Commentary-1

Global Media Journal – Indian Edition

Sponsored by the University of Calcutta www.caluniv.ac.in
ISSN 2249 – 5835
Winter-Summer Issue/December 2016 – June 2017
Volume: 7 / Number: 2, Volume: 8/ Number: 1

ETHICAL NORMS IN FAIRNESS CREAM ADVERTISEMENT

by

Prakriti Sarkar
M.Phil, Research Scholar, Women’s Studies Research Centre
University of Calcutta
Email: prakriti.sarkar1@gmail.com
and

Dr.ChilkaGhosh
Associate Professor, Department of History, Basanti Devi College, Kolkata
Email: chilkak9@gmail.com

Abstract: This Paper aims at probing into the ethics and meanings of advertisements of a
very popular product of recent times, fairness creams. The purpose is three fold: one, to read
the encoded messages of these ads; two, to seehow far these ads adhere to the norms
regarding ethics of advertising set in India; and finally, to argue that market and ethics are
two most contradictory ideas. Further, both ethical norms set by a state apparatus and
widely circulating advertisements reflect the socio-economic structure of the society
concerned and hence the state apparatus and media are hardly ever at loggerheads with each
other.The authors of the paper believe that any cream or other product that promises to
transform the physical appearances of consumers,demeanspeople; promising lighter skin
tone is racist and further,showing lighterskin tone as a precondition of successand
confidence is not only falsity but is also a clear attempt at boosting most people’s feeling of
inadequacy. Therefore, by permitting these ads to remain in circulation the state is
contradicting the norms set by it.

Keywords: advertisement, fairness cream, ethics, racist, encoded messages, popular fear,
beliefs, government intervention, mass media.

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“Advertisements are one of the most important cultural factors moulding and reflecting our
life today. They are ubiquitous, an inevitable part of everyone’s lives.”(Williamson,1978,
pg 11). Even if we try to avoid reading newspaper or watching television, every now and then
we are forced to consume advertisements in one form or other, as the advertising industry is
no longer confined within the four-walls of print and electronic media. It isexpanding
itshorizon and has incorporated the outdoor spaceslike billboards,and hoardings to suit the
tenacity of the advertising messages. Whether we are at home or travelling outside there is a
constant bombardment of advertisement which we cannot choose to avoid. The advertisement
and its visual attributes are so interesting and appealing at the same time that almost
nonecanresist or afford to lose sight of these.

In the light of this thesis, the paper intends to probe into the purpose and ethics of
advertisements of Fairness creams, much in vogue currently.

While reading an advertisement we are mostly guided bythree inseparable andimportant

elements: the sign, signifier and the signified. These work together to impact viewers/
consumers of the media.

“A sign is quite simply a thing- whether object, word, or picture-which has a particular
meaning to a person or group of people. It is neither the thing nor the meaning alone, but the
two together. The sign consists of the Signifier, the material object, and the Signified, which
is its meaning. These are only divided for analytical purposes: in practice a sign is always
thing-plus-meaning. Signifier and signified are materially inseparable, since they are bound
together in the sign, which is their totality” (Williamson, 1978,pg 17-18).

While the pictures of the products in ad texts are the primary signifier (of the real product, the
signified), they seemingly arrests the attention of the consumers they actually see beyond the
primary signifier; and at the second level, the pictorial and the literary texts ascomponents of
the whole text seems to signify not the real product but a lifestyle. Knowingly or otherwise
consumers are most attracted by the second order that is signified. In a more complex way,
the signified is a further signifier of a desired/coveted mode of existence (unreal but not
impossible). The third order signified is what arrests the attention of consumers and of which
they are not conscious in most of the cases. It may seem that it is their consciousness that
would render the ads in an ineffective state.

However, advertising texts create meanings through encoded messages; while the surface
meaning denotes the encoded messagewhich is created through the connotations of the
‘denoted’. Nevertheless, decoding the encoded messages or making the desired sense of the
connotation is context dependent and as Stuart Hall would have us believe that all encoded
messages are not decoded in the way desired by the creators of the message.

Denotation beingthe descriptive and literal meaningcreated by the literary and/or pictorial
texts or parts of the whole advertising texts refers to the “first order” of signification
generated by the signifier and the signified—the initial, common-sense and obvious meaning
of the sign (Fiske, 1990, p. 85). Connotation, on the other hand, beingthe “second order” of
signification, involves meanings that are generated by connecting signifiers to wider cultural

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concerns. 1. So while analysing an advertisement one has to keep in mind the entire structure
that gives ‘meaning’ to the advertisement.

