‘White like me’ advert grounds Dove

Many in the local advertising community on Monday were aghast at global beauty brand Dove’s huge public relations gaffe in posting an online advertisement showing a black woman removing her top to reveal a white woman in the next frame.

But one leading brand expert said Dove would recover provided it kept its nose clean in the coming months.

While the parent company, the giant multinational Unilever, has apologised, there were growing calls around the world and also in SA for a boycott of the product.

In the full video clip, a black woman removes her T-shirt to reveal a white woman, who then lifts her own top to reveal an Asian woman.

A statement from Dove said: “The short video was intended to convey that Dove body wash is for every woman and be a celebration of diversity, but we got it wrong.”

Leading local brand expert Jeremy Sampson of Brand Finance said that Dove would have learnt a salutary lesson from the incident.

“We live in a highly sensitive and highly charged world right now and no more is that emblematic than in the social media space,” he said.

“It’s imperative for brands these days to think hard about campaigns; realise what the consequences could be or a hard-won reputation could be impugned very quickly.”

Sampson said that, while some said the outcry might have shades of the Mother Grundy syndrome, that was simply the world in which we lived — brands had to know and learn that. He said Dove was for years a leading proponent of female empowerment and as a result, built up huge brand equity. He did not think that this particular issue would destroy the brand. “Provided it keeps its nose clean,

and sticks to the apology, it should recover in a matter of months.”

Sampson cited Outsurance courting a similar controversy four months ago, when it posted a Father’s Day video showing predominantly white men engaged in acts of kindness.

One leading agency strategic director said: “This is yet another lesson for brands that are often forced to act quickly to meet speed-of-market demand for information to slow down and consider consequences.

This is not the first time Dove has been in advertising hot water. In 2011, an ad showed three women side by side in front of a before-andafter image of cracked and smooth skin. It caused a huge fuss because the woman positioned on the “before” side was black. while the “after” woman was white.

Two years ago, Dove was called out for labelling different skin colours on its bottles of selftan lotion. It described the lotion as “fair to normal skin” and “normal to dark skin”.

Social media users suggested Dove was implying dark skin was not normal.