Suppose the Fair & Lovely Advertisement had been made for Pakistani audience rather than for India. What would your reaction be (and why) to the advertisement as a Pakistani consumer? Will you be tempted to purchase the product,

 

Fair and Lovely, with 24 billion rupees ($317 million; £ 256 million) in annual sales, is India's biggest selling skin lightening cream. Since the 1970s, when it first hit the market, adolescents and young women have purchased millions of tubes every year in a country where lighter skin is routinely equated with appearance. In ads to help Fair and Lovely, top Bollywood actors and actresses have tended to encourage fair skin as a means of finding love or a glamorous career. In India, with hundreds demanding a ban on its ads, Fair & Lovely trended high on Twitter in India. Unilever and its Indian subsidiary Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL) were widely criticized for encouraging colorism and making girls with darker shades feel insecure and inadequate.

In Asia people gets fascinated with having a white skin but as the world is evolving people are getting more sensitive about the racism aspects. The reaction for  Fair and lovely advertainment in Pakistan is quite adverse majority of the people thinks it is quite unapologetically and openly racist. Fair and Lovely is a classic example of market exploitation. The advertisers are not in the business of changing the public mindset or even want to be politically correct about the matter. The majority of Pakistanis have an abnormal bias towards a fairer skin tone. Those who have it, flaunt it. Those who don't, remain wannabes. Both men and women would swear there's a distinct visual appeal to it. This is the reality as of now, whether we like it or not. But , Pressure had been rising since last week when US multinational Johnson and Johnson announced that in response to the death of George Floyd and the worldwide debate about racism it sparked, they would no longer produce or sell two of their creams that are popular in Asia and the Middle East. I think reaction will not be as good as fair and lovely would expect from Pakistani consumers

Since the approach to racism is quite delicate, their product will not be feared because it is very untainted and overtly racist. Does the responsibility rest on the business end? The question arises. C'mon, no way. They're going to sell something that works, and they're going to give them money and more money. So it is undoubtedly the customer who has to change the emphasis. But it won't be that easy because when they buy beauty products, people don't intellectualize too much. For rather shallow motives, they do so. Rightfully so. From my own personal experience, I'll tell you. I used the product for 3-4 years and then stopped absolutely. Funnily enough, just because of its crude TV advertisements. It was a put off like that and it had a reverse effect on me. There was nothing I wanted to be associated with that was so racist.