Mistaken purity for Racism.
In early October of 2017, personal care brand Dove received a huge wave of negative feedbacks from social media users about its new marketing campaign for a body wash – a 3-second GIF image posted on Facebook featuring 3 women of different origin, each removing a top similar to her skin colour to reveal the next woman. The most provocative part of the advertisement was an image with viral showing African-American woman removing her brown t-shirt with a bottle of Dove and revealing herself as an Eastern European in a light-coloured top.
As it turned out, the principle behind the product Dove, that it ”suits all skins”, was misinterpreted into the racist statement by those who saw the ad. Using such idea as an incentive, many people expressed unwillingness to purchase any more products from this brand.
Although Dove apologized for the offence on Twitter, the marketing campaign can be considered a big PR mistake which will probably cause the reduction sales in the near future. Given that the brand has run in this sort of situation before due to its provocative video ads, it seems like the brand hasn’t learnt the lesson to. It’s highly recommended for Dove not to mess around with skin colours and appearance and to specialize more into inner health and beauty.
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Reference:
”Dove Drops an Ad Accused of Racism”, Oct 8, 2017, Meggie Astor
