Scammed by Rihanna?
This story rather than being a negative review trying to hold a company to account is actually a story of live and learn. Not only is the company in question at fault but also my own incompetence led me to being in my overdraft. This article although actual critic was originally meant for entertainment but I uncovered some new information, to me, that shows my story in a different light.
Rihanna is the face and joint owner of a couple of brands and owns the trade mark of Fenty, which is her surname, and used in all of the brands names. All of Rihanna’s brands derive from the internet using influencers on YouTube and Instagram to advertise and Rihanna’s own celebrity to drive sales.
In 2017 Rhianna, like every other major singer, realised they could make more money if instead of endorsing products they made themselves and became a brand, I call this the Kardashian business model. She copy righted her surname Fenty and operates Fenty Beauty under LVMH’s Kendo Holdings, Inc. Kendo is incubator company they manufacture white label products for companies to put their own name on. Fenty Beaty has been very successful making $US550 million in its first year partly due to its vast and inclusive foundation range which had forty shades. According to Forbes LVMH owns an estimated 50% of Fenty Beaty, while Rihanna has about 15%, although this is disputed (Robehmed,2019). Rihanna and LVMH are now collaborating in a luxury fashion house.
In 2018 Rhianna launched SavageXFenty a lingerie brand with TechStyle , as far as I can tell this is a separate eternity to Fenty Beauty and Fenty. SavageXFenty’s philosophy was also based on inclusive with a very large size range going all the way up to 4XL and showing larger women as well as racially diverse in their ad campaigns. SavageXFenty aloud anyone to feel sexy no matter their size or race or sexuality was the messaging. Lingerie was for the consumer and not for the consumer’s partner as Victoria Secrets narrative suggests. TechStyle is another incubator type company which is also involved in Fabletics the fitness clothing brand owned by Kate Hudson. I couldn’t find the share of SavageXFenty Rihanna owns in my research. It’s philosophy is based on a subscription model, it says that this reduces the amount of waste they produce and means that they don’t have to increase their prices in order to cover their overhead in case their stock does not sell, making it cheaper for the customer.
It is important for this story to point out that TechStyle have been in trouble before over deceptive marketing practises linked to JustFab.com, Fabkids.com, Shoedazzle.com and Fabletics.com businesses and reportedly settled out of court for $1.8millionUSD in 2014.
My experience of SavageXFenty
I first heard about SavageXFenty around 2019 they had a very heavy presence on social media specifically on YouTube. Their campaign consisted of staged reviews by influencers, none of them I had heard of. These ads looked like they had been taken from actual videos on YouTube (I don’t know if this was the case but that is how it appeared) and were placed before videos usually stuff like clothing hauls and beaty guru videos, with female dominated viewership. I had no issue with this it was nice to see the diverse range of people who were endorsing this lingerie, the products looked nice and all the women looked sexy and confident in them. This messaging was very prominent throughout the campaign and were very frequent almost every video I watched in the autumn of 2019 had a SavageXFenty as before it.
At the end of 2019 or the very beginning of 2020 I needed to get some new bras, and instead of my usual trip to M&S I thought I’d try SavageXFenty, after all I’m a sucker for a good marketing campaign. I went on the website and at first I thought everything was quite cheap the prices said £5 to £15, but when you clicked on the item it world say four times that price.
Browser page Clicked into the item
Fig 1
When I added things to my basket I realised if I gave them my information than the bras were a lot cheaper this document was becoming a VIP Member. The cost of this membership was £49.95 which is really quite expensive if you are not buying lingerie every month, which if you think about it no one does. Anyway for some reason I signed up and bought a bra and a bralette. That time I did remember to cancel my membership which was an arduous process.
The items I order arrived and some of it I liked. There was one bra that became my favourite and wore quite a lot as it was very comfortable. That bra lasted two months before the under wire broke through the lace. None of it was amazing quality but it was good for the reduced prices I paid with my VIP membership at about £15. That bra would not have been worth £40 something pounds if it broke after two months.
A couple of months later I ordered the same bra because I really liked it I got the VIP again and this time for some reason I didn’t cancel it. I discovered I was paying a lingerie company £49.95 a month, why would I be doing that? I discovered I was a member and tried to cancel it straight away but I couldn’t.
