14694: Unilever Promotes The Beauty Of Being White Worldwide.

This Indonesian commercial promotes Pond’s White Beauty for Unilever. Is Unilever still hyping the social benefits of being fair and lovely?

13407: Dulling The Axe.

Adweek interviewed Unilever EVP of Global Marketing Aline Santos on the #Unstereotype initiative, which included a discussion on the ultra-lame and patronizing Axe commercial. Can’t wait to see the next Fair and Lovely message.

Q&A: Unilever’s Global Marketing Chief on Busting Gender Stereotypes in Advertising

#Unstereotype initiative aims to level playing field

By Christine Birkner

Brands are increasingly addressing the issue of gender stereotypes. In June, Unilever launched #Unstereotype, an initiative that aims to level the playing field in terms of how gender is portrayed in advertising. Unilever’s past efforts in that regard include the long-running Dove “Real Beauty” campaign and Axe’s “Find Your Magic” campaign, which helped the brand ditch its hypersexualized frat-boy persona in favor of more accurate portrayals of men.

Adweek caught up with Aline Santos, evp of global marketing for Unilever, at the ANA Masters of Marketing conference in Orlando, Fla., last week to talk about how Unilever is putting its plans into action.

Adweek: How does Unilever’s #Unstereotype initiative aim to break gender stereotypes?

Aline Santos: In the last two years, we’ve done studies on how people are portrayed in advertising and how those portrayals were connecting, or not, with our consumers. We found that across many different industries, there’s a big gap between what the industry is saying and how consumers are living. We found that 40 percent of consumers aren’t relating to advertising in the broader industry. It’s a very serious number.

One of the things we’ve found is that gender has evolved, but we still look at gender in a stereotyped way, which creates a big distance between us and consumers. We felt that it’s time for us to correct that and be much closer to the reality of gender and people today. We want to create an environment where our advertising is going to be progressive and inspiring. We want to focus on people, not just women. We believe that if we want to unstereotype people, we can’t unstereotype women by creating a stereotype for men.

What’s your advice for other marketers in “unstereotyping” their ads?

When you’re creating a new piece of content, you have to think about the role of the main character. If she’s a woman, what is she doing? Only 3 percent of ads around the world show women in leadership roles. You have to think twice about the role your main character has to play. With Dove’s “Real Beauty,” it’s about talking about how beauty becomes a source of self-expression, not a source of anxiety.

Talk about how Axe has helped bust gender stereotypes with its new positioning.

Axe is a brilliant example. It’s about understanding people in a better way. The stereotype of manhood that we had been portraying for years isn’t relevant anymore. Not only was it not relevant, but it wasn’t right. “Find Your Magic” and the way they put it together with different personalities is one of the best examples of unstereotyping. The response from consumers was great. They really identified with it.

What are the biggest challenges in breaking gender stereotypes?

The biggest challenge is that people get in automatic mode [when creating ads]. They don’t think about it—they just appeal to stereotypes. The second is if you use stereotypes, it’s going to be easier, so you have to get away from that.

Also, a diverse culture at brands and agencies is a fundamental element to win in the marketplace. It’s not a moral case, it’s a business case. You have to have a more diverse set of leaders to come up with a diverse set of ideas.

13382: Unilever’s Stereotypical Bullshit.

Advertising Age spotlighted Unilever VP-Global Marketing Aline Santos, who discussed the company’s new initiative to eliminate stereotypes from its advertising. Um, MultiCultClassics continues to wait for Axe or Fair and Lovely to demonstrate the grand plan. It would actually be easier and better for society—as well as ultimately lead to fewer stereotypes—if Unilever launched an initiative to eliminate exclusivity from its White advertising agencies.

Aline Santos: Why Unilever Is Banishing Stereotypes

Unilever VP-Global Marketing Aline Santos explains the impetus behind the company’s newest initiative.

12032: Rethinking The Fairest Of All.

From The Wall Street Journal…

Will New Ad Guidelines Change India’s Light-Skin Obsession?

By Shanoor Seervai

A young woman in an Indian television commercial airing now is reluctant to be caught on camera as her fair-skinned friends take selfies at a café.

“In a moment, I’ll be photo ready,” says the woman, shown applying Procter & Gamble Co.’s Olay Natural White cream. The announcer intones: “From the first use, get an instant glow. With seven fairness benefits.”

Ads for skin-lightening cosmetics have for years played on some Indians’ insecurities about their skin tone, helping create a $600-million-year-business in the South Asian country.

Some of the most cringe-worthy commercials, however, may soon be disappearing. India’s ad watchdog this week issued new guidelines barring spots that portray dark-skinned people negatively.

The Advertising Standards Council of India says people with dark skin shouldn’t be shown as “unsuccessful in any aspect of life,” especially “in relation to being attractive to the opposite sex, matrimony, job placement, promotions and other prospects.”

“Because of the proliferation of products — more than a dozen brands and even for men — there was a need to say something specific about ads not being disparaging to people with darker skin,” said Partha Rakshit, the ad council’s chairman.

