Lush unveiled a nationwide public awareness campaign to showcase the “growing use of racist narratives”.

The marketing drive, which ran from 16 to 30 March, was created in collaboration with not-for-profit the Migrants’ Rights Network.

As part of the campaign, the retailer sold ‘Hand of Friendship’ bath bombs with 75% of the sales price (minus tax) being donated directly to the charity.

Lush’s campaign lead Andrew Butler explains the marketing drive.

For it’s campaigns the retailer works with a partnership organisation and come up with a concept together. For this campaign it was Migrant’s Rights Network.

The firm also worked with a migrant-led design agency Migrants in Culture who crafted the window displays and printed materials.

The retailer also approached some of its staff members who had experience of migration to help “shape and sense-check” the marketing drive.

According to Butler, Lush tends to choose smaller, grassroot community led groups for its campaigns.

He adds: “We also look for groups who closely align to our values and are bold in the way they communicate. In this instance Migrants’ Rights Network were suggested as a possible campaign partner by one of the staff in our Birmingham store. It didn’t take long for us to know that they were a perfect fit!

“Their aim to create “a world where everyone is free to move, and no one is forced to move”, beautifully matches with our vision and how we operate.”

Measuring success for a campaign like this one can be “incredibly difficult” as it is about changing the people’s “hearts and minds”.

Butler explains that you can never know where someone is on their journey with the issue or the marketing drive will influence them in the long run- it could be the first time someone is receiving this information and while they might not seem receptive at first it might “plant a seed” that could lead to a change of heart.

The retailer doesn’t usually measure overall sales or footfall during its campaigns as that’s not a indicator it uses when deciding on them. However most of the campaigns will have a fundraising products associated with them.

He says: “In this instance the Hand of Friendship bath bomb is raising money for Migrants’ Rights Network, and it has been flying off the shelves, selling out in the first week in many places.

“We also know that our stores and customer care team have received some incredibly positive feedback, especially from people with lived experience of migration, and in a climate that is so often toxic toward migrants this is the greatest measure of success we could hope for.

Butler explains that the campaign reflects the retailer’s key principles such as its ‘We Believe’ statement. It also builds upon previous work the firm has done such as challenging racist border controls with No One is Illegal and its partnership with Refugee Action.

He believes that it is important for retailers to speak out on social issues.

He says: “All companies are simply groups of people working together toward a common aim. So much of our lives are lived in workplaces, so surely we should be making sure that those workplaces are not only supportive and inclusive places themselves, but are also doing all they can to support positive social change in our wider communities.

“If you’ve got a platform, use it.”

Campaigning is woven into everything Lush does.

Butler explains: “This represents our values, it’s not marketing but rather how we’ve always done business and why many people choose to work for or shop at Lush. We do it because it’s the right thing to do, whether it appeals to people or not.”

According to Butler, the role digital storytelling plays in the brand’s campaigns depends on the platform. He explains that “it is becoming more and more evident that those [platforms] owned by Big Tech barons are designed to spread misinformation, lies and hate to generate the doomscroll and clicks that line their pockets even more, and to garner favour with those in power.”

He adds: “Regardless of the impact of the wellbeing of the user. We made the decision to come off the major social media platforms a few years ago when the negative impact on people’s mental health started to become clear and when whistle-blowers revealed that the platforms knew about the harm they were causing but chose not to do anything about it.

“Since then things have become worse, with owners of these platforms propagating far-right hate and undermining democratic processes. That said, we understand not everyone is in a position to take such a stand and people use these platforms to connect with their communities and have built their living on them.

“So we are supportive of people over platforms and are always pleased when people choose to amplify our campaigns and our partner organisations with their own posts. We will continue to support content creators while doing all we can to hold the platforms accountable.”

Butler hopes the campaigns audience comes away from the campaign feeling more hopeful.

He says: “For so long we’ve been swimming in a sea of hate, with certain media outlets, pundits and politicians blaming migrants for all sorts of social issues that they are not responsible for.

“We want people to be heartened by a company taking a stand against hate, pointing instead to the real issues that should unite us all. Doing nothing is not an option, as that makes our communities less safe spaces, it’s up to us all to stand and work together for the more beautiful world we all know is possible.”

Click here to sign up to Retail Gazette‘s free daily email newsletter