The Body Shop lands in trouble for Cho Gue-sung’s Valentine’s Day campaign winner selection goof-up

British skincare and perfume company The Body Shop recently landed in trouble regarding its Valentine’s Day campaign with Cho Gue-sung, the South Korean footballer.

The campaign was called out for being biased towards influencers. As per the rules, consumers had to guess the correct answer to a question, tag a friend, and upload the post to their Instagram story. Considering Cho Gue-sung’s extreme popularity after the 2022 FIFA World Cup, many fans participated in the campaign.

However, fans noticed that four out of the five winners of the Valentine’s Day campaign were influencers who hadn’t followed two rules. The unfairness had fans frustrated at the company for not checking the winners properly.

---

Fans criticize The Body Shop for goofing up Cho Gue-sung’s Valentine’s Day campaign winners, apologizes for the same

South Korean footballer Cho Gue-sung emerged as nothing short of a worldwide celebrity after going viral at the 2022 FIFA World Cup. He landed multiple brand deals, did dance challenges with K-pop idols, and even bagged a Valentine’s Day campaign with The Body Shop. The winners of the campaign were slated to get an opportunity to meet Cho Gue-sung and receive a signed ball.

In the hopes of meeting Cho Gue-sung, thousands of fans participated in the Valentine’s Day event announced on February 6, 2023. Fans awaited the winner's results but were disappointed to discover that four of the five people selected were influencers who had not followed the rules.

The company’s move of not properly cross-checking the winners upset fans, who also speculated that it was a calculated move to give the products to the influencers.

English translation of Korean netizens' comment on The Body Shop's winner announcements via theqoo (Image via Koreaboo)

K-netizens were furious with the results. One even commented that they checked the winners’ accounts and found that all of their posts were sponsored. It further solidified their belief that it was a marketing gimmick. Take a look at the comments below:

Following the extreme backlash, The Body Shop released a statement to disgruntled Cho Gue-sung fans, announcing:

“Hello, this is The Body Shop. First, we would like to thank all of you for the high number of participants. We would like to apologize for making so many people uncomfortable due to the mishandling of our Valentine’s Day event.”

It mentioned the process of choosing winners and acknowledged that the team did not thoroughly check if the chosen individuals followed the rules or not:

“We used an event program that is widely used to choose random winners. We used the program to choose random winners, but we didn’t verify if they had tagged a friend, used hashtags, or if they had uploaded a story."

The statement continued:

"We are aware of the disappointment we have caused many of you. Also, this has given us an opportunity to look back on all of our past events and ask ourselves if there weren’t any shortcomings.”

Towards the end of the post, they added an apology and mentioned that they would try to livestream the event.

“We sincerely apologize again. For those of you who weren’t chosen as winners, we will do our best to livestream the event. Also, we will separately contact each participant to send our apologies. We will be more careful in the future.”

---

Meanwhile, the 25-year-old Cho Gue-sung or No. 9 went viral at the 2022 FIFA World Cup, which also served as his senior debut. He also became the first South Korean player to score two or more goals in a World Cup match after scoring two goals against Ghana, albeit eventually losing 2-3.