Onslaught - 2007 - 2023

Well of course I love this next commercial and the values it stands for, but as I've said in the comments over here and here, and indeed to the client Unilever (the owners of the Dove brand), I don't think it's honest for a multinational to put 'keep-it real-credentials' in the 'Campaign for real beauty' while they sell skin whitening creams to among others, Indian subcontinent and South East Asian countries that are by nature blessed with dark skin.

Just doing the focus groups for these kind of products can be quite tough for those of us who think a bit about the effects on the culture of the societies that we make advertising for. Take Thailand for example, based on qualitative research, some office secretaries (for example) will choose who they take to lunch in a group based on the whiteness of skin.

The darker skins are considered too 'rural' for those who want to climb the whiter skinned ethnic Chinese communities that effectively run S.E. Asia in business terms.

The aspiring English classes also used to take a dim view of darker skin in previous centuries because it indicated an agrarian lifestyle working in the fields. So I'm not trying to speed up cultural and media literacy development in these countries (or maybe I am), but I am suggesting to Unilever that specifically on it's skin whitening creams, it puts a disclaimer on ALL those products that Unilever embraces skin of all colours.

Otherwise its a bit hypocritical to be a campaigner for real beauty, when it's fake beauty and discrimination that powers one of the fastest growing skin care categories in many parts of the developing world.

Update: I see that the original video was pulled for copyright reasons but that a remix is now resurfacing for the same issues of resource exploitation but this time the targets are Nestle.

Thai Women Go Crazy For A White Vagina

Most people in Thailand are dark skinned but as the Chinese plutocracy run the country the advertising reflects their fairer skin. I've written extensively about the pernicious effects of skin whitening creams because if you ever do advertising focus groups you can listen to impressionable young office women choosing who they go to lunch with based on their skin colour as money, career progression and hanging out with the right people is all that matters in the dog eat soi dog world of commercial materialism.

More over here

Update: Original video censored.

Onslaught

Well of course I love this next commercial and the values it stands for, but as I've said in the comments over here and here, and indeed to the client Unilever (the owners of the Dove brand), I don't think it's honest for a multinational to put 'keep-it real-credentials' in the 'Campaign for real beauty' while they sell skin whitening creams to among others, Indian subcontinent and South East Asian countries that are by nature blessed with dark skin.

Just doing the focus groups for these kind of products can be quite tough for those of us who think a bit about the effects on the culture of the societies that we make advertising for. Take Thailand for example, based on qualitative research, some office secretaries (for example) will choose who they take lunch with in groups, based on the whiteness of skin.

The darker skins are considered too 'rural' for those who want to climb the whiter skinned ethnic Chinese communities that effectively run S.E. Asia big business.

The aspiring English classes also used to take a dim view of darker skin in previous centuries because it indicated an agrarian lifestyle working in the fields. So I'm not trying to speed up cultural and media literacy development in these countries (or maybe I am), but I am suggesting to Unilever that specifically on it's skin whitening creams, it puts a disclaimer on ALL those products that Unilever embraces skin of all colours.

Otherwise its a bit hypocritical to be a campaigner for real beauty, when it's fake beauty and discrimination that powers one of the fastest growing skin care categories in many parts of the developing world.

Update: I see that the original video was pulled for copyright reasons but that that a remix is now resurfacing for the same issues of resource exploitation but this time the targets are Nestle.

Darkie

ybboey

It was on my first trip to Burma in 2001 that I knew something was going on in a global cultural sense that I should try to understand. I was traveling light from one military checkpoint state to another when I saw the only sign of dissent in the whole country. It was a gang of youths dressed in cheap baseball hats and basketball vests playing of all things the unmistakable genre of Rap in Burmese. They were doing no harm but for sure they were saying things suck in Burma, and that's a fact because in Burma they really do.

I guess the reason for my incomprehension was that I didn't 'get' Hip Hop or Rap. I thought it was the lowest common denominator of music to dance to. Anyone could do it. A couple of gang gestures, a bobbing head and some Yo Yo exhortation meant that anyone was down with the bad asses. But it wasn't working for me. I couldn't see why people loved it so much and would frequently walk out of clubs in protest, as I always do if the music is rubbish.

Then I got some education.

Some years on from that Burma trip I was with some friends and invited to hang out in a bar on Royal City Avenue (RCA) in Bangkok called Hip Hop. The crowd were an unpretentious and friendly bunch and the music was really rather good when the DJ dropped a Diana Ross Hip Hop mix that blew me away and I knew what the problem was. I'd been listening to bad Hip Hop for all those years.

A conversation with a very smart DJ friend of mine helped also to clarify that Hip Hop was a culture, a movement and not just a genre of music and so now I have no problem hitting a bar for Hip Hop, but like all my music tastes I'm just a bit fussy about what I expose my ears too and need something that makes me think as well as feel.

Well yesterday I came across yet another brilliant Smashing Telly recommendation called The Hip Hop Years. The Origin of Hip Hop. Its on another level and sucked me in for the full 2 hours and 20 minutes 7 seconds. Its completely delicious and to ignore this fine documentary is probably on a par with ignoring the impact that Rock & Roll and Punk had on popular culture. Hip Hop is constantly reinventing, has embraced all genres of music from death metal to classical and brings young people together from the South Bronx to Burma.

But the reason for this post is that I've noticed something while globe trotting and parachute planning in a few countries. I've never come across an African or Afro Caribbean planner. There are plenty of great Indian marketing folk that I've worked with, but I'm starting to get the feeling that planning is predominantly a middle class, Indy music loving, Caucasian pursuit and that is most definitely not a good thing. As I've made clear elsewhere homogeneous advertising is made in homogeneous agencies. As far as I know only two three London planners have expressed an interest in the world's largest and fastest growing music genre and it leaves me asking a difficult question. Are we OK in advertising when it comes to rebranding a toothpaste from Darkie to Darlie but failing abysmally when it comes to black culture? Because if so, we are not representing.

Educate yourself and watch this seminal video.