All that glows......

Many have called it as the classic example of showing that advertising, or more specifically the people who put the ads together are completely devoid of morality or a sense of the difference of what constitutes selling and what constitutes opportunism of an inherent bias in society.

I am talking about the “Fair and Lovely” and now the “Fair and Handsome” ads. Of course they are not the only one trying to push their products using the fairness bias in the society. Soaps do it, skin oils do it and so on….but if any ads uses the bias blatantly, it is those two…..

I am not going to talk at length as to why our society from top to bottom has this prejudice for whiteness or fairness (dusky is considered exotic, perhaps that too, only in cases like Bipasha Basu!!). Among other things, I feel that the major one is a severe case of colonial hangover, when for 300 years, it was constantly hammered into our native minds that white is superior and all conquering, hence better….it existed before as well in the Aryan-Dravidian divide but never has it been so apparent than when it was during the Raj….

What I am going to talk about is a simple fact that is somehow overshadowed among all the criticisms that are heaped on the ads. It is this that ultimately, advertising and the selling that results from it is economic in nature. That is, there is always a cost-benefit analysis at work. That if the ads do not help the products to sell, well, the ads would simply be dropped. Conversely, if they sell, the ads would continue. In a way, it has nothing to with morality and in any case, the advertisement industry never claimed to be introspective reformers of society or harbingers of change, nor did they claim to be making visuals which show something meaningful to society. It has a purely business motive – to sell.

And the fact that these ads have stayed on for so long, and not only have they stayed, they in fact have diversified – trying to woo “dark” men in their folds as well. All this points to the fact that well, the ads are achieving their economic aims – in fact “Fair and Lovely” has increased volumes year after year and now “Fair and Handsome” is creating an all new market.

So it because these few second ads have distorted our minds, rendered us without reason or have they simply made economic gains out of a prejudice which we have refused to strike down? For me, it is definitely the latter.

Marketers have done what they are trained to – spotted a market opportunity. But what have we, the consumers done? Have we tried to understand how this prejudice can be rooted out? Are we even trying to any significant degree? The ads show that a woman gets a spanking good husband after she decides to apply the cream for a month or so. Fine….its deplorable and betrays a medievalist mindset but don’t they echo exactly what we witness everyday among the people we know, in the marriages we have seen close hand – when a girl being "dark" puts a huge mental barrier in the man’s family approach to the proposal. While a fair bride is considered an unequivocal asset, a “darker” is accepted but with a rider – “you know, she is very good and all but…a bit dark”

So, all the charges that these adspots distort our thinking and influence minds, to me are a bit dubious. People learn more from what they witness everyday from people close hand, especially parents and older siblings and other close relatives. Ads portray what they feel would help them sell the products….and when the sales increase, well, even a “Marketing for Dummies” book would suggest continuing the ad-strategy, and even strengthen it.

So the fact that the women and men buy the creams to feel more confident of themselves is perhaps what should be fought against and shown to be what it is, a humiliating experience. Humiliating because we are made to feel that somehow lightening our skin by applying chemicals (which are themselves dubious in nature) is somehow helping our self-esteem, making us more confident when it is nothing but a crutch to lean on to hobble along with the other prejudices of society, making us ever more dependent on the other person’s opinion to make us feel good about ourselves.

So instead of calling for ads to be removed from view, we need to ensure that the ads don’t find takers. Then there would not be a need to raise a hue and cry, and the ads would simply disappear on their own….