Though commodities owe much to advertisements for their demand and it is these ads that
actually create a desire/demand for a lifestyle, a life pattern of which,apparently the
advertised product is the cornerstone. It may seem that the advertising industry with its
mystic touch tries to construct a name and image for a product which in due course of time
finds its way into people’s list of choices and preferences.Advertisements have immense
power to embeda brand-name or a classof goods in the minds of consumers, forwhichthere is
an eventualfeeltowards an impendingneed. Advertisement mediais so interwoven with our
lives that we almost tend to overlook its manipulative aspect. While keeping this in mind one
ought not to lose sight of the fact circuit comprising encoding and decodingwhich may not
always complete; completion would depend on the receivers of the encoded messages,
receivers who move through many discourses other than the common hegemonic mass media
(Hall).

But it is the advertisements that help to create a niche and image of a product in audience’s
mind which in return guide them to choose from different sets of products. In a way we can
claim that it is the advertisements that mould and shape our choices and desire.Ads however
do not only stuff products into our shopping baskets but alsosteer our ambitions, creates
desires, and most importantly defines our ideals—they shape our lifestyles stealthily.

“It is not the ad that evokes feeling, it simply invokes the idea of a feeling; it uses feeling as a
sign which points to the product. But then emotion is also promised when you buy the
product. So the feeling and the product become interchangeable as signifier/signified”
(Williamson, 1978,pg 31).

Advertisements have an immense power of communication that coaxes consumersto

participate in the drama and does not permit them tofeel like a passive receiver of themedia
message.

“Product as a generator can generate a feeling or emotion. A product may go from

representing an abstract or feeling, to generating or being that feeling; it may become not
only ‘sign’ but the actual referent of that sign. If a product creates the feeling, it has become
more than a sign; it enters the space of the referent and becomes active in reality. Feelings
became bound up with products. This means, on one level, that the product ‘produces’ or
buys the feeling. But the more subtle level on which the advertisement works is that of
‘alreadyness’, which is where ‘totemism’ becomes a part of ideology; you don’t simply buy
the product in order to become a part of the group it represents; you must feel that you
already, naturally belong to that group and therefore you will buy it. This is how
advertisements maintain their hold on you in the gap between seeing them and buying
products. You don’t choose in the shop, but in response to the advertisement, by
‘recognizing’ yourself as the kind of person who will use a specific brand. You must have
already chosen when you buy otherwise the ads have failed in to purpose.” (Williamson,
1978,pg 36-48).

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Whenwe buy a product we donot only buy the product but wealsobuy the feeling associated
and advertised with the product. Since products have use value while commodities have used
and exchange value the purpose of market is to increase the exchange value and entrap as
many heads as possible. To inculcate the notion, “I consume hence I exist” is the prime motto
of a consumer economy; and for the purpose commodities are loaded with symbolic value,
which ads propagate. This being the general theory, contemporary ads would emphasise on
the symbolic value much more than they would during the pre-globalisation period. Not only
that, but also the market would be flooded with commodities devoid of use value, on which
ads would confer supposed use value and create apparent needs to entrap consumers.

Ethics and meanings of Fairness creams ads ought to be read in this context.

Growing Demand of Fairness

We are here to analyse the meanings created by the advertisements and the ethics of
advertisements of fairness creams because they are aggressively targeting and are often
successful in trapping both the sexes. It seems that, they are trying to justify their existence
by screaming ‘fair skin is the much needed yet so far neglected new thing’. Sometime big
brands have come up with the new term “skin lighting” to promote fair skin complexion in
more subtle and seemingly racialism-free manner.

India, being a tropical country and hence naturally a land of brown skinned people has since
long been suffering from an obsession for fair skin. This obsession though is predominant
among the urban middle and upper class but has an undoubtedly trickling down effect. There
is an unsaid notion that beauty is equivalent to fair skin tone. Although this very mythical set
of beliefs has been criticised and challenged by several critical intellectual minds but still the
market for producing fair skin type as the one and only yardstick to measure beauty is
growing day by day. And along with that the market has not forgone the opportunity to thrive
on people’s folly. The ads succeed in drawing attention chiefly because Indians have a darker
skin tone—desire thrives in the space between the ‘real’ and the aspired impossible, the self
and the other. Earlier, fairness cream ads targeted only the women, for matrimonial columns
demanded fair brides. But now men too are drawn into the vicious cycle, as the now supposed
special fairness creams for ‘men only’; these ads usually show that men too have secret desire
to be fair skinned, a desire that they cannot express but the advertiser know. Though we know
that a large number of women do crave for a lighter skin tone, but we are not so sure about
our men; however, that is quite beside the point because ads can turn their messages into
common sense, and once that is done people fall into what psychologists call the loop effect
(Karl E Scheibe), and absurdities seem real and the normative becomes normal. Increasingly,
these fairness products with advertised celebrity endorsements are normalising the already
existing notion that equates beauty with lighter skin tone; and more, ads are associating
success with beauty as they define it. In popular belief marriage of girls depended on skin
tone but now, according to the ads success in career along with public attention for both men
and women depend on fair complexion. The ads do not thus feed on popular feeling of

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inadequacy but also diverts people’s attention from the real causes of their failures, which are
more often socio-economic than personal. They do not only sell products but also sell a
lifestyle comprising (mis)conception.

