Dove in hot water over ‘racist’ advert

Dove found itself on the wrong side of social media after posting an advert people on social media said was racist.

It depicts a dark-skinned woman wearing a chocolate-colored shirt… Apparently she uses Dove’s bodywash… And then when it appears she is taking off her shirt… The result? A Caucasian woman wearing a “clean” light-colored shirt.

In the ad that has since been taken down, it depicts a black woman wearing a brown T-shirt, who uses Dove’s bodywash. She then takes off her T-shirt and turns into a white woman in the second image. People on social media have argued that the ad implied that the black woman turned white after using their product.

In the third image, the white woman undressed her T-shirt to reveal an Asian woman.

An image we recently posted on Facebook missed the mark in representing women of color thoughtfully. We deeply regret the offense it caused.

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Responding to the backlash on social media, Dove apologised for the ad.

“An image we recently posted on Facebook missed the mark in representing women of color thoughtfully. We deeply regret the offense it caused,” it said, but social media users are still not having any of it.

These were some of the comments:

“I’m never buying Dove again. Y’all think my brown skin symbolises dirt.”

“@Dove that apology is weak. People always want to apologize after doing dumb things before they THINK. No more Dove products for me.”

“Really? the ad says ‘if you’re black and dirty, use dove and you can be white an clean’. Dove transformed the black girl into a white girl.”

“Ignorance is bliss! People can pretend this wasnt malicious but it’s clearly racist! And if you can defend it u have a few hidden issues.”

“Sorry can’t stop there. As a marketing ‘executive’ I’d love to have a deeper conversation about how your internal approval process works.”

You have done it in the past.🙄 pic.twitter.com/qaGG10bePw

— 😬 (@N0n0zA) October 7, 2017

https://twitter.com/jonalisag/status/916857827842457602