A Nivea face cream and racism

Nivea caught up in racism claims.

Last night Twitter on the other side of the pond was all ablaze with a campaign against the company Nivea. Now Nivea, for this writer, is the cream my eighty year old mother puts on her hands and certainly not something to do with racism.

Yet their latest alleged advertising campaign has caused a huge stir amongst the black community within the United States. Whether it is a hoax or not is in one sense unimportant – unless you are Nivea – because what it illustrates is the power of the media in creating images and perpetuating stereotypes for good and ill.

Nivea cream’s new ad for Nivea For Men is the cause of the offence. The ad shows a short-haired black man in a grey jumper tossing the head of a black man with an Afro and beard (presumably his earlier non-Nivea self), with the motto: “Look Like You Give A Damn…. Re-Civilize Yourself.”

The ensuing publicity on Twitter is clearly not what the advertising agents wanted – or is it? The old adage no news is bad news!

At the heart of this issue is the use of gratuitous potentially discriminatory images in advertising. If it is a hoax then the hoaxers are making a point re Nivea. If it is not then the issue is of greater concern as dozens of agencies use provocative images to arrest our attention. Indeed it has been argued that as the world becomes more and more shock-proof then the images that we need to get our attention are going to become more and more extreme.

But there is a clear equalities issue here. Any organisation has to think carefully about the ‘image’ it is trying to portray. Whilst most wouldn’t fall into the sensationalist trap of the alleged Nivea advertisement, do we think seriously enough about our advertising? Are advertising agencies sufficiently aware about issues of diversity, equality and discrimination? Whatever your business we all need to start thinking about whether we are creating the right ‘inclusive image’.

www.equalanddiverse.com