Times of India, the country's largest read English daily had an interesting story on its front page today titled "seven food majors vow responsible advertising". (You can read the complete story here)

The seven companies which had vowed are Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Nestle, Kellogg, Mars International, General Mills and Hindustan Unilever Ltd.

The word responsible is as broad as it gets. But let's look at just one product called Fair and Lovely, which is advertised and marketed by Hindustan Unilever Ltd, since it was first launched in India in 1978.

The cream is technically called a "skin lightening cream". As the fair and lovely website points out: "Our fairness products are based on Unilever's Patented Skin Lightening technology that comprises of a synergistic combination of Vitamin B3 (Niacinamide) with UVA and UVB sunscreens which work together to protect the skin from darkening and gently, safely lightening the skin."

In fact, let me deviate a little from the broader topic. There is some very interesting research on all these fancy terms that companies use while marketing their beauty products (Patented skin lightening technology, UVA and UB sunscreens in this case etc)Do most consumers understand what do these terms mean? The answer in most cases would be no. But do these terms matter to consumers when they make a buying a decision? Yes, they do.
Marketing guru Martin Lindstrom elucidates this point through a brilliant example in his book "Buyology - Truth and Lies About Why We Buy."

"When Unilever (HUL's global parent) was getting to launch a shampoo in Asia, a mischievous employee with time on his hands wrote on the label, just for the hell of it, Contains the X9 Factor. This last minute addition went undetected by Unilever, and soon millions and millions of bottles of the shampoo were shipped to stores with those four words inscribed on the label. It would have cost too much to recall all the shampoo, so Unilever simply let it be. Six months later, when the shampoo had sold out, the company reprinted the label, this time leaving out the reference to the nonexistent "X9 Factor.""
Now that was the logical thing to do. And what happened? "None of the customers had any idea of what the X9 Factor was, but were indignant that Unilever had dared to get rid of it. In fact, many people claimed that their shampoo wasn't working anymore, and that their hair had lost its luster, all because the company had dropped the elusive X9 Factor," writes Lindstrom.

The cosmetics mystery has been able to use this mystery brilliantly to sell their products.

As Lindstrom writes "There's even been a trend within the global cosmetics industry to create mystery around their brand rolling out "scientific" formulas that claim to catch scents with their wearer's DNA. Regardless of the fact that the notion of perfume matching a person's DNA is complete nonsense, it hasn't stopped any of these companies from trying to convince consumers that such mysterious formulas exist." Why else would you have beauty majors naming products like Daily Resurfacing Day Cream UV SPF 15 PA++ and Tinted Moisturizer UV.(You can read the complete piece here)

Now back to HUL. HUL's advertising strategy for Fair and Lovely has always been something akin to "kaale ko gora bana de".

In fact in 2007, HUL (then Hindustan Lever Ltd) had to withdraw an advertisement, which showed a dark-skinned women, who was neither getting a job or a boyfriend, suddenly becoming a talk of the town after she started using Fair and Lovely.

The company tried to change this "kaale ko gora bana de" positioning to try and show those who use Fair and Lovely are achievers in their real life. The next advertisement to hit the market showed a girl achieving her dreams of becoming a cricket commentator and finally meeting Kris Srikanth.

Now what has Fair and Lovely got to do with becoming a good cricket commentator is a question that you need to ask yourself?

Of course the advertisement did not go on for a long time, and was canned. The company in the meanwhile went back to its "kaale ko gora bana de" positioning claiming the cream makes people several shades lighter in four to six weeks.

Now there are several questions that arise here? Has there been research carried out over a period of time that shows that by using Fair and Lovely, people become fair? If yes, why does the company not talk about it? Also to what extent does it make people fair? If no, how is the company being allowed to make such claims and get away with it?
For a moment let us assume that the cream indeed does make people fair. Does it still justify the company's positioning? A country like India is obsessed with fair skin. Beauty is associated with being fair. A high caste status is so associated with being fair. The fairer you are the more eligibile you are deemed for marriage.

If you don't believe this, try watching any television serial and see if any of the heroines are dark skinned. Or watch any of the movies produced in Kannada, Telgu and Tamil (or South films as the media in Mumbai likes to call them). The heroes are dark skinned, but the heroines are always fair (and that explains the success most North Indian heroines have down south, right from the days of Rati Agnihotri to the current rage Shriya Sharan).

So by putting out advertisements based on the "kaale ko gora bana de" is helping propagate these old beliefs, which should have died by now.

In fact, over the years other companies have realised the males form a major portion of Fair and Lovely users ( It is a bit like Godrej Hair Dye being used to blacken buffaloes in the cattle mela held at Sonepur in Bihar every year, where the targeted user of the product is not always the real user).

Given this, a lot of male fairness creams like Fair and Handsome have been launched. The positioning is the same, except males are asked the question "aap ladkiyon ki fairness cream kyon istemaal karte hain?"

Also as skin experts will tell you the fact remains that dark skin is better at tackling skin diseases than light or fair skin. This is primarily because dark skin has more of this pigment called melanin, which protects the skin from the heat of the sun. Fairness creams essentially kill melanocytes which produce melanin.

In fact the Fair and Lovely website also says that "The effect is reversible. The skin will return to its original tone in a few weeks, once you discontinue to use the product. In fact this is one of the key safety attributes in all our products." (You read it here)In simple English, what it means is that if you want to continue to be fair, please keep using our products.

Given these reasons HUL can hope to become a responsible advertiser only when it withdraws its current positioning strategy for Fair and Lovely.

References:

The Whiter the Better, www.dailystar.net