Unilever to Rename Company to Promote Inclusion
Source：the guardian
From：Taiwan Trade Center Chicago
Update Time：2020/07/19
The Indian company, Unilever, has released a statement that they will change the name of one of their cosmetics lines, Fair & Lovely, which is a line of skin-lightening creams/products. They have decided not to use the term “whitening” on their product or in their advertisement concerning the product. They will, however, continue to offer the product, which is a form of bleach for skin, with no changes apart from their marketing strategy.
This name-change has been prefaced by many years of people criticizing the product for inappropriate branding and skin color-shaming. Many consumers found the idea of promoting skin-whitening as non-inclusive and implying that non-white skin was something undesirable or needing to be “fixed” with cosmetic products. Agreeing with these sentiments, Unilever stated that their company development is moving toward solidarity regarding beauty, including a more diverse image. They stated that their marketing using words such as “fair, white, light” etc. have implied that beauty must be lighter and whiter. Though they are not changing the product itself, they are set on changing the language.
The media, in this discussion, referenced the want for lighter skin and traced it back to the British colonization of India, where white people were far superior to all indigenous groups. Others, though, have traced the want for lighter skin to religious texts in Hinduism and even to political conflicts between tribes in India.
Unilever stated that their brand has been working through changes to address the issue of promoting lighter skin far before this year, dating back to 2014. They also revealed that this is not the first marketing campaign to be discontinued for that reason. In 2019, Unilever stopped using before and after pictures on their skin-bleaching products, showing significantly lighter skin on the models in the “after” pictures.
This incident is part of the larger discussion across the world concerning the superiority of white skin, specifically since the George Floyd murder earlier this year. Other brands such as Johnson & Johnson, recognizing this, have discontinued their skin-bleaching products altogether. However, skin-bleaching is a million-dollar industry specifically in Asia and India. The WHO reported that around 40% of African women bleached their skin.
Source：https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/25/unilever-rename-fair-and-lovely-skin-lightening-cream-inclusive-beauty