"[W]e believe that change cannot and will not happen by outside pressure alone in a closed market. Change can only happen from within. When we enter the Chinese market, we will do our part to help make those changes.

"When we were considering expanding into China, a group of marketing consultants told us to remove the section of our company history that describes our crusade against animal testing. "It doesn't mean anything to the Chinese beauty customer," they said. Of course, we refused. Our “no animal testing” policy is part of who we are, and has been since day one. The news that animal issues don't even register with the average Chinese consumer was one of the biggest factors in our decision to go there. During Urban Decay's infancy, we worked hard to inform consumers about animal rights in the United States and Europe. The battleground for animal rights is now in China, and we want to be there to encourage dialogue and provoke change.

"We also hope to shed some light on women's rights issues in China. As a company that caters to a female customer, this is extremely important to us. For one thing, going into China is a way for us to advance women into important professional positions. We will help grow the cosmetics industry, which primarily employs and creates career paths for women. Although workers' employment rights are a relatively new concept there, progress has been made partially because of pressure from businesses, consumers, and advocacy groups from other countries. Based on this, our belief is that both an outside force and inside pressure for change can result in helping transform both the importance of women and animal testing policies in China. And more importantly, we hope to influence the perspective of the citizens on both of these issues.

"If we don't go to China, other companies without our beliefs will, and the culture will never change."

1. Chinese consumers are living in a moral vacuum and need to be educated re. enlightened values like animal/women's/workers'/[insert your own cause] rights by a socially responsible company (which we are, really) operating within the country's own boundaries. So actually, we're doing this for the Chinese people's own good.

2. Of course, we're also in it to make money. We hope to convince you of the rightness of our decision, but if you don't like it, then you can take your business elsewhere.

Labels: animal testing, beauty notes, china, corporate social responsibility, urban decay

6/06/2012 [13]

Subscribe to
Posts [Atom]. Or
follow on bloglovin'. If
you'd like to contact Dain,
feel free to email me.
I'm also on Pinterest.