BCM110: Complex Imagery, but Make it Racist

Advertisers are no stranger to complex imagery, but at what point can it be said that they have gone too far? When you view an advertisement, what’s at face value is incredibly important. After all, sometimes the first impression is the only impression.

Figure A, Nivea, 2017

If you were to see this advertisement from Nivea (Figure A) without any prior knowledge or opinions on race and skin colour, would you find it shocking? I doubt it. What is depicted in the image is for the most part, pretty tame. It is aesthetically pleasing to the eye and has a simple tagline that states: “White is Purity”. This phrase is where things start to get dicey. Is this just unfortunate wording, or is it a pre-meditated attack on people of colour (POC)?

Frankly, it doesn’t really matter what the advertiser’s original intentions were with this image. What is important is how audiences interpret the message. Commonly, the term “white” refers to Eurocentric appearance standards, particularly referring to the lightness of a person’s skin. To say that “white is purity”, you are making the statement that anything that contrasts these standards is impure.

Figure B, Nivea, 2017

Nivea is no stranger to controversial advertisements, having created another shocking image (Figure B) stating that their product was to be used for “visibly fairer skin”, again suggesting that a fairer, lighter complexion should be more desirable. This pattern of advertising calls for questions of the company’s integrity.

What do these images mean for society?

The effects of releasing an advertisement like the one above are incredibly damaging to our society as they contribute to an attitude that casual racism is acceptable, when the truth is quite the opposite. In a world where hate crimes and prejudice against the colour of someone’s skin are still so common, releasing professional advertisements for big-name brands shows the world that this company supports racism.

These images can also be incredibly damaging to the mental health of POC exposed to them. Much like seeing photoshopped models in advertisements can be damaging to one’s own body image, seeing blatant racism advertised so freely can lead the viewers to believe that they are true, and begin to take on self-destructive mindsets.

What can we do?

While racism in advertising has been an issue since as early as the 1880s, like this Pear’s Soap advertisement from 1884 (Figure C), in the modern age of integrative technology and immersive audiences, “people are more than ready to point out such instances and use social media to critique or even shame the organization for their behavior.” (Vallius, 2019, p.31)

Figure C, Pear’s Soap, 1884

It is important to hold organisations accountable on social media for their actions for the world to see, so that we can create a society where casual racism is no longer the norm.

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