Few usual elements depicted in “fairness” or “skin lighting” adverts which remain more or
less the same are as follows:

 The boy or girl in these adverts are unsuccessful in their personal or professional lives
owing to their dark skin tone
 Generally in these ads the boy or the girl is shown depressed because of their skin colour
as if fair skin tone is the only normally desiredskin colour and the departure from the
normalcy is the normal cause of their complex and depression.
 Then appears the advertised fairness cream as the panacea of all problems to deliver the
boy/girl from failure, loneliness, and depression.2

It is undoubtedly unethical to portray a constructed notion as common sense, to pose the

normative as normal; here however, we would examine ethics of these ads as per the
prescribed norms set by the ASCI (Advertising Standards Council of India).

Ethics in Fairness Cream Advertisements

The aspect of ethics has always been severely compromised when it comes to fairness
products advertisements. Tosecure market and increase sale the advertisers have been boldly
promoting racism and thriving on people’s already existing sense of inadequacy and thus
affirming them.

The Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) prescribes ethical norms of advertising
in India. ASCI seeks to ensure that advertisements conform to its Code for Self-Regulation,
which requires advertisements to be legal, decent, honest and truthful and not hazardous or
harmful while observing fairness in competition. 3

The purpose of the Code

The purpose of the Code is to control the content of advertisements, which might be
offensive; its purpose is not to hamper the sale of products.

This Code for Self-Regulation, with the following as basic guidelines, with a view to achieve
the acceptance of fair advertising practices in the best interest of the ultimate consumer:

I. To ensure the truthfulness and honesty of representations and claims made by

advertisements, and to safeguard against misleading advertisements.

II. To ensure that advertisements are not offensive to generally accepted standards of public
decency.

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III. To safeguard against the indiscriminate use of advertising for the promotion of products,
which are regarded as hazardous to society or to individuals to a degree or of a type and
which is unacceptable to society at large.

IV. To ensure that advertisements observe fairness in competition so that the consumer's need
to be informed of choices in the marketplace and the canons of generally accepted
competitive behaviour in business is both served.

With the growing demand for skin lighting or fairness improvement products the Chairman
and the Board of Governors of ASCI on August 14th 2014 passed guidelines for the
advertisements of these products.

Guidelines of Advertising for Skin Lightening or Fairness Improvement Products

Preamble

While all fairness products are licensed for manufacture and sale by the relevant state Food &
Drug Administration (FDA) under the Drugs & Cosmetics Act, there is a strong concern in
certain sections of society that advertising of fairness products tends to communicate and
perpetuate the notion that dark skin is inferior and undesirable. ASCI Code's Chapter III 1(b)
already states that advertisements should not deride race, caste, colour, creed or nationality.
Yet given how widespread the advertising for fairness and skin lightening products is and the
concerns of different stakeholders in society, ASCI, therefore, felt a need to frame specific
guidelines for this product category.

Guidelines

The following guidelines are to be used when creating and assessing advertisements in this
category.

1) Advertising should not communicate any discrimination as a result of skin colour. These
advertisements should not reinforce negative social stereotyping on the basis of skin colour.
Specifically, advertising should not directly or implicitly show people with darker skin, in a
way which is widely seen as, unattractive, unhappy, depressed or concerned. These
advertisements should not portray people with darker skin, in a way which is widely seen as,
at a disadvantage of any kind, or inferior, or unsuccessful in any aspect of life, particularly in
relation to being attractive to the opposite sex, matrimony, job placement, promotions and
other prospects.

2) In the pre-usage depiction of product, special care should be taken to ensure that the
expression of the model/s in the real and graphical representation should not be negative in a
way which is widely seen as unattractive, unhappy, depressed or concerned.

3) Advertising should not associate darker or lighter colour skin with any particular socio-
economic strata, caste, community, religion, profession or ethnicity.

4) Advertising should not perpetuate gender based discrimination because of skin colour.4

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Analysis of Fairness Cream ads in Indian Television

In contradiction to the Code, television ads of Fairness creams do not only promise lighter
skin tone but also associate skin tone with success, to scare dark skinned people, who are the
majority of the Indian population. Through subtle or not so subtle use of fear technique the
ads do not only create false notions but also take the risk of causing mental injury to a sizable
portion of our population. Now, the need for fairness has found its way into deodorant
industry that emphasises the need for fairer under arms. However ridiculous these
advertisements might seem, but while consuming the glossy happy advertised world, where
success is just a few steps away, a world brought to light by the most advanced techniques,
one is hardly able to note the absurd yet harmful messages that these ads disseminate, unless
of course one is armed to ward off these encoded messages by other discourses.

