Some women (and men) wear makeup, and some don’t. Unfortunately, some may not have the facial extremities for various makeup products, such as eyebrow hair or eyelashes, due to chemo therapy or a genetic mutation.
Thrive Cosmetics is a vegan, cruelty-free makeup brand started when Thrive founder Karissa Bodnar lost her friend to cancer when most adult lives are just beginning. Much like Toms Shoes, the company’s philanthropy includes donating one product for every product bought to a woman in need;
We deliver our products + services to women going through cancer treatment at hospitals + events around the world.
I’ve been served social media ads from Thrive Cosmetics for the last couple months, and while I love love its vision, one ad in particular has me questioning the brand’s ethics and its product’s quality.
Thrive is present on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. The specific ad I’ve been following has been served to me on Facebook.
The ad is a square video of a classic before & after application of the mascara. The woman’s lashes in the before are nearly unnoticeable, while her lashes in the after are… less than… not… they’re pretty bad. Spidery and messy are good, descriptive words!
The first time I saw the ad, I left a comment about how unappealing her lashes were and how ineffectively the ad promotes the mascara’s quality. But the weird thing was that I saw no other negative comments on the ad. People were only concerned with shipping and if it was waterproof when they weren’t praising their own purchases.
So I waited and increased my odds of being served the same Facebook ad by checking out its Instagram and Twitter and by searching for the company on Google. This is when I saw a much better caliber Instagram ad for Thrive.
I went back to Facebook to see if anyone had left a nasty comment. Then Facebook delivered. Surprise, surprise! No Facebook users concerned about her lashes. I began to get suspicious, so I decided to test my festering theory that its social media team was deleting or hiding the blemished comments. Someone came through with a forward opinion.
And I waited again.
It was gone. My theory was correct, which makes me incredibly sad. It’s such a bad move to delete or hide negative comments because it appears untruthful and fake, which is upsetting because the company has such a good philosophy that everyone, I think, can get behind.
I have not seen the ad on Facebook since then.
If Thrive has had as much backlash on this ad as I assume it has, it should’ve ran another Facebook ad. Instead, they chose to be the man behind the curtain and facilitate what Facebook users saw. I’m not sure why they allowed the ad to keep running for up to a week when they could’ve scrapped it and ran something else.
A company’s social media strategy should be about promoting the brand’s biggest attributes and being completely transparent and proactive. I believe Thrive’s Facebook strategy this time around failed. I still plan to purchase something, but hopefully they do better next time.
Megan McInroy 