Rebranding Pigmentocracy: Analyzing Marketing Strategies of Unilever’s Skin Lightening Products in India

Abstract

This paper examines the trajectory of UK based Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL)’s video advertisements for skin lightening products in the past 15 years, critiquing the company’s rebranding of Fair & Lovely to Glow & Lovely. Discourse analysis of video commercials explores the ways in which social advantages and disadvantages are accentuated through problematic narratives, meanings and representations—more specifically the influence of Eurocentric racial, colorist, and gender values on marketing campaigns. Prior to its rebranding in 2020, Unilever’s Fair & Lovely regularly promoted skin-lightening products by further constructing and highlighting disadvantages of darker skin, including less marriage prospects and romantic interest, diminished dignity, and lack of employment opportunities. HUL’s (and other manufacturers of skin lightening products) impetus for changing its contentious branding and marketing came about in part due to the Black Lives Matters movement, sparked by George Floyd’s death in 2020. Additionally, petitions to cease the production and distribution of HUL’s Fair & Lovely line received over 18k signatures (Jones, 2020, para 3), which prompted HUL to “acknowledge the branding suggests “a singular ideal of beauty”” (Jones, 2020). Post rebranding, Glow & Lovely’s marketing strategies currently prioritizes an emphasis on gender inclusivity, while indirectly showcasing advantages of lighter skin in a posturing display of racial, colour, and gender sensitivity. As it relates to pigmentocracy, Unilever’s baseless striving toward gender equality functions as a diversion from persistent racist and colorist tropes that are increasingly obscured by shifting performative messages and meanings in the past 15 years. This intersectional analysis sheds light on how Unilever’s advertisements claim to promote gender and racial inclusivity, yet continue to promote longstanding inequalities originating in colonialism.