As was shown in Shea Moisture’s new ad, they plan on expanding their target audience to be all-inclusive and end ‘hair hate’ as they’ve put it. Yet, their ad was far from being fully representational and received much backlash from black women who purchase their products.

So where did Shea Moisture go wrong?

For one, they released two separate advertisements – one that was released in March, which featured all women of color who spoke out on wanting to love all hair types and the most recent ad, which featured predominantly white women speaking out about their perceived hair hate. Why would Shea Moisture ostracize black women from that ad? Furthermore, why was there any need for a separate advertisement when the first ad could’ve included all women to begin with?

Shea Moisture could’ve gone about the entire situation in a way that would not have received as much backlash as it did. For one, they could’ve released an entirely new product line that caters to alternate hair types and created an ad which promoted that product and the consumers who would benefit from it.

Shea Moisture did not take into account how their message would’ve been received by their established audience and after the entire fiasco, did not actually apologize. Their response was more of a plea that they did not intend to cause harm and basically repeated the message that was so clearly expressed in their ad.

Not only did this also irritate their consumers but on Twitter, Shea Moisture expressed their gratitude for Tariq Nasheed who tweeted: “So y’all don’t want [to] boycott businesses like Asian nail shops that beat up [Black Women], companies that support Trump, but Shea Moisture is the issue”.

Nasheed’s tweet targeted the anger and frustration that black women were feeling, but did not even try to understand how the lack of representation within the ad was appalling to the black consumer who has been supporting Shea Moisture from the beginning.

In the end, Shea Moisture has tried to hold on to their consumers by personally tweeting people who have spoken out against them ensuring that the formula for their products remains the same while also holding ‘Real Talk’ sessions identifying where they’ve made their mistakes throughout the campaign.