Rihanna is clearly a powerful, strong woman who speaks her mind. So when she was angered by an offensive advertisement about her on Snapchat, she made it clear exactly what she thought about the issue. Not only that, but just one comment from the singer was enough to devastate the company, causing its shares to sharply drop.
It all started when, earlier this week, Snapchat users were presented with a disgusting 'Would You Rather' ad, asking them whether they would rather 'Slap Rihanna' or 'Punch Chris Brown'. As you probably know, this is not exactly an appropriate joke to be making about a victim of domestic abuse.
In 2009, Brown brutally assaulted Rihanna. She was punched multiple times and her head was slammed into the car window. A photo taken of her bruises were later leaked, which horrified people all over the world.
According to Snapchat's policy, all their ads are "subject to our review and approval," yet somehow this ad got through without anyone thinking it was a terrible idea. A spokesperson for the company later apologized for the mistake, claiming that it was "reviewed and approved in error" and was immediately removed once they became aware of the problem.
However, this didn't do much to satisfy anyone, including Rihanna. In her Instagram story, she denounced the company for "bringing shame to domestic violence victims," writing that:
"Now, Snapchat, I know you already know you ain’t my favourite app out there! But I’m just trying to figure out what the point was with this mess! I’d love to call it ignorance, but I know you ain’t that dumb!
"You spent money to animate something that would intentionally bring shame to DV victims and made a joke out of it! This isn’t about my personal feelings, because I don’t have much of them… but all the women, children and men that have been victims of DV in the past, and especially the ones who haven’t made it out yet… you let us down!
"Shame on you. Throw the whole app-oligy away."
Snap Inc., the corporation that owns Snapchat, has now seen its shares plummet - as soon as Rihanna sent out this message to her followers.
With over 60 million followers on Instagram, she practically had an army on her side. Seeing as her followers are likely to be the target market for Snapchat in a lot of ways, it ended up having a major effect on their market value.
Shares of Snap have dropped as much as 5 percent to session lows on Thursday, which knocked $600 million off the market capitalization. Some unverified reports today have put this number closer to $1 billion. And this isn't the first worries the company has seen this year.
Less than a month ago, Kylie Jenner showed her disdain for the app's confusing new update, which led to a 7 percent drop in Snap shares. It was estimated that over the last few months it may have seen up to $1.3 billion lost, so it's likely they will be looking extra closely at those ads from now on.
