LONDON: Big brands aiming to reach millions of consumers across the Arab
world are rethinking their influencer budgets after a video by a
disgraced Kuwaiti blogger went viral last week.
Beauty brands rushed to disassociate themselves from Sondoss Al-Qattan
following the widespread sharing of her video criticizing new provisions
to protect Filipino domestic workers.
Al-Qattan, a make-up artist who has 2.3 million followers on Instagram,
sparked an international outcry on social media as users demanded brands
withdraw their support.
The calls came in response to her widely circulated comments criticizing
a new Kuwaiti law granting Filipino domestic workers one day off per
week. The provisions also removed the employer’s right to withhold their
passport and required 22 days annual leave for workers.
The incident comes as a wake-up call for global and regional brands
eager to enlist the region’s most prominent blogger to tap into the
lucrative Middle East market.
“Brands definitely have a bigger responsibility to look behind the
number of engagements and actually look into the influencers’ ideas,
ethics and attitude,” said Amer Massimi, CEO of Starfish Influencers
Agency, which operates a mobile app with more than 5000 people from
countries across the GCC.
Cosmetics companies, including Max Factor Arabia, MAC Cosmetics, Chelsea
Beautique, Anatasia Beverly Hills and French perfume brand M. Micallef —
who have all since cut ties with Al-Qattan — watched social media
sentiment shift against them as users suggested they prioritized the
value of a large following over their ambassadors’ ethics.
A spokesperson for Anastasia Beverly Hills told Arab News: “We are
deeply disappointed by Sondos Al-Qattan’s remarks surrounding Kuwait’s
updated labor laws. These comments completely contradict the core values
of Anastasia Beverly Hills and we have not and never will condone any
hateful, discriminatory views. Sondos is not affiliated, employed or
collaborating with ABH. As a result of her statements, ABH has
unfollowed Sondos and removed her from our PR list.”
“Anybody who thinks keeping their employee’s passport is their right and
anybody who believes a working person does not deserve at least one day
off, is out of touch with humanity,” a former follower of Al-Qattan’s
wrote on Twitter.
“Seeing as Sondos Al-Qattan represents @MaxFactorArabia, does the brand
support her appalling statements about domestic workers?” another wrote,
tagging the brand.
Most of the beauty brands formerly linked to Al-Qattan have since
severed ties and issued statements strongly denying their association
with the views expressed in her post, which has received millions of
views across multiple platforms.
MAC Cosmetics said, “We currently do not have any partnerships with her
and will no longer be working with her on any brand activities.” The
company aims to align itself with “partners that share our core values
and in no way tolerates excluding anyone,” it wrote in a statement.
Experts said that it can be difficult for brands to predict the behavior
of influencers but stressed the responsibility of both parties to
ensure the partnership is based on mutual understanding.
“From a consumer perspective, I actually feel for the brands — they
signed with her before the comments were made and are now receiving the
backlash of her actions; not their own,” said Giselle Onanian, founder
of Plan.G, a brand consultancy based in Dubai.
But equally, brands need to do due diligence when it comes to evaluating
the character of the people that they choose to represent them, not
just the follower size, she said.
“This isn’t just the values and ethics of the influencers they have to
consider, it’s of themselves too. Is this someone that they genuinely
feel fits their brand, genuinely personifies their product or is a
reflection of their user? Or just a good place to put some money?”
Experts said that the influencer industry is going from strength to
strength in Gulf countries such as the UAE, where budgets for social
media marketing can be as much as $50,000 per social media influencer
campaign, according to a survey released last year by BPG Cohn &
Wolfe.
“It is one of the fastest-growing industries in the Middle East and
brands are beginning to realize the important of influencer marketing
and redirect budgets accordingly,” Alexandra Williams, MD at iHC
Influencer Marketing, told Arab News earlier this year.
“The ad-hoc nature of the business makes it very easy for brands to
disconnect with an influencer potentially harmful for their image and
move onto the next,” added Ian Hainey, CEO at the company.
In the video Al-Qattan grumbled: “The new laws that have been passed are
like a pathetic film. For her (domestic worker)to take a day off every
week, that’s four days a month. Those are the days that she’ll be out.
And we don’t know what she’ll be doing on those days, with her passport
on her.”
She later responded to negative media coverage by saying the backlash
against her remarks was an attack on her as a hijab-wearing woman, the
state of Kuwait and Islam as a whole.
Her failure to apologize made the situation worse, Massimi said, adding
that his agency would “never suggest her name in the future to our
partners. I’m sure that’s the conclusion of many other agencies in the
region.” After this, he said, “It would be suicidal for any brand to
continue working with her.”
Cosmetics Giant Max Factor Arabia said it was “shocked” at Al-Qattan’s
remarks and Chelsea Beautique posted a statement on Twitter saying: “We
believe that decent working conditions should be provided to everyone
and such behavior does not represent our brand’s core beliefs.”
The new law follows a dispute between Kuwait and the Philippine
President Rodrigo Duterte after he imposed a partial ban on workers
traveling to the Gulf country when the body of a murdered Filipino maid
was found in a freezer.
About 60 percent of the 250,000 Filippinos in Kuwait are domestic
workers and the country has been under pressure from the international
community to improve a system that human rights groups have described as
a breeding ground for poor working conditions.
“Sadly, I think too many brands just throw money at influencers and make
some very big decisions in a rush and without doing proper research
into things often far more important than numbers,” said Natasha
Hatherall-Shawe, founder of TishTash Marketing & Public Relations.
“If Sondos had come out with some humility and remorse, apologizing for
her comments and explaining maybe why they were out of context or showed
some lack of judgement, then we could be in a different situation today
than we are.
“I have rarely today seen any influencer so vilified and not just on a
regional level, but globally too and this is a very tricky place to come
back from,” she said.
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Jul 31, 2018

Kuwaiti blogger forces brand rethink across Arab world
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