We are born - depending on where you are born, you are either black, white, brown or yellow. We grow up, we live... watch some TV where you see a commercial that reeks of such lack of creativity, that you die. Or rather, become a living dead animal. OK, cut out the drama, Unilever really wants to sell their Fair & Lovely 'fairness' cream and the level they can stoop to is quite unremarkable. Most Indians in the last fifteen years would have seen numerous commercials of Fair & Lovely and I am sure it made some of them squirm and others...well, they went to the store and bought a tube of Fair & Lovely. I don't blame them, the medium of TV is a very powerful medium and it does shape/change our opinion.
I believe that 80% of Indians have my skin colour or darker. The guys in charge of Fair & Lovely have a huge market to tap into. Unfortunately, it seems Unilever guys are not going to stop at anything. In some of the TV commercials I have seen lately (in the last 24 months or so), they have exploited the relationship between a father and his daughter to sell their product. Neither am I a dad nor a daughter...but I can tell you, son to mother relationship is perhaps as special. Doesn't every father think his daughter is the most beautiful girl in the world...irrespective of what the world thinks? By these commercials, Unilever is wanting the fathers to buy a tube for their daughter(s), or the daughter for herself...or better still, get them both to shop! Sell as many as possible, maximise profits at all costs.
I want to ask Unilever a question. Your sales graph is soaring and you are happy? What's next?
Given the consistent TV commercial degeneration for fairness cream over the years, I will not be surprised if Unilever comes out with Fair & Lovely milk powder in near future. And its probably going to say, make your baby have it regularly for its 'fair & lovely' future.
2 comments:
I had gone to a conference once where all the telecom biggies were invited. There was a speaker who asked the question : "Why is the automated voice response system to retrieve voice mail so slow and long? It costs the user a lot of money and time just to get to the message.."
You should have seen the look on the professionals' faces. They were like 'Duh? doesnt this guy know that this is most open secret of the telecom world to earn money!'
I think the same logic applies here albeit at an emotional level. But you are right, very few things can be worse than making a parent feel that their progeny is not beautiful .
Duh me!Love the example. By the time we have kids, we will have Fair & Lovely milk powder :-D. Watch out
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