Dove’s Racist Advertisement Is An Addition To The Long History Of Racist Soap Adverts

Dove recently released a racist advertisement that has too many things wrong with it, something entirely not expected from a company that boasts itself of being “socially conscious”.

Advertising and marketing are two things that have commercialised almost any and every feeling that one can have. Every brand wants to make their contribution on the recent issues of Feminism, Body Positivity, Protest Culture and everything else, in order to get Internet famous and sometimes, to even create conversations. While some ace the test, a majority of these brands fail to do justice to the concept and end up being a target of consumer rage.

Dove, a brand that boasts of being body positive, is the recent addition to the long list of brand fails. Just a while ago, the company released an advertisement for their body lotion, taglined, “visibly more beautiful skin”, and it tanked, badly. Dove posted a GIF on their Facebook page that showed the image of a black woman taking off a dark brown shirt to reveal a white woman wearing a white shirt. One doesn’t need to be too aware to see everything wrong with it. The immediate message that a consumer can pick from Dove’s racist advertisement is that white skin is somehow better than dark skin, and it can be removed or scrubbed off, with Dove products.

We have come a long way to understand that anything racist is unacceptable in our society anymore, however, sometimes brands just can’t seem to see the bad in it. The advertisement is offensive to all those women who belong to the non-white category, and that’s a huge number.

Many came out to vent out their feelings regarding the advertisement and pointed out, how this is not the first time when Dove had mistakenly done something racist. Apart from this, many even pointed out that soap companies have been using the racist theme for a long time now. It was somehow normal, back in the day, however, it’s not anymore and which makes the advert inadmissible.

Here’s how Twitter reacted on Dove’s racist advertisement:

Dove has since apologised for their advertisement and released a statement about it on their social media.

It’s just crazy to think that a bunch of people actually sat down and approved the advertisement, and not even a single person in the team or even in the company failed to see the problem in it.

Brands are trying their best to get good messages across, yet most of them fail miserably, which in return creates a huge controversy. And, with small consumer rages at a time, we might end up making things right.

Jyotsna Amla