How The Body Shop is cynically using children to push its products - by throwing them parties

  • Teenagers are drawn in through Facebook by being offered free 'parties'
  • They often agree without their parent's consent
  • The girls are then put under pressure to sell products to their friends
  • Many can't afford the products and feel embarrassed and upset

By Shona Sibary

Published: 16:23 EST, 9 July 2014 | Updated: 17:19 EST, 9 July 2014

My daughter Annie's voice was desperate. 'Mummy, I need more money,' she pleaded on the phone.

'Can you please bring some? I'll find a way to pay you back. I'm begging you.'

You might be forgiven for assuming my lovely 13-year-old girl was in some kind of teenage trouble - playground bullying or, worse still, drugs? Thankfully not so, but the reality was still uncomfortable.

Two hours earlier, I had dropped her at a friend's party. I'd assumed she'd be stuffing her face with cake and dancing.

Beauty myth: Saskia, 13, thought she had won a fun pampering party with her friends, instead she was used to sell products to them

Beauty myth: Saskia, 13, thought she had won a fun pampering party with her friends, instead she was used to sell products to them

What I didn't know was that this wasn't a proper party at all. Annie and her friends - a group of eight girls - had been contacted via Facebook by a sales consultant from The Body Shop, who said they had 'won' a Wimbledon-themed strawberries and cream celebration.

 

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Their hopes for a fun-filled get-together were soon dashed. That phone call from Annie made the situation all too clear.

To me, the event was nothing more than a cynical ruse by The Body Shop to gather together a bunch of naive young girls for an unashamed hard sell.

And this from a company once voted Britain's second most trusted brand, a globally successful beauty giant which, for almost 40 years, has based its reputation on being an ethical corporation.

Of course, the girls knew they would be shown products with the opportunity of trying them. But they were also told there would be games and freebies.

Under pressure: Some of the messages Saskia received from a Body Shop sales consultant
Saskia felt uncomfortable selling products to her friends as they didn't much much money

Under pressure: Some of the messages Saskia received from a Body Shop sales consultant

Instead, they spent two-and-a-half hours sitting on a sofa being sold everything in The Body Shop catalogue by a consultant who didn't say if she was CRB checked. I also understood that she had not sought permission beforehand from the mother of the young hostess, though the company disputes this.

The £20 Annie had been told to bring by her friend went little way to affording the beauty products being touted.

At the end, rather than being handed a party bag, the girls were given an order form and that old sales gem that if they bought that day there would be hefty discounts. Thus, Annie's call to me.

Home-selling parties are nothing new. We've all been at the receiving end of an invitation from a friend to come over, drink wine, and ooh and aah over a Jamie Oliver pizza wheel.

"The consultant kept asking me on Facebook how I was getting on - but it started to get a little embarrassing having to constantly hassle my friends for money...."

Once it was Tupperware. Now women up and down the country are selling everything from vintage jewellery to scented candles to friends and family.

We're adults: we know the difference between a genuine knees-up and a flogging exercise, but children don't.

And it seems some consultants at The Body Shop At Home - the profitable division of the company that runs these parties - are using this to dubious advantage.

Teenagers are drawn in through Facebook by offering them free 'parties', sometimes without their parent's consent, in return for 'liking' The Body Shop.

In north Devon, where we live, several of Annie's friends have been targeted in this way.

I later found out that the consultant, a blonde woman in her late 20s, had a contractual target to 'host' a minimum number of parties a month in her area.

She'd earn 25 per cent commission on all sales up to £1,599 in a calendar month and an additional 5 per cent commission on sales of £1,600 or more. Saskia Riddell, 13, from Bideford, hosted the party Annie attended. 'We had a spring fete at school and I was pleased to see The Body Shop had set up a stall,' she says.

'I chatted to the lady who was there and she told me she was doing a raffle and I should fill out a form to give me the chance of winning something.

Abusing their position? The Body Shop is a popular destination for teenagers

Abusing their position? The Body Shop is a popular destination for teenagers

'I wrote down my mobile number and name. The next day she sent me a friend request on Facebook. I couldn't believe she wanted to "friend" me and I was excited so I accepted her straight away.

'The next day she put something on Facebook saying the first five people to "like" her status would win a free Body Shop party.

'Of course, I "liked" it immediately. Then she sent me a message telling me I had won.'

Saskia's mother, Penny, 44, an administrator, admits that she was sceptical.

'I told Saskia she hadn't "won" anything and it was all just a ruse to get her to buy stuff,' she says. 'But she adores The Body Shop products. She'll spend every penny she gets on creams and lip glosses and every Saturday morning she's in our local store trying out all the testers.

'I could see how excited she was and, to my shame, I thought: "What harm can it do?"'

Penny admits that while she wasn't happy her daughter had let a stranger befriend her on Facebook, she was reassured that the woman was an ambassador for a well-known firm.

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Saskia continues: 'The Body Shop consultant gave me some dates for my party and then asked me to give her my address. I cannot recall that she ever got me to check if this was OK with Mum.'

Penny realises now that she was naive in allowing the situation to continue. 'I felt cornered,' she says. 'Here was this woman contacting my daughter through social media and, I can see now, manipulating her.

'But it seemed more above board than perhaps it was because she was a Body Shop employee. I felt if I stopped it, I'd be a spoilsport.'

Even before the party, Saskia felt she was put under pressure to sell products to her friends.

