Liberals reacted negatively to the change in Dove’s packaging saying the word “normal” is offensive.
As Dove soap’s parent company, Unilever wants more people to purchase its goods, they quickly announced that they will be changing their Dove packaging, claiming that they will remove the word “normal” as it could be misconstrued as excluding some people.
This change by the UK-based company is the latest in the “woke” campaign to make marketing language more inclusive for all customers.
In results of a 10,000-person study in which study found that the majority of respondents – for 56%, felt left out by the cosmetics and personal care sector. Ages eighteen to thirty-five, younger clients, were 80 percent turned off by the phrase.
In response to the study, Unilever ordered Dove to remove the word “normal” from their packaging. Unilever is a huge brand that includes smaller brands like Dove, Lifebuoy, Vaseline, and Sunsilk in its portfolio
Unilever has been describing skin type and hair texture as “normal” for many years. The phrase only applies to white clients, though. The company aspires to have more descriptive phrases, such as “grey hair” for their lines of shampoos and “moisture refill” for their lines of skin creams, in favor of the word “normal” by March of the following year.
However, critics abound and are not shy about voicing their opinions on the change, while many social media users have praised the company’s effort to include more people.
One critic wrote, “Now @Unilever has gone woke. You won’t be able to buy shampoo for ‘normal’ hair anymore. Apparently, it’s offensive. Wouldn’t it be great if these companies reflected the views of normal people who haven’t been conned by this PC wokeness? Time to avoid @Dove @Sunsilk.”
“The fact that everyone is so triggered by this is pathetic. This is very necessary. Unlike different shade band-aids, classifying hair and skin types is very much needed. Black and white people can’t use the same hair or skin products,” another person said, thinking that the change was positive.
The Unilever modification, according to another person, made sense, “Unilever dropping the word ‘normal’ in reference to hair/ skin types because people feel excluded from it. Well, yes, I’ve got super dry skin and hair, and this is outside the norm for healthy skin/ hair, but feeling excluded? Nah. Can’t wait to hear the new word, though.”
Sunny Jain, President of Beauty & Personal Care said:
“With one billion people using our beauty and personal care products every day, and even more seeing our advertising, our brands have the power to make a real difference to people’s lives. As part of this, we are committed to tackling harmful norms and stereotypes and shaping a broader, far more inclusive definition of beauty.”
As Unilever’s new Positive Beauty strategy will be more inclusive of all people.
Sunny added, “We know that removing ‘normal’ from our products and packaging will not fix the problem alone, but it is an important step forward. It’s just one of a number of actions we are taking as part of our Positive Beauty vision, which aims not only to do less harm but more good for both people and the planet.
“With more consumers than ever rewarding brands which take action on the social and environmental issues they care about, we believe that Positive Beauty will make us a stronger and more successful business.”
Sources: AWM, Tatlerasia, Prweek