are a brand that recently has been called out for issues with diversity for inclusion, if an influencer of color says that you did something harmful, you don't start with your intentions in an effort to make yourself look better. You don't run through all of the defenses of what you had intended and what you meant and if only the world knew it's such.

I was recently interviewed by Lola Bakare for her forthcoming book on Responsible Marketing, I was sharing with her that I look at intention and outcome. It's not enough to have one or the other.

And so for Maureen to do an entire talk all about how positive and loving and joyful her intentions are, and not acknowledge the outcome that she made someone feel like garbage., is not okay.

What Maureen Kelly should have done, when this TikTok came out would be to create a video--in addition to reaching out behind the scenes saying: Bria, this is my public apology to you. I never wanted you to feel less then and I would be so thrilled if you came on this trip. I will be so happy if you came on every trip that I do, and I want to do this and I want to do this and I want to do this to make it right. Here are the changes we'll make as a brand moving forward.

Instead, Maureen Kelly made herself a victim that a creator of color called out how she made that creator feel.

Part 3: It Gets Worse

Bria Jones released a statement on her Instagram story last night saying that she and Tarte came to an understanding over the "miscommunication" and apologized for her video.

This highly-coached, tight, 60 second video is rightfully being called a "hostage video" by some and people are asking what legal action Tarte may have threatened for Bria for to say "I recognize my mistake in responding so quickly and so publicly."

So to be clear, Tarte is going to: Invite a Black creator along on a trip with a differentiated experience from white creators (literally flying her home days sooner); see her crying about how it made her feel; say her tears upset them; have her retract them.

None of this exonerates the brand.

Conclusion

This is what happens when you don't invest in values-led marketing professionals and practices in 2023. There is a brand cost and a human cost, and they both may be irreparable.

Imagine if the right marketing lead had suggested all influencers must have the same experience.

Imagine if the right crisis PR lead had suggested an apology and commitment from Tarte to do better (beyond the black square they posted in 2020).

Imagine if when commenters came through to "back Maureen" for "good business sense" the right social media lead had said all racist comments would be deleted and blocked.

In 2023, if you don't practice inclusive,values-led marketing, your brand will pay the price.

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