Before the start of the paper, I have to declare that there are many ways to promote goods, but most important, these businesses must abide by the law.
This case study analysis focuses on misplacement of cultural difference by mounting unethical advertisement campaign by two Indian cosmetic companies - Hindustan Lever Ltd and CavinKare Ltd. The development of revolutionary skin lightening technology brand; Fair & lovely by Hindustan Lever Ltd opened up a new chapter on application of unethical promotional strategy- advertisement to generate large volume of sale and maintain market leadership position in India skin care industry. All Indian Women Democratic Association (AIWDA) complained to HLL and appealed to the National Human Right Commission protesting that HLL advertisement is racist, promotes son preference and insulting to the working women. Whether advertisement should be ethical? Is it important for company to consider the cultural norms?
At first, There are a lot of advertisement promote their products overly, I can understand this behavior because it is the most important purpose to sell their products, what’s more, for some products, their effects is vary from person to person.
However, the skin lightening cream is ,at best, only mildly effective. This is not the situation I said in last paragraph. Its efficacy is almost not up to anyone's expectations, so I think it is not only ethical but also a kind of deception. For this kind of product, cosmetics, the government should formulate the corresponding standards, at the same time, enterprises should have their own conscience and concerned about users. Only the enterprise which see customer at the first, can go a long run.
For culture, everyone's understanding is different. For the mainstream culture of the society, people will recognize it. Exploiting cultural norms and values to promote a product is not wrong, as long as it can meet the needs of the society, but it's definitely not in the opposite of social values. When the enterprise product promotion touches the bottom line of cultural, we can conclude that this behavior is unethical.
The advertisement “fairer girl gets the boy theme”. This advertisement focused on the girl who has dark-skin would not getting married, not finding boyfriend and not finding job. In some cases, it is true that girls who are white can make people like them, it also caters to the needs of many consumers. But it can not be linked to a person's career. This sentence led to a serious situation too. In India, an area where the person with a darker skin, this sentence becomes not such polite. We can guess that the companies made such an advertisement is with the purpose of selling their products, there's nothing wrong with that, but the business is not expected that the advertisements has a significant impact on the public opinion of the society. Again, when the enterprise realized this point, it's too late. People have labeled “discrimination” on the advertisement. In my opinion, Before publishing an advertisement, enterprises must consider many aspects, there are a lot of people who are very sensitive to some certain words. Once these people are irritated, enterprise needs to spend a lot of cost to appease them and gives a reasonable explanation to the society. Go back to this advertisement, Skin color is always a very sensitive topic in society, but the meaning behind it is race, no matter men or women, black or white, advertisements can not treated them differently, because they are all customers and everyone should be respected.
I believe HLL’s Fair & Lovely Foundation is a great step to receiving forgiveness and regaining lost customers, however some opinions cannot be changed. Many local women, because of some work reasons, working in the sun makes their skin color darker. They should have been respected but were ridiculed by the advertisement. So the fact that they put down working women is still an arguable factor or their advertisements. What’s more, women now prefer their natural way, some people also think that a black skin is beautiful. So it is a denigration to many dark-skinned people. As for gender discrimination, in this advanced civilization, this is an outdated and terribly wrong idea. When the enterprise promoting its products, this kind of mistake should not be made. On the contrary, an excellent advertisement should have humane care.
On the other hand, a novel advertisement can play a great role in the promotion of products. Many ads focus on the effect of the cosmetics, but this adv paid more attention to the effect of the person who just used the cosmetics. This adv caused a sensation, to a certain extent, it is successful, people will be bound to notice this product and the product sales must be increased. After all, it only caused controversy, but not boycott.
Take one step back, we can at least agree that this business is ambitious. It chose a different way of publicity form other companies. In China, we can also see a lot of ads with special features. Melatonin TV advertisement in “ melatonin, brain platinum, brain, white, golden ” ground stops talking. The advisement of Hengyuanxiang. Both of them sometimes make people feel upset, but people remember the product at least. Although this advertisement achieves this goal too, they have to respond to the social impact.
On international women’s days, Fair and Lovely launched its “fair and Lovely Foundation” aiming to “encourage economic empowerment of women across India” by providing resources in education and business. Obviously, the enterprise is aware of its own mistakes. They have to pass a series of actions to restore the trust of society. In this special day, they created the fund to show that they are concerned about women in India , which saved their image in a way. I believe HLL’s Fair & Lovely Foundation is a great step to receiving forgiveness and regaining lost customers, however some opinions cannot be changed. After AIDWAS’s charges Fair & Lovely should promote without getting too deep, there is no reason culture and family issues need to be used to get a point across about a product. They can simply advertise fair skin without making fair skin seem better.
Of course, they have to do more than that, as the star product of this enterprise, The enterprise also have to let the product get people's trust. Marketing strategy is very important at this time. Through extending their marketing, this product got into urban and rural markets. Especially for male customers, the enterprise has also won their support. Because of these marketing strategies, some people also praise F&L- useful.
Just because of this, I think the strength of AIDWA’s argument weakened.
Now that males are using fairness cream the arguments against Fair & Lovely seem irrelevant, however there were aspects of the advertisements that were not just sexist, the fact that they put down working women is still an arguable factor or their advertisements.

* This case explained the fundamental dynamics of culture in promotional strategies * The purpose of this case study is to explore culture‟s influence on strategic thinking as a basis for determining ethical and socially responsible decisions.

Reference: 1. J Stuart - All's Fair in Love and Game Shows ; Armed Only with a Bra Padded with Toilet Roll, a Box of Sawn-Off Tampons and a Serious Lack of Morals, Julia Stuart Set out to Meet the Challenge of a TV Survival Show 2. A Hammond- All's Fair in Love and Law: Small Town Tales of Life, Laughter and Litigation 3. M Ryznar, North Dakota Law Review-All’s Fair in Love and War: But What About in Divorce? The Fairness of Property Division in American and English Big Money Divorce Cases 4. EO Daday -All's Fair in Love and War Think Your Wedding Was Elaborate? Try This on for Size - Cannons, Hoop Skirts and a Battalion of Sharp-Shooters. the Civil War May Have Divided a Country, but Today It Brings This Carol Stream Couple Together