A YouTube video by Christina Hall critiquing Blake Lively’s handling of promotion for her film It Ends With Us and the simultaneous launch/promotion of her hair care brand Blake Brown. Hall argues Lively’s tone-deaf publicity—appearing dismissive about the film’s domestic-violence subject while plugging a beauty line—has generated backlash and damages her personal brand and product launch.
Chapters
No one is getting canceled harder right now than Blake Lively. I've been living under a rock. Blake Lively just came out with a movie called It Ends With Us. It's about domestic violence situations. And the gist of the reason people are pissed off is because in all of her press interviews about the movie, she's been acting very laissez faire and not taking very seriously the fact that this is a movie about domestic violence. But one of the worst things she's doing for herself, her brand, and for her image is simultaneously plugging her new hair care brand while promoting this movie. Not only is it tactless and distasteful, but but it's absolutely ruining her brand. This is her new hair care line, Blake Brown. Lots of celebrities tend to release product lines because they know they're not going to be relevant forever. So it's kind of important that they don't fuck it up. Let this go down in your textbooks for what not to do if you are a celebrity and you want to release a product line. As a brand strategist and brand designer, I see a lot of businesses doing some of these things, but not quite on the scale that Blake is doing. One of the worst things Blake is doing for her hair care brand, let alone her image, is she's completely neglecting who her target audience is. Her hair care line is exclusively available.