You are Teresa Gutiérrez, marketing director of BellezaNatural, a Honduran cosmetics brand. The influencer who sells most for the brand has just posted a political message that is already trending, and two retail chains are demanding a response. You have until Friday afternoon to decide what the brand says in public.
The situation
It is Wednesday 3 April 2024, 7:15 in the evening, in Tegucigalpa. BellezaNatural makes cosmetics from cacao, coffee and flaxseed extracts, turns over about US$18.2 million a year and sits in some 950 points of sale across four countries. At 10:47 this morning Catalina Ruiz, its star creator, with 1.2 million followers on Instagram and 2.8 million on TikTok, posted a carousel calling the region's governments "corrupt" and "fascist". Within four hours it had 120,000 reactions, and the hashtags already tie her message to the brand's name.
At 4:30 the largest supermarket chain in Central America, worth US$3.2 million a year, called: unless the brand distances itself within 48 hours, it will consider pulling it from its 145 stores. At 6:30 a chain of 240 pharmacies, worth US$1.8 million, was blunter: cancel Ruiz or leave its shelves. Other retailers, worth US$1.5 million, are watching. Before the post, 71% of the public had a favourable view of the brand.
Ruiz has a US$140,000 a year contract, signed in January 2023 and renewing automatically, and she is credited with about US$340,000 of sales a year, at a cost per sale of US$0.41 against US$2.10 in other channels. Your digital director points out that the other eleven creators will watch how she is treated; the head of public relations wants a statement tonight; outside counsel warns that nobody has re-read the contract since it was signed; and the founder asks only whether the supermarkets stay.