As I become more and more immersed in the makeup world, it is interesting to see all the scandals and movements that occur, especially with indie cosmetic brands.
One of the most notable, was the Lime Crime Scandal.
Lime Crime and it’s owner Doe Deere have been in the middle of controversy since inception. With rumors of shady business practices and false advertising, people have always taken the owner and company with a grain of salt. That was until earlier this year.
When news broke in the makeup world that Lime Crime’s website had been compromised and that the site was attacked from October 4, 2014- February 15, 2015, as reported by the Lime Crime website. Customers were enraged, they weren’t mad because the breach happened. Although the breach was a major player in their anger, one of the biggest reasons for furious customers, was how Lime Crime handled the situation as a company.
Though Lime Crime knew of the issues going on it kept quiet. It wasn’t until customers started speaking out about fraudulent activity on their account after shopping there, that other customers started putting two and two together and confronted the company.
It was then that Lime Crime released a statement on their Instagram, (which was very soon after deleted) about the data breach.
As the situation grew, Lime Crime and CEO Deere, fell under even more scrutiny. As customers began to comment, sharing their stories of fraud occurring because of stolen information or making known that Lime Crime should have been up front with the issue in the first place, users noticed that all comments that had any sort of negative connotation were being deleted quickly.
Suddenly the scandal escalated and became an attack on not only the data breach, but on the company, and specifically the CEO.
When crisis happens, one of the most important things is to be as transparent as you can be with your customers. When deleting negative comments or responding back and trashing people who commented become the practice, customers started to bad together to stand up for themselves.
Customers reached a peak of anger when CEO of Lime Crime Doe Deere, posted this message on her blog
Soon hashtags like #limecrimescandal and #boycottlimecrime were trending in the makeup world and still are popular today.
This is how much it was talked about in just the past month, and that is only on twitter, it is even more on Instagram.
The twitter account @limecrimeliar started and has been an influential part of Lime Crime not being sold in Sephora. All of this was done with the power of social media.
I’m not saying that I am an expert at public relations or crisis management, but anyone can see that this situation was not handled in an ethical manner. The golden rule of public relations is never ever lie. While there may not be any out right lies being told here, withholding information, especially of that magnitude, can be seen as lying and is detrimental to your relationship with your customers.
