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A Heartfelt Apology and Our Commitment to Meaningful Change

Harry Qi
CEO at Motion
Oct 20, 2024

To our valued community,

Recently, multiple advertisements were published that fundamentally misrepresented our values and mission at Motion. We deeply regret these mistakes, and want to address this head-on and share our plans for meaningful, lasting change.

First and foremost, we want to extend our sincere apologies. The ads in question promoted harmful stereotypes that has no place in our company or the society we aim to serve. We are especially grateful to Emily Brown for bringing this to our attention - her words resonated deeply with us and have become a catalyst for lasting, positive change within our organization.

Motion was born from a personal place – our Founder & CEO, Harry's own struggle with ADHD, anxiety, and mounting workload, with the goal of finding more time for life's meaningful moments. Our mission has always been to empower individuals from all backgrounds to fulfill their own goals and dreams - whether it’s having more time to spend outside of work or starting a new business - through enhanced productivity. The recent ads failed to reflect this core mission, and for that, we are truly sorry.

We want to be transparent about what went wrong and how we're addressing it:

  1. Where we fell short: After a thorough review, we realized that we had over-relied on external ad agencies without proper oversight. This resulted in a series of campaigns from one agency that were deeply misaligned with our values and the positive impact we strive to make. However, this does not excuse ourselves from the accountability that, at the end of the day, these ads are run on our accounts. As CEO, I take full responsibility for this failure in leadership. It's clear that we didn't vet agencies and influencers carefully, and sufficiently review the work being done on our behalf.
  2. Immediate action and Learning: We've removed all problematic ads and ended our relationships with the influencers and agency responsible. We're committed to doing the hard work necessary to learn and grow. We're reaching out to individuals from diverse backgrounds, industries, and experiences to gain a broader perspective, including bringing them on board as consultants. We’ve formed a diverse internal committee who will create brand guidelines and strict policies based on these conversations, which will also guide our future marketing strategy; we’ll continue to learn and educate our entire company. Moving forward, we’ll bring all creatives ideation, vetting, and review process in-house to ensure they authentically represents Motion's mission and values.
  3. Accountability: we believe that accountability cannot be truly carried out and enforced without consequences. Therefore, multiple internal team members have been held accountable with disciplinary actions.
  4. Long-term commitment: We do not want to simply stop at preventing negatives. We are committing to a positive change, and to produce content that celebrates individual achievements and empower people of all backgrounds.

Thank you for holding us accountable. With sincere appreciation and an unwavering commitment to change,

Harry Qi

CEO, Motion

Harry Qi
Written by Harry Qi