For the first time since the Face of Zaron initiative debuted a few years ago, things have gone quite smoothly between the handpicked representatives
For the first time since the Face of Zaron initiative debuted a few years ago, things have gone quite smoothly between the handpicked representatives of the brand and the cosmetics brand itself. First it was Ghanaian actress, Yvonne Nelson who was unveiled as the face of the makeup line.
A year after, 2014 specifically, actress, Rita Dominic took over and remained so for three years up until January this year when a competition was announced in search of three young confident women who will be faces of the cosmetic line. In addition to getting maximum exposure through billboards and adverts, photo shoot with a celebrity photographer and a year’s supply of Zaron products, the three finalists were to get N1,000,000, N500,000 and N250,000 respectively for 1st, 2nd and 3rd prizes.
The competition was a strictly social media thing with winners chosen based on who gets the most likes. While Nafeesa Butu came first with 14,000 likes, Teminikan and Somto came second and third respectively. However trouble started when Nafeesa claimed that in her contract papers, she was asked to among other unsatisfactory things, pay for her supply of the cosmetic products which she is supposed to be representing.
Nafeesa Butu
According to her, she had engaged the brand several times in order to reach a resolution on several issues concerning certain exploitative aspects of the brand ambassadorship contract. Some of the things requested of her were out of the ordinary things including paying for the cosmetics they were providing as part of the prize. Having reached out to the team on this and several other aspects of the contract and was unfortunately unable to reach a mutually satisfactory resolution with them, she decided it was best not to take up the offer as the face of the brand.
The cosmetics brand has however denied all of Nafessa’s claims regarding the terms of contract, calling it false allegations. According to the brand, they consider it in their best interest for their brand ambassadors to have access to all of their products and as such consider it absurd to demand any form of payment in exchange. They made available on their social media page the terms of contract, as written by their lawyers, to further debunk that there is nowhere in the contract where it indicated that a payment for products be made.
This is in addition to the fact that the same contract was used by their previous brand ambassadors and none of such fictitious statements were made. The brand considered the ‘false’ accusations a severe character assassination against it and therefore demanded that Nafeesa rescind all such negative claims, including taking down the post where she claimed payment was asked for in exchange for products, on her social media, otherwise it would pursue legal action. As at the time of writing this, the post is yet to be taken down.
