Influencer, TikTok trend… how Body Minute found itself at the center of a controversy on social networks?

A TikToker followed by more than 300,000 subscribers is being sued by the company Body Minute. Kenzo TRIBOUILLARD/AFP

Since the beginning of the year, the beauty brand Body Minute has been at the heart of a controversy on TikTok. Following a humorous video by the influencer Laurène Lévy criticizing her experiences in their institutes, the brand tried to have it removed. Since then, the company seems mired in a communication crisis, under fire from negative testimonies and calls for a boycott.

The year is off to a bad start for Body Minute. On TikTok, the beauty brand is suffering the backlash of its own more than surprising and disastrous communication strategy.

Since the beginning of the year, the TikTok sphere has been living to the rhythm of numerous testimonies from women sharing their bad experiences in Body Minute institutes. This “trend” emerged after influencer Laurène Lévy was sued by the company. At issue ? A humorous video made in 2022 in which she talks about her bad experiences as a former client of the beauty institute.

Since the publication of this video, the company Body Minute has taken several steps to remove it from the social network. After asking – without success – the content creator specializing in the world of work to delete her video, the French company contacted Laurène Lévy's employer. These unsuccessful attempts ultimately led to legal proceedings denounced by Laurène Lévy on TikTok.

To drive the point home, the Body Minute account on the Chinese platform published a video targeting the influencer, nicknamed her “Laurène la haine”, accusing her of not making “anyone laugh” and to publish this content solely for the purpose of enriching themselves. This attitude has been strongly criticized by a majority of users on TikTok.

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By wanting to delete Laurène Lévy's video, Body Minute inadvertently drew more attention to it, thus leading to an increase in the number of views of the said video. The video has exceeded more than 1.3 million views to date. This is what is called the Streisand effect. This expression takes its name from an incident involving the American singer Barbra Streisand. In 2003, the star had tried to have an aerial photo of her California home removed, but this action caused the image to be widely distributed, which few people had noticed before.

Faced with the company's disastrous communication, and the moderation of comments under its own videos, many Internet users have published their own testimonial videos, denouncing in turn the dubious practices of Body Minute's managers and recounting their own bad and sometimes dangerous experiences. The hashtag #bodyminute totals more than 1,500 publications with many videos describing the worst experiences of dissatisfied customers, some of whom have even developed trauma.

“Bad buzz”

The brand released a press release in the form of a video, specifying that it had not “sought to harass” the content creator. “We have heard the TikTok community's desire to calm the situation”, we can read at the beginning of the press release. A concern expressed in the face of calls to boycott Body Minute relayed by the many women and former customers.

However, faced with this “bad buzz” evident, the beauty institute reserved for women has nevertheless persisted and signed. Published on January 6, the video “Does Bad Buzz Really Exist ?” from the official Body Minute account returned to the success of its own videos on the Laurène Lévy affair, highlighting a significant number of views. Here again, generating the disbelief of Internet users : “But they are freewheeling”, “In the head of the Cm 'screwed for screwed' ????”, we can read in the comments of this last video.