Mr. Rakshit said ads by the big consumer-products firms, including Hindustan Unilever, had become less pointed lately. But problems with some advertisers and a rising number of complaints by offended consumers prompted the new guidelines.

Procter & Gamble said it agrees with and will comply with the new guidelines.

Hindustan Unilever, 52%-owned by Unilever PLC, said it was consulted in the creation of the new guidelines and will comply with them. The company sells skin lighteners under its Fair & Lovely brand. “We are fully committed to these guidelines,” a company spokesman said.

Advertisers that fail to comply with the guidelines can be forced to take commercials off cable television under India’s cable-TV rules. The new guidelines apply to regular advertisements and infomercials, which critics say are more likely to offer negative portrayals of darker-skinned people.

So-called fairness creams, skin bleaches and lotions have flourished in India. Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan and cricket heartthrob Virat Kohli are both big promoters of men’s fairness products.

An Indian pharmaceutical company even markets a feminine hygiene product called Clean & Dry Intimate Wash, which it says “restores discolored skin, giving it a fair, glowing look.”

A commercial for that product depicts a woman being ignored by a man. But after she starts using the wash — the results of which are illustrated with a drawing showing shadows disappearing from a woman’s crotch — he can’t keep his hands off her.

A spokesman for the company declined to comment on whether the product whitens skin.

The preference for lighter skin leads men and women to boast of fair skin in matrimonial ads in the hope of securing a match. “V. fair handsome govt. doctor seeks suitable bride” and “slim and fair bride wanted” are some recent examples in ads in the Hindu newspaper.

Nandita Das, a Bollywood actress who is the face of the Dark Is Beautiful campaign that battles prejudice against people with dark skin, says the new ad guidelines are a step in the right direction to rein in an industry that has created a “dark-skin complex” to make money.

“Too many young girls and now boys are losing their confidence,” because Indian society and advertising glorifies lighter skin tones, she said in an emailed statement.

Advertising executives say that the new guidelines aren’t likely to hurt sales of whitening products.

“I have always believed you can sell a beauty product to a woman without making her feel less beautiful,” said Zenobia Pithawalla, executive creative director at advertising firm Ogilvy & Mather. “When you sell a fairness product, what you are really selling is hope.”

Ms. Pithawalla said the guidelines say that dark skin shouldn’t be shown as a problem. “However nothing stops a brand from making ‘skin darkening’ a concern,” she said, referring to darkening from sun exposure or pollution.

In a 2010 ad for Hindustan Unilever’s Fair & Lovely, a young woman looks dejected after losing out in a dance audition. Her victorious — and fair-complexioned — rival offers some advice: Use skin-whitening cream.

“You’re so talented, why should you be behind the curtain?” the winning dancer says in the commercial from 2010, handing over a tube of Fair & Lovely lotion. “Here, take this.”

Corrections and Amplifications: A previous version of this article said the new guidelines for fairness ads do not apply to infomercials. On Thursday the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting told broadcasters they would apply to infomercials as well.

12015: Ban Fairness In Advertising.

Digiday reported on “The crazy skin-lightening ads that have been banned in India.” According to the article:

On Tuesday, the Advertising Standards Council of India, a self-regulated advertiser group, issued a new set of guidelines that will ban all ads that depict those with darker skin as being inferior in any way.

For years, advertisers of skin-lightening creams and other products have shown people — mostly women — with dark skin as having problems when it comes to finding jobs, getting married and generally being accepted by society. The makers of these ads include behemoths like Unilever, Johnson & Johnson and P&G. The so-called “fairness” cream industry in India was estimated at $432 million a year and growing by 18 percent annually in 2010, by AC Nielsen.

“Advertising should not communicate any discrimination as a result of skin color,” read the new ASCI guidelines, and the expression of the model in the ads should not be “negative in a way which is widely seen as unattractive, unhappy, depressed or concerned.”

Former ASCI chairman Bharat Patel told business news site Live Mint that all advertisers have to comply with the ASCI rules — both in television and print.

Digiday also posted four classic commercials for skin-lightening products.

8915: C’MON WHITE MAN! Episode 11.

(MultiCultClassics credits ESPN’s C’MON MAN! for sparking this semi-regular blog series.)

Quickly scan the Advertising Age story below. A MultiCultClassics perspective immediately follows…

Unilever Goes Small: a Warning to Big Agencies?

Startup Roth Partners Beats Out Larger Rivals With Promise to Provide ‘Channel Expertise’ for New Marketing Concept

By Jack Neff

Unilever agencies, listen up: An integrated startup has edged you out on an initiative that could shape up into a worldwide assignment for the packaged-goods behemoth.

Mike Polk, president-global foods, home and personal care at Unilever, said Roth Partners, an agency headed by former Ogilvy & Mather executive Rick Roth that encompasses general advertising, digital, shopper and promotion marketing, beat out big rivals because it could provide a “channel-agnostic” approach with the right talent faster than other Unilever shops or holding companies were prepared to do.

