During its social ambush of the 2016 Oscars campaign, the cosmetics brand Total Beauty mixed up two of Hollywood’s leading black stars, mistaking Whoopi Goldberg for Oprah, on its twitter feed and fuelled a social backlash amidst the ongoing Academy Awards race inequality controversy.
Total Beauty posted an image of Goldberg at The Oscars whilst expressing surprise that the person who they thought was in the photo (talk show host, actress and entrepreneur Oprah Winfrey) had tattoos.
This tweet is going to live forever, @TotalBeauty. #OscarsSoWhite pic.twitter.com/EmoGMecaGB
— Kenny Coble (@KennyCoble) February 29, 2016
The problem further confounded another Oscars error from Total Beauty when it confused Good Morning America’s Lara Spencer and Brazilian singer Claudia Leitte in another post.
The same feed that confused @Oprah and @WhoopiGoldberg thinks @LaraSpencer is a Brazilian pop star #Oscars pic.twitter.com/LJI9gnncJg
— Chris Ariens (@ChrisAriens) February 29, 2016
We’d like to apologize to Oprah and Whoopi, as well as everyone we’ve offended. It was our error, and there are no excuses. We’re sorry.
— Total Beauty (@TotalBeauty) February 29, 2016
The mistake went viral and the brand was immediately mocked and parodied across social media for its error and generated a backlash hashtag #ThatsNotOprah.
Many used Twitter to ask whether the beauty site was intentionally trolling those following the Oscars and its #OscarsSoWhite race debate.
It's not like confusing two unknown. These are two of the most famous women in the entire world. @TotalBeauty might be trolling…
— Brian Koppelman (@briankoppelman) February 29, 2016
The following morning, Total Beauty used the #ThatsNotOprah hashtag to announce it was making a $10,000 charity donation to an organisation supported by the two stars.
Using this #Oscars #SNAFU as an opportunity to donate $10k to @whoopigoldberg & @oprah's charity of choice. #ThatsNotOprah #WeMeanIt
— Total Beauty (@TotalBeauty) February 29, 2016
Comment
There is a simple, but vital message here for everyone activating around properties: just because it is real-time social media, doesn’t mean you don’t fact check like you would when working in traditional media.
It also reinforces our opinion that brands should keep quiet on social unless they have something genuinely important, entertaining, useful or good to say.
Links:
Total Beauty Twitter:
https://twitter.com/TotalBeauty
Total Beauty Website:
