You can smell a Lush store long before you see one, one second you’re breathing in petrol imbued London air and the next it is as if someone has stuffed a passion fruit up both nostrils.
This pungent, fruity aroma has become so ubiquitous with the Lush franchise that a strong argument could be made for scrapping all superfluous branding strategies altogether. But for the time being, Lush has decided to relinquish its social media platforms instead.
In a statement on its Instagram page, the company best known for its bath bombs and organic face masks wrote: “We are tired of fighting with algorithms, and we do not want to pay to appear in your newsfeed. So we’ve decided it’s time to bid farewell to some of our social channels and open up the conversation between you and us instead.”
Lush’s decision to forgo social media has come as a surprise to many of its followers particularly as the company has been historically vocal on their Instagram and Twitter platforms, often posting in support of charitable causes such as banning plastic and championing women’s rights.
The company, which has amassed 569k followers on Instagram, 423k on Facebook and 202k on Twitter, has announced that its customer services will return to a more traditional model where customers can get in touch via email, web chat and telephone.
In the statement Lush said the decision to leave social media was motivated by a desire to be more socially conscious and promote real voices instead of chasing ephemeral likes.
Whether this novel, or perhaps traditional approach will be successful remains to be seen, according to Social Chain a social media marketing company Lush's denouncement of social media has already incurred a 365 per cent increase in negative sentiment towards the brand.
Although, Lush's instagram post ends with the cryptic promise "This isn’t the end, it’s just the start of something new", suggesting the company has a new digital strategy up their sleeves.