Dove Apologises For ‘Racist’ Ad, But Was it Just Bad Execution?
We dug out the video ad and it doesn’t necessarily show a dark skinned woman transforming into a white skinned one.
In a recent Facebook campaign, that generated an immediate backlash, Dove purportedly shows an African American model changing to a white model after using their product.
The ad drew serious flak from Netizens calling the sequence racist.
Brands pushing unnecessary beauty standards to sell products are often under attack on social media, and rightly so. This Dove ad seems to get it wrong, and because of this people threatened to boycott the brand if it didn’t pull off the ad.
Twitter hashtag #DoneWithDove was soon trending.
Dove apologised for ‘missing the mark’, and pulled the plug on the ad after the online protests.
But Was The Dove Ad Really Racist?
Since the brand has pulled it off their social feeds, and the only thing doing the rounds in tweets were the screenshots of the ad, we decided to dig the web for an actual video copy of it. And we found it.
The digital ad shows a an African American woman pull off her T-shirt, and change into a white red haired woman who does the same, followed by an Asian woman of a slightly darker skin tone doing the same. In short, a sequence of female models taking off their Ts. Albeit a badly done sequence.
It doesn’t necessarily show a dark skinned woman transforming into a white skinned woman after using the said product.
Several netizens pointed out the same in defense of Dove.
As the Internet debates over whether the ad was actually racist or simply badly executed, we leave you with a question: would it have been better if the sequence was other way round?
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