COMPLACENT MARKETING
The Changing
Face Of Advertising
By Diana Obath
D
ove and H&M have faced
public judgment in the past few
months because of their now
popular ‘racist’ ads. Dove had the first
fire to put out when they post a 3 second
GIF promotion of a new body wash
that shows a black woman peeling off a
dark shirt and transforming into a white
woman in a beige shirt. This immediately
drew numerous amounts of social media
attention to the brand and the specific
post.
Different social media users had different
things to say about the advert but most
termed it as a racist approach to making
the black woman look inferior to the
white woman. The black woman had been
portrayed as dirty and only Dove could
make her clean and white.
Even before social media users could forget
the October Dove incident, H&M opened
the year with another episode of a racist
ad and found themselves in the middle of
a social media storm. The company had
uploaded an ad of a black boy sporting a
hooded jumper with the words ‘Coolest
monkey in the jungle’ written on it. The
unforgiving twitter and Facebook users
did not let the matter rest until they got
an apology from the company.
In both incidences with Dove and H&M,
the companies apologized but the damage
had been done. Issues around racism and
the inferiority of the black skin came
to light. White people and mixed races
thought it was unfair for the companies
to degrade black skinned people in this
manner, and social media became one
loving family, speaking one language and
singing one song.
The most interesting thing about these
two scenarios is the fact that the world
was fighting for people who had no
problem with how they were portrayed
in the ads. In the case of Dove, the black
woman said she was excited to have been
offered a chance to be the face of a new
body wash campaign. She says she had
no idea she would become the “unwit ting
poster child for racist advertising.” She
acknowledges that she understood the
existing stereotype about white women
In Kenya today, skin lighting creams are openly
sold in the corner of every street and on social me-
dia. Social media has created mini goddesses out
of some women who were formerly dark skinned
and have now become light skinned. These stars
have hundreds of thousands of followers who
cheer them on about their light-skinned beauty.
They have even started selling beauty products
which are high on demand among women want-
ing to achieve the same effect.
08 MAL22/18 ISSUE
being the standard of beauty and she took
up the offer to dispel that notion.
“Having the opportunity to represent my
dark-skinned sisters in a global beauty
brand felt like the perfect way for me to
remind the world that we are here, we are
beautiful, and more importantly, we are
valued… Calls were being made to boycott
Dove products, and friends from all over
the world were checking on me to see if I
was OK. I was overwhelmed by just how
controversial the ad had become.”
In the case of H&M, the sentiments from
the parents of Liam Mango, the boy in the
hoodie were the same. The mother Terry
said she was okay with the photo, and the
hoodie, and asked people to ‘get over it.’
Asked by The Sun magazine in UK if they
would have stopped him modelling in the
top if they had noticed it during the shoot,
Terry explained: “Not for me I wouldn’t
see such a connection other than my son
modelling a shirt. With the controversy
now, you look back and wonder if you had
noticed it what would have been my initial
response to it. “It is not an overreaction
when it comes to racism. I know what
racism is. I have been at the front. I have
had racist remarks to me first hand. I have
been called a monkey on a cruise ship.”
As if in agreement with Terry, American
Rapper Diddy offered the boy a $1 Million
modelling contract.
These two episodes got me thinking
about the society and the changing face
of advertising. Advertising has become
bold and red eyed, speaking directly to the
society that it is created in. The truth is
that racism is a reality in our society and
stereotypes exist among us.