How Unilever profits from unhappiness
Lynx is a brand that has been going great guns for Unilever over the years. Indeed its potent mix of adolescent fantasy and sexual humour has seen the brand grow to epic proportions. But at its heart is the objectivisation of women in the minds of teenagers and the promotion of sexual stereotypes that leave most members of the opposite sex feeling very uncomfortable.
I honestly don’t believe anyone at Unilever understand this. In fact, Lynx launched its female version at the beginning of this year and has appointed a female brand manager to oversee it. I trust the female population will turn their back on it although I fear the younger generation may have become immune and don’t understand the corrosive effect this has their gender.
But to me Unilever’s problem isn’t just that Lynx is contributing to social problems but that it does so with breathtaking hypocrisy. Not many people know that Unilever also have Dove in its stable and, since 2004, Dove has been promoting “Campaign for Real Beauty”.
The campaign aims to
celebrate the natural physical variation embodied by all women and inspire them to have the confidence to be comfortable with themselves.
Now I’m not an expert about why women might not feel confidant or comfortable with themselves but I’m guessing the stereotypical portrayal of women as objects in advertising doesn’t help. So it seems completely perverse that one company should campaign on one issue with one brand that aims to resolve a problem caused by another brand it also owns.
A more extensive debate exists on this subject in this excellent paper prepared by the Arthur W Page society, a US based organisation monitoring public affairs (download) 08CaseStudy_Journal
For me, I don’t need to know anymore than this: Unilever’s sense of its corporate responsibility in the matter falls way short of what society requires of it. And no matter how you try to excuse this, every woman should feel outraged about this.
But have they stopped buying the Dove brand in protest? Have you?
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