TRESemmé Faces Backlash Following Racially Insensitive Ad

TRESemmé South Africa’s promotional campaign advertisement which aired via Clicks (a retail pharmacy company) on Friday, faced backlash for being racially insensitive. It showed women of colour as having hair that is “frizzy and dull”, “dry and damaged”. Meanwhile, white women were shown to have “normal” and “fine and flat” hair.

The Unilever brand caused an uproar as citizens angered, took to the streets to display their resentment and disappointment. The Economic Freedom Fighters (EEF), an opposition party, led these protests. They called the commercial as being racist and dehumanizing. EEF went one step ahead and attempted to set fire on stores such as Witbank and Alberton. These acts of violence were condemned by the NCYL Crisis Committee. The committee suggests that action must be taken to get rid of the remains of racial discrimination and superiority as it undermines their agenda on building a non-racial South Africa.

Following these public indignations, stores such as Clicks along with Shoprite, Woolworths and Pick N Pay have removed the TRESemmé products from its shelves. This led to the Clicks CEO Vikesh Ramsyunder publishing an apology and responding to the criticism by dismissing the employees that were involved in the promotion of the campaign. Moreover, both, Unilever and TRESemmé South Africa published apologies for the systemic racism that the advertisement projects.

Furthermore, after reflecting on their ignorance, Unilever stated that all TRESemmé products will be removed from stores across South Africa for the next 10 days. In addition to that, the parent company has also promised to donate a minimum of 10,000 sanitary pads to the citizens of shack lands.

People of colour are already subject to mass discrimination across the globe. Commercials like this are implications and reinforcements of people of colour as being the inferior race narrative. Moreover, this isn’t the first time Unilever has faced backlash for hinting at racial superiority. Under 3 months ago, one of their fairness creams promoted negative stereotypes around dark skin tones; as a result of which they had to rename the product.

As long as decision-makers who ratify these advertisements and campaigns aren’t diverse and belonging to all races, this issue will continue to prevail as it has over the years.

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