How One Beauty Brand is Getting Tens of Thousands of Women to Vote This Year

A few weeks ago, my team and I were floored to find out that 53% of non-voters in the last election were women. We’re talking jaws on the ground floored. This means the majority of people who choose to forgo their right to vote are women—the same group who spent decades trying to get the right to vote. 

So we set out to change that stat. In an effort to get as many women thinking about, and ultimately prepared for, Election Day, we’re helping them confirm that they’re registered to vote—or register if they aren’t already—and giving away a free Alleyoop product to anyone who takes our pledge to vote in the 2020 election. We also made the decision to shift the focus of our social pages, choosing to dedicate posts to voter education and empowerment, as opposed to promoting our own offerings. Two things that may not make the most sense from a business perspective, but that felt like the only obvious choice from a social responsibility standpoint. 

Why? Because gone are the days of “erring on the side of caution” or “playing it safe” when it comes to addressing social issues as a business. If 2020 has taught us anything, it’s that it is each and every one of our responsibilities to protect the greater good. Not just those labeled as activists. Not just those that hold political positions. All of us. Which admittedly is something that scares a lot of brands. 

Whether you’re a small DTC business or a Fortune 500 company, we all have stakeholders and revenue goals to meet. It’s an unavoidable fact. But that also makes it easy to fall into a trap of shying away from anything that may make waves or cause a negative backlash. Better to not make headlines than to make the wrong headlines, right? 

Nope. Wrong. In today’s environment, not saying anything says everything. If you have a platform, of any kind, or even an ounce of influence, you have an obligation to push the needle forward. It doesn’t matter if you’re talking to twelve people or twelve million people—you have a voice that’s being heard, and it’s your responsibility to use it. While it’s a sad truth that it took an overwhelming amount of adversity to cause this shift in approach, it did. Yet the outcome has been so empowering as a business owner. We’re seeing consumers hold brands accountable like never before and enacting real change in such powerful ways. 

As a brand that exists in the beauty space, I was rocked to my core watching Sharon Chuter challenge companies to #PullUpOrShutUp, effectively pulling the veil back on the lack of diversity and inclusion in our industry. An initiative that, might I add, ended up extending far beyond our single sector. 

This initiative, and so many others, have paved the way for brands to speak out and take a stance in the face of social crisis. The excuse of staying silent because it isn’t our place just doesn’t hold water anymore. It’s everyone’s job to help move our world forward and provide support in whatever ways they can.

I do think it’s important to highlight the difference between reacting versus responding when it comes to how you show support and drive change. Reacting is emotional, and usually immediate. It’s more instinctual and less strategic. Responding takes time and thought. It involves listening, digesting, learning, and coming to the table with an intentional next step. 

For example, we didn’t hear the 53% statistic and immediately decide to reward people for pledging to vote. We spent time diving into the research—getting to the root cause of why so many women choose not to vote. Only after realizing that in many instances it involved being overworked, overwhelmed, time-starved, and feeling pressure from outside sources to conform to an outdated way of thinking did we realize that the same women choosing not to vote are the women we speak to every single day. We have trust and influence with this audience. At that point, it only made sense to use our platforms to help empower, inform, and equip them to make their voices heard in this election. 

None of that is said to elicit a pat on the back, and I’m definitely not saying you have to give products away to enact powerful change. That’s just what made sense for Alleyoop. But I am encouraging other businesses and brands to take a look at their strategies and what they’re ultimately prioritizing. At the end of the day, having great products means very little if they aren’t coming from a brand that has an equally great impact on society and is focused on driving positive change for the world.