Examples are Useful

 Fair & Lovely cream ad: the product targets women, as is evident from the name; in one
of “Fair & Lovely” ad featuring Bollywood film actress Yami Gautam, we see a man
convincing his daughter to get married to a well settled man as a proposal like this does
not come every day. In the next scene, the girl is seen pondering over the possibility of
her finding a job. However, once Yami Gautam hands her the tube of Fair& Lovely, she
finds confidence to tell her father that she would marry after three years, when she too
would be well settled in her career, to form a relation based on equality. Apparently, an
ad promoting women’s empowerment is actually bent on disempowering the entire
population irrespective of sex; the call here is to purchase success via the advertised
product, a call that immediately renders all acquired qualities and skills powerless.

 Emami’s Fair & Handsome cream ad: As the name suggest, the target audience of this
cream happens to be men. In one of the Emami’s “Fair & Handsome” cream
advertisements we will find a boy who seems to be embarrassed for his dark complexion
is hiding his face from girls. This ad, features film star Shahrukh Khan, who repeatedly
warns the boy against using fairness creams meant for girl; he suggested a special fairness
cream meant for men .The obvious happens after the boy uses the suggested cream—he
gains confidence and girls swarm around him. The measure of success, source of
confidence and meaning of beauty, in fact the entire life pattern like most other ads are
decided, defined and handed to the consumers, by this ad too.

Whatever be the regulatory guidelines of the Council, in a competitive market each product
of the same group of commodities has to promise something more than what its competitors
offer—most of these promises are impossible to keep (detergents cannot brighten textile
colors, shampoo cannot strengthen hair roots, just as creams cannot lighten skin tone and
neither can lighter skin tone give confidence naturally), and thus, adverts by practice make

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false claims. Further, by defining and promoting a lifestyle they surely scare, make feel
inadequate and/or offend those who have a different life pattern.

Now if we analyse both the ads we will find that in both the ads the concept of fairness being
associated with attractiveness and confidence remains well intact. But the ads has moved one
step further of promoting the idea that it is no longer the women who are in constant need to
be fair, but men too also fall into this trap of insecurity owing to darker complexion.

The biggest question “How fair are these fairness cream ads”?

“The Indecent Representation of Women (Prohibition) Act, 1986 that prohibits indecent
representation of women in India, through advertisements or other mass media, writings,
paintings, figures or in any other manner. However this act extends to the whole of India,
except the State of Jammu & Kashmir.5 Though law has been passed for prohibiting indecent
representation of women in advertisements, advertisers find means to trick their way out of
this stringent law. However, the point is that the attempt to protect women from indecent
representation is by all means a sign of gender inequality especially when male body is the
latest target of advertisers. Further, the ads of Fairness creams can never be brought under
Act prohibiting indecent representation of women because in these ads, women are never
represented, what is commonly understood as indecent in India; otherwise too the notion
indecency is not a thing out there. In India, preparing a girl for marriage or to centre romantic
and tender ideas around a girl’s wedding is never considered indecent; neither is associating
lighter skin tone with beauty considered indecent as the notions actually reside in popular
imagination and the ads thrive on these.

The moot point is not whether the creams portray women decently; the point is whetherthe
ads make false claims or go against basic human dignity; whether the creams are liable to
create health hazards and thrive/reiterate on wrong popular notions. Close examination would
help one realize that the creams and their ads are unethical irrespective of what the Indian
code defines as ethics and indecent in spite of the Indian Regulation for reasons already
stated. It is important to note that a socio-economic system that fosters inequality and
indignity of majority cannot be improved if they have ads that reflect the same tendency.

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Citation:

1
Lin,Ma.(2008).The Representation of the Orient in Western Women Perfume
Advertisements: A Semiotic Analysis.Retrieved from http://web.uri.edu/iaics/files/05-Ma-
Lin.pdf
2
Gundala,Rao.Raghava.,&Chavali,Kavita.(2012).Ethical Aspects in the Advertising of
Fairness Creams.Retrieved
fromhttps://www.researchgate.net/publication/256039000_Ethical_Aspects_in_the_Advertis
ing_of_Fairness_Creams
3
The Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI).(n.d.).Retrieved from
https://www.ascionline.org/
4
ibid.
5
The Indecent Representation of Women (Prohibition) Act, 1986.(n.d.).Retrieved from
http://ncw.nic.in/acts/TheIndecentRepresentationofWomenProhibitionAct1986.pdf

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advertising.Retrieved from http://bookzz.org/
 Barthes, Ronald.(1977). Image Music Text. Retrieved from http://bookzz.org/
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 Kundra, S. (n.d.). Introduction to Advertising and Public Relation. New Delhi: Anmol
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 Dutta, S. (n.d.). Advertising Today

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