A lovely but not so fair move by Hindustan Unilever

A hoarding of Fair Lovely – A fairness cream

Unilever is the latest company to join the bandwagon of brands showing sudden guilt and support to equality. While, it is true that this is a step towards a right direction this begets a question if it is the right step and most importantly why now?

Brands, in my view reflect the societies’ happenings and practices.  “Lets scrub out that tan”, “ white unblemished skin” and the more nuanced “ black beauty”. Ever heard “white beauty”, anyone?. Many such white aggrandizing phrases have been a part of our regular parlance and have set a certain standard to the perception of beauty.

In the context of business,  the Indian fairness cream market was reportedly worth nearly Rs 3,000 crore  in 2019, according to the India Fairness Cream & Bleach Market Overview (2018-2023). Market revenues were expected to reach Rs 5,000 crore by 2023. Till late 90’s Fair and lovely had a lion’s share 90% (of the 558 cr. market). At least 12 new brands entered this segment by 2000s with sky high ad spends and organized market of 558 cr. Even the fakes had a field day. It was believed that the fairness market would never see a dark day until 2013 when the market shrunk and we saw a negative sales growth of 4.5% in volume ( as per Nielsen MAT Sales 2013 report).This carried on until the most recent George Floyd case which was a tipping point of the entire discourse.

Now we know that when a brand that is clocking 3000 cr annual sales. and is sold in a dozen markets decides to do a major product change it has to justify its balance sheet forecasts. No matter the intentions or emotions this move is insignificant in the larger scheme of things.

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