Naming the small newcomer to Unilever’s roster wasn’t meant as “a shot across the bow” for the giant’s global agencies, Mr. Polk said. But it’s also a clear sign that they stand to lose out if they can’t deliver the comprehensive approach that he said Unilever wants.

“What Rick and his team were able to offer was a breadth of channel expertise at the senior level against a whole new concept we’re trying to build,” Mr. Polk said. “Arguably any one of our partners should be able to bring that to us. But the challenge in general in this whole space is getting the most out of these agency models that should at their fingertips be able to this offer to us.”

He declined to describe the assignment, other than to say it’s based on a concept that originated in Latin America and has been shaped over the past several months by Mr. Roth and Unilever’s internal team to launch in North America late next quarter. Ultimately, should it succeed here, it will expand to other countries.

Mr. Polk said he’s had conversations with Omnicom CEO John Wren and WPP Chief Executive Martin Sorrell, among others, about his desire for a channel-agnostic integrated approach, and he believes Unilever’s agencies and holding companies can provide it. They just couldn’t do so quickly enough in this case.

The assignment isn’t a sign that existing agency or holding-company models are broken, Mr. Polk said, but that they don’t always work as they should.

Unilever’s agencies are “certainly well equipped to deliver” what he wants, but he said, “I think there are some constraints that exist within some of our agency partners with respect to how people are held accountable that disable the movement of talent. … I don’t think it’s a design flaw per se, but it requires an intervention at times by management to get the most important talent on the most important issues.”

Mr. Roth left Unilever shop Ogilvy & Mather in 2009 after a 31-year career in a variety of assignments, most recently as CEO of the OgilvyAction shopper and promotion marketing unit. He founded Roth Partners last year, he said, around a vision of creating an agency that could provide senior talent, either internally or through partners, around all major areas of the marketing mix. In addition to Unilever, the agency recently landed an assignment from Readers Digest following a pitch, he said.

Mr. Polk and Mr. Roth have a relationship that spans decades to when Mr. Polk worked for Kraft Foods and Mr. Roth worked for Ogilvy on Kraft business. But Mr. Polk said the decision on the assignment came from people in his organization, not from him.

Wow. How much Fair & Lovely did Unilever use to whitewash this pile of bullshit?

The sick scenario displays Corporate Cultural Collusion at its finest.

The final two sentences tell the truth—while simultaneously pushing a lie. To imply the assignment wasn’t tied to the decades-long relationship between Mike Polk and Rick Roth offends the intelligence of even the most ignorant adperson.

Roth Partners hypes itself as “a new model,” but it’s literally and figuratively an old school, old boy network enterprise. The staff is predominately comprised of Old White Guys promising senior-level experience.


Meanwhile, Roth essentially admits to being a crony-loving product of the buddy system in the opening pages of his agency’s website when he declares, “I created this company because my clients… my friends… asked me to.” Well, it looks like his clients… his friends… came through and delivered some serious billings.

To add insult to injury, the shop will be handling a concept that originated in Latin America. ¡Madre de Dios!

The entire Ad Age story plays like a promo piece for Unilever and Roth Partners, right down to the inane headline that reads, “Unilever Goes Small: a Warning to Big Agencies?” Unilever did not go small—it went straight to a pal formerly from a global, gigantic shop. And the only warning big agencies should heed involves making sure top executives sign non-compete clauses before bailing out.

C’MON WHITE MEN!

7981: Dove Self-Esteem Fund Lacks Self-Respect.

Given the growing evidence that Unilever has abandoned its Dove Real Beauty campaign—as well as the corporation’s promotion of products like Fair and Lovely—it seems as if the people behind the Self-Esteem Fund are grossly lacking in the self-respect department.

7323: More Big, Fat Liars.

Fibbing and falsehoods in a MultiCultClassics Monologue…

• The news that Slim-Fast products have been recalled over contamination concerns made MultiCultClassics realize yet again the bullshit and corruption of manufacturer Unilever. After all, this is the company that tells women to accept themselves and reject the fashion model stereotypes in advertising via the inane Dove Real Beauty campaign. Meanwhile, Unilever encourages folks in India to lighten their skin tones via its Fair and Lovely products. And the hypocrisy comes full circle—and full figure—with the thin ideals glorified by Slim-Fast. The real contamination happens every time Unilever broadcasts more advertising.

• Mayor Russell Wiseman of Arlington, Texas, accused President Obama of being a Muslim, insisting the president’s speech on the war in Afghanistan was deliberately scheduled to block the Christian messages within The Charlie Brown Christmas Special, which was bumped to a later date to accommodate the televised political presentation. Good grief. For the last time, President Obama is not a Muslim. However, we can’t verify the spiritual beliefs of Franklin.

6197: Overreaction Of The Week.

Ad Age reported Unilever is considering cost-cutting measures that involve reducing the number of colors in its packaging.

No big surprise. This is the corporation whose Dove brand plays off White beauty standards. Plus, Unilever pushes Fair & Lovely skin lightening products in places like India.

Why, Unilever probably wants to turn all of its packaging pure White—just like the staffs of its Madison Avenue advertising agencies.