In this year's Brand Equity Top 10 brands survey I was shocked to find Fair&Lovely ranked as the the 9th or 10th brand!Here's a product that should be banned but instead we are celebrating it? Kudos to Hindustan lever, Cavin Kare, Dabur, etc who are all raking in big bucks by promoting apartheid.Fair and Lovely, Fair and Handsome (now for men too!), fairever, is this fair? Thanks (actually no thanks)to the battery of advertising by all these illustrious companies, women/men with dark complexions live their lives lamenting their fate and of course desperately buying these predatory products in a bid to "survive". I wonder if the people who create these products and their great friends in advertising who create the "fair is beautiful" messages so convincingly ever pause to wonder the damage on the pysche of people who can never turn fair even if they bathed in these products all their lives? Isnt this irresponsible? (although I was part of this industry for almost 15 long years)Increasingly I am beginning to detest advertising for its misleading and exaggerated messages.
This message of "fair is beautiful" gets into every sphere of life - of course we are all familiar of the "wanted tall, fair, beautiful" matrimonial ads. But what worries me is the concern that the same standards may get applied in interviews, promotions and even friendships? The conditioning of our society on the "white man's" skin legacy continues.
Thank you Hindustan Lever, Cavin Kare, Dabur and your competitors for ensuring this!
I couldn't agree more with the sentiments expressed here - but what do you do with the people who consume these products? It's a national shame, no doubt!!
ReplyDeleteAnd what's more, I hear that men use Fair & Lovely more than women in India. I don't know if that is true, but it certainly is worth looking more than skin deep - pun intended!
I totally agree with you and to add to this are our actors -Shah Rukh Khan, Shahid Kapur, Deepika Padukone and Katrina Kaif. They are all super stars according to industry standards and when they endorse these fairness creams, their fans want to buy them too.
ReplyDeleteThis despite the fact that a black man lives in the world's biggest 'White House'!
ReplyDeleteThanks Naresh for your 'bold' statement -- it takes more than 'fair' to be beautiful; man or woman.
The only politician with his integrity intact is a black man - Nelson Mandela.
I completely agree with you! The way these products are promoted is unacceptable and unethical as well!
ReplyDeleteThere are a million other ways in which the company can promote the product while keeping the name intact because that's what the average Indian wants, don't you think?
Here's a comment sent in by an ex colleague of mine.....Thanks for the invitation, and remembering me for these matters and also really appreciating your work.
ReplyDeleteI was thought about this a long back and you published it great job, and also I am thinking about is there anybody concerning about the advertisement cost and also the packaging cost of each product. In this globalization, everyone is thinking about packaging and spending a lot for the above but not concerned about the product and its quality. If a good quality product comes with simple paper cover wont the public accept.
Who created this culture of buying the attractive packages than going by the product's quality I do not know. which going on spoils everything. Ex. jaggery which is not attractive originally but now people are buying the white coloured clean jaggery now knowing that black jaggery may not be attractive but no harm in that and also good for health but the new polished and fair&lovely jaggery will surely, definitely a curse to the society.
Who is going to takeup this to the society? I don't know how its going to happen but sure,, i put this in my mind one day or another public may come to know and turn back to their old age life (so called stone age life) i believe.
Also we are not encouraging children who are caring and concern about their co-friends but rather encouraging who is competing and comes first hence we are the people who are making the society this way and we should not blame others. But how we are going to take a start that matters i think I am just waiting for the opportunity.
Thanks a lot and respectfully,
Gowri Manohari
I agree with you Naresh. There needs to be a change in the mindset of the consumers of these products.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately most people don't appreciate or realise the beauty of the 'inner-self'. Discrimination on the basis of skin color is an insult to 'Nature'. It's a shame to the 'sixth-sense'.
Corrupting the minds of people with a false idea 'Fair is beautiful and dark is ugly' is a crime indeed.
Ever heard people say, "although she is black...she looks cute" intending black is not exactly pretty however a few other assets make up for the lack of white skin.
ReplyDeleteThe Great West recently published thesis on "At what stage of our growth phase does the human mind actually begin to discriminate skin based on color?" It was inferred that toddlers barely 9 months old gravitated towards images of people with white skin held out to them as opposed to the images of darker skinned people. Does that mean that over generations we have been genetically mutated with an ‘apartheid’ gene?
And what is worse...Sharukh Khan...idol for millions around the world is promoting this ideology!!!
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ReplyDelete(sorry for the deletes, I just wanted to edit my post)
ReplyDeleteI'm pretty surprised with so much agreement. The summary of all advertising campaigns that I hold in my mind is this -
1) Separate the haves from the have-nots
2) Elevate the haves relative to the have-nots, thereby asking the have-nots "don't you want to be better?"
Fair and Lovely seems to be doing nothing very different really.
For another example, take Raymond's "the complete man" - like a man is actually "complete" only if he wears a suit with a strangler despite hot weather? Is any wedding "complete" without a reception in a suit? Thankfully, people are voting for nicer looking sherwanis, still, despite hot weather.
One of my favourite Calvin and Hobbes strips is where Calvin is contemplating whether he should buy super bubble because chewing it will make him look cool. Hobbes comes at him saying - "If your self-esteem depends on satisfying a need you did not have until you read the ad, go ahead".
The core issue is that of self esteem. If that's weak, you're exposed to predators.
Naresh, I fully agree with you about advertising. I am consciously tuning out advertising and other audio visual chaos - no news channels unless absolutely necessary, no film magazines, no papparrazzi-style tv programs, no reality shows where there is no creative talent on display.
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