Whenever the Body Shop or Nike is mentioned, people instantly think of the huge swoosh tick sign, or the enticing scent and big green walls. Both The Body Shop and Nike are famous and successful international companies, with very different morals and ethics. What are morals and ethics? It is the belief of an individual, of what is right and wrong and in this essay, we see how different, the point of views are from the two companies. These two companies are somewhat similar in some ways but both believe in completely different things and are different in how they advertise and go about making their products. In this essay, we will see how these two giants started, what they produce, their marketing strategies, and how they affect the economy and our society.  

The Body Shop was founded in 1976, by a lady called Anita Roddick, who decided to make a different kind of business. She wanted to make a difference, and help the environment. Anita Roddick is a lady of high expectations and the idea for the body shop came wanting to bring a change to society. She once said “If business comes with no moral, sympathy, or honorable codes of behavior, God help us all.” I completely agree with this because I think a good, successful business should base its morals on helping people, not exploiting them for your own benefit. Nike however, would probably disagree. Like the Body Shop, it was discovered also in the mid 70’s by two men, Bill Bowerman, the University of Oregon track & field coach, and Phil Knight, a University of Oregon business student and middle-distance runner, purely for the benefit of business and money. 

The Body Shop, as its name suggests, sells all natural products; cosmetics including body lotions, lip gloss, bath soaps and many others. Nike sells sporting apparel to aspiring athletes such as t-shirts, shoes and sporting equipment. While the Body Shop attempts to provide value for money, Nike sets its prices sky-high and markets the products at people who can barely afford enough money for food, let alone expensive shoes. While this is seemingly beneficial to Nike’s business people, I believe that it is wrong to rip less fortunate people then themselves off and it is not necessary to do such things to become a successful company. I think you have to draw the line somewhere, and Nike can’t just run away from its problems and blame someone else. It is very heartbreaking to see and hear about little boys hand-sewing soccer balls until their hands bleed, and people in Vietnam breathing in toxic fumes about 177 times the legal limit. The Body Shop is blooming in business, and it is not because high-profile people are walking around wearing their products. The Body Shop knows the benefits of a good reputation and doesn’t underestimate what word of mouth can do. If my friend told me about a new product with all-natural ingredients, that works well, I would want to try it.

The Body Shop does not actually formally advertise or market its products on television. The idealized beauty presented by the rest of the competitor cosmetic industries is ignored by The Body Shop because it believes that each and every individual is special in their own way and acknowledges that the majority of women don’t look like super models. The Body Shop’s store location is most important because they don’t use ads. Because they don’t spend much on advertising, prices of products can be kept to a minimum. Posters, leaflets and shelf cards are used to give information to customers about them and the displays in the windows of the Body Shop are also important. Compared with the Body Shop, Nike spends heaps of money on mass advertising, and promoting its products by paying elite athletes, such as Michael Jordan, to wear their clothes. Their big tick sign and slick slogan, ‘Just Do It’ has become so ubiquitous that they do not need to label the ads Nike for people to know that it is them. While I agree that advertising helps a company get recognized faster, I think that if a company keeps the ads to a minimum and works harder on building a good business and making quality products, it would last much longer.  

The Body Shop currently has around 17, 000 branches around the world, in developing countries. The store locations of the shop are crucial because, without much advertising, it has to be in a location where it is clearly visible and easily accessible by the public. The Body Shop is usually found in busy shopping centres where it is easily recognizable to customers. Nike also has many branches across many countries in the world, but probably the most famous one is NikeTown, in Portland, America. NikeTown is a whole area dedicated to Nike and their products. Their store locations probably do not matter as much because everywhere we go; we are bound to run in to a Nike billboard anyway. With this much publicity, people assume that because their product has a tick on it, that it is the best quality and pay dearly for it.

Many people feel comfortable buying The Body Shop products because they know that it is made from all-natural ingredients and are not animal-tested. They pay their workers a fair sum for their input in the products because they don’t believe in taking advantage of people the way Nike does. Nike does not actually make any of its sneakers. Instead they are manufactured by many independent contractors in Asia under the poorest work conditions. The workers, which include young children, are paid low wages and there have even been instances of outright physical abuse. Recently Nike has bowed under pressure from the public and media’s criticism, and even then, the situation has only improved slightly. The Body Shop defends human rights and activates self-esteem by believing that everyone is beautiful in their own way, while Nike puts people down, by paying workers a pittance and not providing safe and healthy working environments for them. I think that anything that is good for the environment is good for the world, and when the world is a healthy place, everyone is happy.  

Next time I go shopping, I will definitely know where I’m headed for all my body and health needs. I would be supporting the environment by buying the Body Shop’s products. Anyone with half a conscience would think twice now, about buying Nike’s products without first thinking about the hands that made it and the treatment. If everybody was made aware of this Nike situation, I think people would look at it from a totally different light. As mentioned before, Nike has come under fire with criticism, but still has not made the situation much better. So, again, it depends on what your ethics are and what you believe in. I definitely know what my ethics are, anything that supports the environment, activates self-esteem, and doesn’t do any animal testing is good enough for me.

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