HUL removes ‘Fair’ from Fair & Lovely
We are making our skin care portfolio more inclusive and want to lead the celebration of a more diverse portrayal of beauty”
After Johnson & Johnson withdrew a few fairness product brands, Hindustan Unilever has decided to drop ‘Fair’ from its popular brand ‘Fair & Lovely.’ The FMCG companies decision to be more sensitive about racial stereotypes come at a time when the ‘Black Lives Matter’ campaign has spread globally and started raising awareness about skin colour-related discrimination in India. The move is likely to see a major churn in the $450 million fairness products market in India.
"Taking forward the brand’s journey towards a more inclusive vision of beauty, the company will stop using the word ‘fair’ in the brand name ‘Fair and Lovely’. The new name is awaiting regulatory approvals and we expect to change the name in the next few months," HUL said.
The brand’s vision is to adopt a holistic approach to beauty that cares for people and that must be inclusive and diverse’—for everyone, everywhere. The brand, valued more than Rs 2,000 crore, is committed to celebrating all skin tones, the company said.
In early 2019, the brand’s communication moved away from the benefits of fairness, whitening and skin lightening, towards glow, even tone, skin clarity and radiance, which are holistic measures of a healthy skin. HUL also removed from Fair and Lovely packaging words such as ‘fair/fairness’, ‘white/whitening’, and ‘light/lightening’ that could indicate a fairnessled transformation.
"We are making our skin care portfolio more inclusive and want to lead the celebration of a more diverse portrayal of beauty. In 2019, we removed the cameo with two faces as well as the shade guides from the packaging of Fair and Lovely and the brand communication progressed from fairness to glow, which is a more holistic and inclusive measure of healthy skin. These changes were very well received by our consumers," Sanjiv Mehta, chairman and managing director, HUL said.
HUL continue to evolve its advertising to feature women of different skin tones, representative of the variety of beauty across India.
Last week, Johnson & Johnson stopped selling its skin whitening product range under the Clean & Clear brand in India. It has stopped shipping the products to retail stores. J&J had also pulled out the Neutrogena Fine Fairness line in from the Indian market.
The Indian fairness cream market, valued $450 million, is dominated by HUL, Procter & Gamble and Garnier. There are also companies like Emami, Lotus Herbals, Himalaya, among others, who have been tapping into this market ‘promising fairness’.
"HUL has been chasing the "fairness" opportunity in the market for 45 years. Promoting fair skin is politically incorrect and socially misplaced. The cat was let loose among the pigeons by a smaller player like Johnson & Johnson and this forced even the bigger player to change. So we will see other brands also rebranding themselves in the near future," said brand expert Harish Bijoor.
The fairness market itself is set to see a lot of churn. According to Bijoor, the brands will not lose anything, provided the repositioning is done well.