Brand Essence Video
Shea Moisture is one of the first widely available haircare brands to speak to the diversity within Black hair textures and styles.
But after tone-deaf marketing unsettled the women and men who trust the Shea Moisture name, the brand needed to return to its roots.
An important note: I’m a white woman. As part of my master’s program, I was specifically challenged to write for Shea Moisture, whose products I don’t use, and whose target audience I don’t belong to or pretend to represent. This script is a reflection of research into the communities who trust Shea Moisture and a collaboration with Black strategists and experience designers who volunteered their time and feedback.
Be quiet. Be small.
Keep it straight. Fall in line.
You are too much work. You take up too much space. You push back when I say ‘stay down.’
That’s what they say, with their words, and their silence. With what they show us and with what they don’t. ‘Don’t you want to be me?’
They are the sharp pull at our edges. They are the chemical burn at our ears. The dollars we pay to be anything but.
But we won’t listen. We are not them, and we don’t want to be.
We are wavy, kinky, curly, coily. We are colorful and cropped. We are wigs, locks, twist-outs and frohawks.
We are no one thing.
We are unapologetic. Resilient. Inventive. We are so much, not ‘too much.’ We are everywhere.
We are the freedom to make noise, like hands clapping and feet stomping, demanding more. We are the freedom to be soft like halos. We are the freedom to follow rules, or to be unruly. The freedom to be seen, and to see ourselves. The freedom to be as we are. The freedom to be.
Shea Moisture.