Complex images and their various meanings
Dove is accused of racism within a campaign that promotes body lotion. The brand publishes an advert on their Facebook page displaying a black woman turning into a white woman after applying the body lotion. The ad portrays a black woman removing her top and as her top is removed the woman appears white signifying the after effect of using their body lotion. This sparked major confrontation and outrage in the public within Dove’s followers on social media and elsewhere. Individuals who were a follower of Dove prior to the exposure of this ad began to hashtag like #DonewithDove and claims to refuse buying any more of their products.
The ad was then removed and Dove publicly apologised and stated “Dove is committed to representing the beauty of diversity. In an image we posted this week, we missed the mark in thoughtfully representing women of colour and we deeply regret the offense that it has caused.”
They additionally followed with; “This did not represent the diversity of real beauty which is something Dove is passionate about and is core to our beliefs, and it should not have happened. “We have removed the post and have not published any other related content. We apologise deeply and sincerely for the offence that it has caused.”
Dove had in mind to promote the real beauty of diversity; however, this core idea was interpreted differently as the public perceived the message to be racist. This is identifying how individuals translate pieces of advertisements and messages in different ways and additionally shows the importance of completely assessing an advertisement before exposing it to the public/ media where messages can be understood in numerous of ways. The denotation in Dove’s perspective is to promote the indulgence of using their body lotion, whilst the connotation translated into a promotion that includes racism and degrading diversity. Furthermore, the signifier is the image of the women and the signified is the promotion of supporting racism.
Nicola Slawson (2017), Dove apologises for ad showing black woman turning into white one, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/08/dove-apologises-for-ad-showing-black-woman-turning-into-white-one
allegraslovitt.com 