Unilever to take away ‘regular’ from its magnificence, private care items | Enterprise and Financial system Information

More than half of respondents in a global survey said that using “normal” to describe hair or skin left them feeling excluded.

Unilever, the conglomerate behind Dove soap and other bath and beauty products, has announced it will no longer use the word “normal” on its packaging and digitally change the bodies and skin color of the models used in its advertising in an attempt to digitally change a drive to be more inclusive.

The move by the London-based company, which is among the top advertisers in the world, is because it is trying to go beyond the backlash it has faced on some of its advertising campaigns.

Unilever was urged last year to rename its best-selling skin lightening brand in India from “Fair & Lovely” to “Glow & Lovely” after facing consumer ire over negatively stereotypical darker skin tones.

In 2017, the company faced an outcry on social media over an advertisement for Dove Body Wash in which a black woman removed her top to reveal a white woman.

More recently, the company had to get all TRESemmé hair care products from South African retail stores for 10 days because an advertisement stopped working.

“We know that removing ‘normal’ alone won’t fix the problem, but we believe it’s an important step towards a broader definition of beauty,” said Sunny Jain, president of Unilever’s Beauty and Health Division Personal hygiene, told Reuters news agency.

Worldwide, the word “normal” will be removed from more than one hundred Unilever brands to describe skin type or hair texture, and will be replaced by terms such as “gray hair” for shampoos or “moisturizer” for skin creams by March next year.

Unilever said a survey of about 10,000 people worldwide found that more than half of respondents felt they were using “normal” to describe hair or skin, which made people feel left out, while 70 percent said they were stated that the use of the word in advertising had a negative effect.

The company also announced that it will stop digitally changing the body shape, height, proportions and tones of the models in its own ads or that of its paid influencers for all brands. That move started with the Dove brand in 2018.