Messaging Mistake

October 20, 2017

Companies never want to find themselves in the middle of a marketing scandal, but unfortunately, it happens. Dove recently advertised a campaign that had a black woman looking as if she was scrubbing herself ‘clean’ when a white woman appeared after. A before and after campaign gone so wrong. Social media harshly responded saying that the ad campaign was nothing else but a ‘whitewashing’ ad form the 19th century. “When I first saw it, to be honest, I was like, ‘here we go again,’ said Lewis Williams, CCO at Burrell Communications. “We see it over and over and over again. It’s not just Dove. It’s the entire industry not seeing the obvious undertones. What’s unfortunate is next week we’ll be having the same conversation.” Dove instantly took down the campaign from social and apologized on Twitter. The company apologized for any offense they caused, but also slightly defended its creativity by saying that the women of different ethnicities was meant to symbolize that Dove body wash is for every woman and a celebration of diversity. Dove isn’t the only one who has created ad campaigns that were in poor taste and they surely will not be the last. With the ad industry still very much divided, we have to wonder, where will it go from here.

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