A World Health Organisation survey found that nearly 40% of women polled in countries including China, Malaysia, India the Philippines and South Korea said they regularly used whitening products – but brands have sometimes been too eager to please, with some marketing campaigns overstepping the mark.
Here we take a look at some of the biggest offenders:
A World Health Organisation survey found that nearly 40% of women polled in countries including China, Malaysia, India the Philippines and South Korea said they regularly used whitening products – but brands have sometimes been too eager to please, with some marketing campaigns overstepping the mark.
Here we take a look at some of the biggest offenders:
“Legenda Cun Raya”, a 2017 commercial by pharmacy chain Watsons in Malaysia featured a 15-minute short film with an all-star cast. It was taken from the folktale of “Dayang Senandung”, who was born cursed with black skin and coincided with Hari Raya, a Muslim holiday following Ramadan.
In the video a merchant falls in love with a mysterious woman’s beautiful singing voice which haunts his dreams. When beautiful princesses from around the world audition to impress him, the merchant is only smitten by the voice of one girl whose face is covered.
Having asked her to uncover her face, though, he is eventually taken aback by her dark skin. In the climax, she washes off the dark make-up, and—now she suddenly has a flawless, fair complexion—marries the merchant.
Watsons customer director Danny Hoh said on its release: "This year we offer something different and unique that is relevant for all. This epic movie was carefully scripted to inject Watsons brand identity to include humour, wit and also over the top acting and characters.”
The advertisement shocked Malaysians, however, with many criticising the use of blackface and the racially charged message of the film.
Watsons took down the video then issued an apology, saying: "We are sorry that some of our fans feel offended by the video which was not our intention.”
The retailer added: “We stand firm on the belief that unity and fairness plays an important role, and we respect people from all nationalities. The video was shot to highlight… moral values of inner beauty and that true love exists.”
In 2016, Thai company Seoul Secret advertised skin-lightening tablets with the slogan “White makes you win”, prompting a backlash that forced the company to apologise and abandon the campaign.
It featured a popular model and singer talking about the merits of having light skin.
"Before I got to this point the competition was very high," says Cris Horwang, an Instagram celebrity now with almost 4m followers.
"If I stop taking care of myself, everything I have worked for, the whiteness I have invested in, may be lost,” the actress adds as she stands alongside another light-skinned woman. Her own skin then steadily turns darker.
The advert’s central racist message was: “White makes you win.”
Following outrage on social media, Seoul Secret offered this apology: “Our company did not have any intention to convey discriminatory or racist messages. What we intended to convey was that self-improvement in terms of personality, appearance, skills and professionality is crucial.”
A feminine hygiene product invited a backlash when it launched in India in 2012 for promising “fairness” in the groin.
The Unilever-owned brand’s strapline promised: “Life for women will now be fresher, cleaner and more importantly fairer and more intimate.”
The 25-second primetime TV commercial depicts an unsatisfied young wife concerned that her husband is more interested in his daily paper than in her. This is presumably, as the ad insinuates, because her vagina is too dark. But after a quick wash with the pH-balanced skin-lightening cleanser, a renewed lust returns to the relationship.
Indian columnist Laskhmi Chaudry led the criticism by lambasting the product on her blog, writing: “The campaign to eliminate the scourge of darkness has extended to every nook and cranny of a woman’s body.”
The Clean & Dry ad director, Alyque Padamsee, called the negative response to the campaign, especially in the media, an overreaction.
“It is hard to deny that fairness creams often get social commentators and activists all worked up. What they should do is take a deep breath and think again,” Padamsee wrote at the time.
"Lipstick is used to make your lips redder, fairness cream is used to make you fairer—so what’s the problem? … The only reason I can offer for why people like fairness, is this: if you have two beautiful girls, one of them fair and the other dark, you see the fair girl’s features more clearly. This is because her complexion reflects more light.”
British Hollywood starlet Emma Watson was forced to respond to criticism over a “skin whitening” advert.
The famously woke actor had come under fire from fans for being the face of Lancôme's “Blanc Expert” line in Asia.
She said she no longer models in beauty product adverts which "do not always reflect the diverse beauty of all women" following brickbats she received in 2017 after the 2011 commercial resurfaced.
Lancôme refers to the line as a “skin brightening” product and explains that it is for removing pigmentation marks and dark spots rather than bleaching skin. In one particular product, Lancôme describe the range as “the next generation dark spot correctors from the No. 1 whitening brand in Asia”.
The Advertising Standards Council of India attempted to address skin-based discrimination in 2014 by banning ads depicting people with darker skin as inferior, but such products continue to be marketed.
Ads for skin-lightening creams still appear in newspapers, on television and on billboards, featuring Bollywood heartthrobs such as Shah Rukh Khan and Deepika Padukone.
In several Facebook posts in April 2017, influential actor Abhay Deol called out several colleagues on social media for endorsing fairness creams, following it up with an opinion piece in the Hindustan Times in which he wrote that “advertising preaches that we would get a better job, a happier marriage, and more beautiful children if we were fair. We are conditioned to believe that life would have been easier had we been born fairer.”