Another issue was when I discovered that I was paying out this considerable sum of money each month it wasn’t easy to cancel. I went onto their website and realised that you had to either call them up directly or participate in a online chat. These options were only open between 9am and 6pm GMT, which was not great for me at 7pm. This charge did not appear as a direct debit on my online bank so I couldn’t cancel it from my bank. The next day I did the messaging option where the person on the other end followed a script trying to convince me to stay a member and I was shouting at the screen saying you’ve scammed. I got an email after asking me rate the person on the other end of the chat it turned out they were based in the Philippines. I got the email a day or so later.
Fig2
I was free, also how would I cancel my membership by accident, it was really difficult.
They did set me free from the membership but all that money I paid will stay in SavageXFenty as I can only use that money as store credit and without the membership discounts. But to be honest with you I don’t really want to by from them anymore, the visage of the brand is broken for me now. I thought they stood for diversity and inclusivity of body types and background at an affordable price but instead they took hundreds of pounds from me and I have little to show for it.
It’s not just me
I have since discovered, while doing research to write about my experience with this brand, that SavageXFenty has been accused of deceptive marketing practises by the consumer watchdog Truth in Advertising (TINA). TINA have written two letters to the Santa Cruz county DA and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in February this year (I have linked the letters below or they can be found on TINA’s website). In these letters TINA lays out in detail with evidence their allocations of deceptive marketing against SavageXFenty.
What is deceptive marketing?
Deceptive marketing is according to the FTC is
‘if there is a material misrepresentation or omission of information that is likely to mislead the consumer acting reasonably in the circumstances’ (FTC, 2015).
It is important to note that TINA is based in America and has sent its findings to the relevant American institutions but as I am based in the UK it relevant that the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008, the law in the UK, is very similar.
Anyway back to Savage X Fenty
TINA demonstrates out that the company’s website only displays prices that are available to people on their VIP scheme, as I found. TINA also discovered that Savage X Fenty automatically added the monthly membership to their customers carts without the price being shown in the cart as seen in Fig 2. This Xtra VIP Membership is a negative option offer without action when it is first added to your cart and every month after purchase, by going on to their website and saying ‘skip the month’, they would charge the consumer.
Fig3 - (Smith&Pattern,2020,7)
TINA also pointed out another point I mentioned which is the influencer marketing and the lack of discloser about the compensation these influencers get for posting about the brand. They found 21 separate influencers who did not disclose their ‘material connection’ to the brand (TINA,2020,11). Not disclosing this information leads the consumer to think that the influencer genuinely loves the brand, and they may do, but they are going to push it that much more if they are getting free product or are sponsored for a video or a post. In the UK the Competition and Markets Authority is cracking down on influencers who do not disclose how they are connected to a brand, and I believe the FTC is doing the same. TINA’s letters also demonstrated how Savage X Fenty’s own social media advertising on their brand accounts was deceptive as it showed prices only available to VIP Members without disclosing the membership cost.
‘Throughout its marketing, Savage X Fenty promotes prices and sales that are only
available to consumers who are bound to the company’s Xtra VIP Membership, but it
does not clearly and conspicuously disclose this fact.’ (Smith&Pattern,2020,2).
This encourages consumers to go to the site expecting specific prices for products, which could make them more susceptible to the deceptive marketing on the website itself.
TINA also recounts the stories of consumers who when they discovered they were paying a membership fee struggled to cancel them.
“I have been trying to cancel my monthly subscription/membership for
MONTHS. No response on live chats, no response through customer service.
They keep charging me 50 dollars…” (Smith&Pattern,2020,10).
I can empathise with this experience as although I manged to cancel it the day after I realised what was going on, I was not able to just click a button I had to have a lengthy online chat as they tried to convince me to stay as many of the people sited in TINA’s letter were. Although those accounts appear a lot worse than my own experience.