'I was sent a host pack,' she says. 'It contained a pamper grid - a chart divided into squares worth £2, giving someone the chance to win a prize of up to £50 of their choice of products. I tried to sell the squares to my friends.

'I also had a bingo card where each box had incentives for me to get discounts or free products. It was things like getting ten or more friends to come to the party, or getting £50 worth of pre-orders. Each time I achieved one of these I could cross off a box. If I managed an entire line I would win £25 in free goods.

'I really wanted to achieve it - and the consultant kept asking me on Facebook how I was getting on - but it started to get a little embarrassing having to constantly hassle my friends for money.

Upset: Shona's daughter Annie went to a Body Shop party where she felt obliged to spend money

Upset: Shona's daughter Annie went to a Body Shop party where she felt obliged to spend money

'I don't think the consultant realised we don't have that much money to spend at our age.

'I'd told everyone to bring £20 to the party because I'd looked in the catalogue and seen you can't buy much for less than that. But some friends said they only had £5 and asked if they should still come. People were beginning to drop out because they didn't want to feel embarrassed about not buying something.'

On the night, Saskia says some girls got upset they weren't able to buy goods at the one-night-only discounted rate because they didn't have enough money.

'One called her Mum in tears halfway through because she wanted to order something, but she didn't have enough money,' she says. 'I felt really bad for her. Then others started to phone home and beg their mums for more money. It all seemed about the money and not about getting together for a laugh and some pampering, which is what The Body Shop woman had given the impression it was going to be.'

Professor Agnes Nairn, a leading expert in the ethics of marketing to children, has been campaigning to stop corporations using children as brand ambassadors where they are offered financial incentives to sell to their friends.

'It is abhorrent,' she says. 'I am horrified that a company such as The Body Shop is allowing something like this to happen.'

"It all seemed about the money and not about getting together for a laugh and some pampering, which is what The Body Shop woman had given the impression it was going to be..."

In 2011, the Advertising Association produced a voluntary pledge prohibiting the use of under-16s in peer-to-peer marketing and encouraged its members to sign up.

L'Oreal, the French cosmetics firm who bought The Body Shop in 2006, is one of the signatories.

'That a big brand like L'Oreal is seemingly failing to apply the pledge just goes to show it isn't worth the paper it's written on,' says Professor Nairn. She wants the practice to be outlawed. And she's not alone in her view. A discussion on Mumsnet provoked similarly strong views, with almost universal support for the ban and disgust about targeting children. Many mums who responded said it was 'utterly immoral' and 'unethical'.

For their part, The Body Shop points out that The Body Shop At Home consultants are self-employed and added: 'Body Shop At Home consultants are made fully aware of the ethics and values of our business, and targeting minors to host parties is not consistent to our business practice.

'Teenagers have been and always will be an important part of our customer base. We do not actively target them to become consultants or hosts.

'We have spoken to the consultant in question as part of our initial investigation, who has advised that the girl sought the explicit permission of her mother to host the party and she was present throughout the party. If the behaviour or commercial activities of a consultant is at odds with our practices we will take immediate steps to terminate the business relationship.'

For Saskia, she says it has been a tough lesson. The parties are surely a long way from the aims of The Body Shop's founder, Anita Roddick, who died in 2007. She famously said: 'The business of business should not just be about the money. It should be about responsibility. It should be about public good. Not private greed.'

If the concerns raised by Saskia and her friends are anything to go by, one can't help wondering if she is turning in her grave.

 

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Oh please I remember 20 years ago when I was in primary school us all bring crammed into the sports hall whilst a body shop representative gave a two hour "special assembly" showing off all their products, asking us to donate to their charity and telling us how to buy their very expensive products!

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If it were a male sales rep, he wouldn't have got past the 'friending' on Facebook. Parents need to be more aware, you wouldn't let a strange man come around for a 'party' with your daughter and her friends, why would you let this woman? The parents should know better as the children are too young to.

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I like how you've not bothered to get a statement from Body Shop. I'm pretty sure, as with previous instances I have come across, that they were meant to be 18 to enter, or have a parents permission. Which, like most teenager, ignore or pretend they do.

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The parents should've said 'no'.

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Never liked body shop . shameless .

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The products used to be fresh and natural. Now if you read the ingredients they use chemicals that have nothing at all with being natural and read like a chemistry lesson experiment. I won't buy from there now and it's a real shame because the original products were by far the best ingredients I've ever came across.

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People don't realise that the Body Shop is no longer the Body Shop that we all knew and loved years ago under Anita Roddick. They are now LOreal. They are a large, uncaring, un-personal conglomerate. The biggest sadness is the stopping of their animal welfare policies. Sadly they now are part of an organisation that "allegedly" (HA!) continues to test on animals.

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The mother looks familiar. I think she ws featured in an article some time back. Anyway, I don't see the need for the family photo in this article.

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It just makes the company look bad how many customers are they going to lose over this put your foot down and ban the underage parties

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This has been going on for years. I am now 25 and when I was around 14 or 15 I hosted a Body Shop party. It wasn't really awkward though, everyone knew why we were there. Then again we were never told we'd 'won' anything by having the party, the girl just approached me in a Body Shop and said they do parties. My friend had one, and I did too - it was actually pretty fun and I never felt weird about it! (I definitely didn't have to ask my parent' permission though, I just did it!)

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