aespa’s Giselle Discriminated by Korean brand, Fans Express Frustration 

On February 29, a topic titled “mise en scène’s endorsement with aespa is currently under controversy for discriminating” was published on the Korean forum Instiz, drawing reactions. 

In particular, Korean hair care brand “mise en scène” recently published new images of its  collaboration with aespa on its official online store on Olive Young – Korea’s top beauty distributor. However, while individual images of Winter, Karina, and Ningning were used on the site, there’s no solo photos of Giselle on any of the products. 

As a result, fans started to accuse “mise en scène” of intentionally discriminating against Giselle, and some have tagged the official accounts of the brand and of Olive Young on SNS, asking them to fix the issue. 

Hello @miseenscene_kr & @oliveyoung ,
why is that on the Olive Young website, only Giselle personal photo for the advertised product is missing? We sincerely hope this is just a minor mistake, which could be fixed easily. Please resolve this issue as soon as possible. Thank you. pic.twitter.com/AXtXNjxKvM

— aespa International (@AESPAIntl) March 1, 2024

Criticisms have poured in as fans were frustrated, but some netizens are arguing that the brand is not obliged to show solo photos of all 4 members. 

Below are some comments from netizens: 

• SM should put a condition on endorsement contracts to protect the members and prevent things like this from happening. Reality is cold 
• It’s okay to be upset, but brands really don’t have to care about things like this 
• This is really unacceptable 
• If the brand doesn’t want to use Giselle, why would they sign aespa as a whole? This is getting ridiculous 
• SM needs to be more careful with aespa’s endorsement deals 

Source: Instiz, X