Dove Missing The Mark Not Once- But Twice!
- Natalie Moe
- Mar 18, 2020
- 2 min read
Dove recently faced backlash in 2017 with an ad campaign on Facebook. The post was called out for being racially insensitive. The ad featured a black woman pulling off her shirt to reveal a white woman, creating a feeling that the Dove ad was pointing towards describing the black woman as a ‘dirty’ before shot in comparison to a ‘clean’ white woman.
This advertisement missing the mark was not the first time for Dove. In 2011, another advertisement featured a black woman standing in front of a ‘before’ shot of dry skin versus a white woman in front of a more appealing ‘after’ shot. Having this being a repeated offense has raised great suspicions from customers that Dove simply does not care about being insensitive.
The public has also pointed to the longstanding racism in skincare campaigns where black people are often used as the ‘before’ shot to be incorrectly depicted as someone ‘unclean’ and ‘dirty’.
Customers were not happy. One Twitter user, @keithboykan pointed out, “Okay, Dove... One racist ad makes you suspect. Two racist ads makes you kinda guilty.”
Dove took to twitter with a short reply stating, “An image we recently posted on Facebook missed the mark in representing women of color thoughtfully. We deeply regret the offense it caused.”
To me this advertisement was insensitive. The long term disrespect and racism in skincare advertising should be an issue Dove is aware of and actively trying to combat. I also believe Dove should have released a statement which did not just apologize but also point towards specific actions they will be taking such as ‘the ad has been removed’ and ‘we will be working on implementing racial bias training with our advertisement team’. By pointing out specific actions, it builds trust for consumers that this will not happen again.
This was a great example of a terrible move by a company. Since they released a racially insensitive ad twice it means they are not learning from their mistakes. This was careless and upsetting that their response was only two sentences. I think racial insensitivity should not be something taken lightly and Dove needs to learn that.
Hi Natalie,
I agree that these ads were racially insensitive and it's crazy that Dove made the same mistake twice. The company should have learned from its first mistake in 2011. Every ad and campaign should have multiple people approve it before it is published. The company should keep diversity in mind when hiring editors and managers that make decisions about ads. Employees should undergo diversity training since this is clearly a repeated issue. There is no excuse for Dove to make this mistake multiple times.
Hi Natalie,
I think you picked a perfect example of what a company shouldn't do for a social media crisis. The fact that Dove had two separate ads that were insensitive shows that they never changed their ways after the first problem post, and I think you had a very good point that they should have released a statement about pulling the offensive ads completely rather than simply saying that they were sorry that they caused offense.
Really good example!