Tride and True

Shea Moisture is a company that started in Harlem, New York in 1991. Its origins reach across the ocean to the continent of Africa to the country of Sierra Leone. The founder Richelieu Dennis after leaving the country because of the civil war started the company using recipes that had been passed down from his grandmother. Shea Moisture provides products for personal care using all natural often organic ingredients including its signature shea butter. The new recipes are made by his sister who still reaches back to their grandmothers recipes as the base for what she creates. Shea Moisture has a lengthy list of products to include many shampoos and conditioners all the way to bubble bath and soaps. Shea moisture has done a great job for the most part with it's advertising efforts. You can find ads for Shea Moisture in many magazines these days. They may be advertising for the hair products specifically or their body care or both. These days they seem to be doing a lot of inclusive ads to show their versatility. In the May 2018 edition of Marie Claire the first page after the cover opens with the an extensive ad from Shea Moisture which reads Beauty Unites The World. The first thing that stands out about this particular ad is the face of Shea Moisture is a black female with natural hair. Marie Claire magazine has not been much different from many magazines in its readership. And looking through the magazine you would not expect that Shea Moisture would be how they chose to start an issue. Marie Claire appears to be focusing on what they call Global Beauty in opposition to what has been considered for a long time main stream. Shea Moisture has a base of black women that have supported them. They continue to focus on that community but have been attempting to draw in new customers that don't necessarily look like their faithful base. In trying to expand their customer base they ran into trouble with a hair care ad for television that included one too many white women in the opinion of their faithful followers.

This add was great for the visual media that television is but for that same reason it was too visual in all the wrong ways for the fans of Shea Moisture that didn't see themselves represented in this commercial. It was highly visual and that made the response overwhelmingly fast. The problem is the response wasn't a good one.  In trying to get back into the good graces Shea Moisture, by resorting to the stereotypical version of black people dancing and rapping missed the mark. Those who disagreed with the original ad were not amused by the follow up of Back 2 Old School. This was to be an ad mixed with PR to assure customers who loved Shea Moisture that they were still who they had grown to love. It didn't work. It might have been better to keep their brand off of this ad they chose to make a look like a 90s CD cover with the title Shea Moisture and their recognizable signature.

Shea Moisture now very aware of the delicate balance of making "new friends but keeping the old" has had to come up with PR to place in the ads so as to continue to court those that have been with them all along. The company in this ad wants you to know they are conscious, aware of the global issues like poverty and also sustainable entrepreneurship to include fair trade opportunities. Shea Moisture's target audience is women;women of all shapes, sizes and colors but there is a but. As seen in this ad they have a duty to always put black women front and center and to keep her from looking the way she has seen herself through the lens of those who didn't value her beauty. Part of that campaign promise is to make sure the women they choose to put front and center have enough melanin in their skin so we know they are indeed black. Shea Moisture ads always show their brand somewhere on the ad with their signature heart with the words community commerce encrypted in it.This is because they want you to equate using their products with the bigger picture. This full spread ad that reads like it's own section is in glossy print with lots of messages that Shea Moisture wants you to read. All that fine print is the proof that they care about women and women's issues,,, everywhere. They are marketing the new thought of being globally conscious and that beauty isn't blond haired and blue eyed all the time. Also since Marie Claire is for the progressive working woman they are aware of what is going and so Shea Moisture is also marketing to young, white, working women but not in the way where it can be taken as they are more important.

I think Shea Moisture has learned a valuable lesson. They have kept their promise to be more thoughtful about how they approach their targets the new and the old and using magazines and television commercials to remind their customers that they are a thoughtful and faithful company that can be relied on to never forget where they came from. They same way they always mention Sofi Tucker started selling Shea Nuts at the village market.