Faizel Patel, Radio Islam News – 10-10-2017
The SA Institute for Race Relations says a series of images released by beauty brand Dove that showed a black woman turning white after using its soap is silly and in appropriate.
Dove has come under fire after short video clip was posted on the company’s US Facebook page showing a black woman taking off her brown T-shirt and turning into a white woman after using the product.
The Cosmetics giant has since apologised saying it doesn’t condone any activity or imagery that insults any audience and the advert should not have happened.
The SA Institute for Race Relations’ Sara Gon told Radio Islam she doesn’t believe the advert was released with the intent of being racist.
“Why would you want to alienate a large part of your market, but whoever thought and whoever approved it, it actually defies explanation.”
Gon says sometimes companies marketing departments lose sight of what message an advert should portray.
She says people perceptions about beauty is much more in tune into seeing beauty in whatever colour it comes without reference to race.
“I don’t think that with all the brainstorming that goes on the creative environment, I think they sometimes lose sight of who’re they are aiming at and how it’s going to be perceived it. There is a huge gap between one and the other and they end up in the sort of a world of their own and it doesn’t match the world they are trying to appeal to.”
Gon says while there wasn’t any intention to be racist, it was an awful mistake that should’ve been avoided.
She says advertising agencies should play adverts for the public before publication to ascertain what reactions emanate.
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