Savage X Fenty has a 1.17/5 rating on Better Business Bureau due to consumers having bad experiences with the brand from customer service to returns policy to the VIP Membership scheme. More recently Savage X Fenty has been in hot water again for using remixed music from the Hadith[1] in its fashion show which streamed on Amazon. I believe the veneer is cracking around the well intention brand and although they have taught many industries about inclusivity and diversity being profitable and desirable. In order to make sure their customers do in fact keep coming back they need to start making those customers happy and stop misleading them into spending a fortune on something the vast majority of people will only buy once a year. A subscription based system does not give the customer choice to remove money for a business they no longer want to support it ties them to that brand and makes them resent it. This is a recipe for disaster for a brand only just into its second year. Will Rihanna’s celebrity and likeability be able to save it?
As of writing this there has been no response on what the FTC and the Santa Cruz county DA are going to do about TINA’s report. Savage X Fenty has made the Membership more obvious it is added to your cart but has not changed many of the other issues pointed out by TINA in February.
I will keep you updated of any further events.
References
Smith, L. & Pattern, B. (2020) ‘2/10/20 Letter to Santa Cruz County DA’ Available at: https://www.truthinadvertising.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/2_10_20-TINA-ltr-to-CA-DAs-re-Savage-X-Fenty_Redacted.pdf Accessed on: 30/11/2020
Smith, L. & Pattern, B. (2020) ‘2/10/20 Letter to FTC’ Available at: https://www.truthinadvertising.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/2_10_20-TINA-ltr-to-FTC-re-Savage-X-Fenty_Redacted.pdf Accessed on: 30/11/2020
Ritschel, C (2020) ’’Really and Truly Scammed Me’: Rihanna’s Lingerie Company Savage X Fenty Accused of Deceptive Marketing’ in The Independent, 13th February, Available at: https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/rihanna-lingerie-savage-x-fenty-scam-reviews-a9334071.html Accessed on: 27/11/2020
Huda (2019) ‘The Importance of the "Hadith" for Muslims’ in Learn Religion, April 14th, Available at: https://www.learnreligions.com/hadith-2004301 Accessed on: 27/11/2020
Welsh, D. (2020) ‘Rihanna Apologises After Including Islamic Hadith In Savage X Fenty Lingerie Show’ in HUFFPOST, 6th August, Available at: https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/rihanna-savage-fenty-muslim-text-hadith_uk_5f7c695cc5b6e5aba0d033bd?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuYmluZy5jb20v&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAHJQhC2dYtSS8JW5kvbZr7pLSH4SO7sBNz3BVcB-zNHO9AOnpBQ_Hi3A4Xv6Dnve2kG8WDYTmnP2orNWoaCOrvvXE8-0EIa6MyVB9BtjJJ10snYmrSuhAWi43FrbUJks-G-R4XbNA6u-MNCGI-cg282oApXXTgxPu2_DNAP5gtXl Accessed on: 27/11/2020
Truth in Advertising (2020) ‘SavageXFenty Deceptive Influencer Marketing Database’, February 10th, Available at: https://www.truthinadvertising.org/savagexfentys-press-release/ Accessed on: 27/11/2020
Wendt, J. (2020) ‘Deceptive Marketing: The What & Why’ in Wolf & Key, 13the Feb, Available at: https://blog.wolfandkey.com/business/deceptive-marketing/#:~:text=Deceptive%20Marketing%3A%20The%20What%20%26%20Why%20Even%20really%2C,the%20news%20for%20its%20decidedly%20tricky%20marketing%20techniques. Accessed on: 30/11/2020
Better Business Bureau (2020) ‘SavageXFenty’ Available at: https://www.bbb.org/us/ca/el-segundo/profile/lingerie/savagexfenty-1216-889170 Accessed on: 30/11/2020
FTC (2015) ‘Native Advertising: A Guide for Businesses’ Available at: https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-center/guidance/native-advertising-guide-businesses Accessed on: 30/11/2020
The Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 (2008) Available at: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2008/1277/contents/made Accessed on: 30/11/2020
Robehmed, N. (2019) ‘How Rihanna Created A $600 Million Fortune—And Became The World’s Richest Female Musician’ in Forbes Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/natalierobehmed/2019/06/04/rihanna-worth-fenty-beauty/?sh=681d1d2713de Accessed on: 01/12/2020
[1] Refers to the collection of accounts of the words and actions of the Prophet Mohammad over the course of his life.
