HUL's Fair/Glow and Lovely Brand Analysis

When we observe the evolution of Fair and lovely brand from 1975 to 2021, their underlying value proposition has always been fair skin equals success, more prospects for marriage, better job opportunities etc. In 2020, HUL renamed its flagship brand “Fair and lovely” to “Glow and lovely” when multiple fairness brands came under a major assault from the marketplace due to Black Lives Matter campaign as the payback which comes from supporting the product brand brings more net negative effect than the positive corporate rub-off that comes from the corporate brand advocating for the campaign.

From the 90s itself, the Fair and lovely brand through its advertisements has positioned itself as a problem solver of social issues such as marriage rejections, gender stereotyping, job rejections, racial discrimination, social alienation, etc. by affiliating these socio-cultural stigmas and stereotypes to our demeanors and leveraged their marketing muscle, distribution mobility, price variants, bargaining power, market research, first move advantage in order to establish their footprint In this heterogeneous landscape.?

The Fair & lovely brand through their marketing campaigns such as “Fair & lovely Ad Dance Audition” , “Naya Ayurvedic fair and lovely” , “Multivitamin Softy Fair & lovely winter fairness cream”, “Fair & lovely Makeup wale look ke liye No makeup” etc. has not only transmitted functional elements such as skin lightening, skin smoothening, spot block system, half split test, sun protection, under eye radiance, dullness treatment, vitamin mask treatment, blue lens test, 30 days face lift policy , frequent usage bringing 60% more face lift, Ayurvedic treatment & de-tan treatment but has also propagated intangible propositions such as better job prospects, social acceptance, equal treatments etc. Therefore, the Fair and the lovely brand has been oscillating recklessly around the 3 vital operations of a brand which are repair, maintain & enhance.?

Traditional campaign communication culture has been around provoking certain kinds of behavior patterns at that point of time, but as digital penetration increases, as the market becomes more saturated, as more no of products enter the market, as consumers become more sophisticated, as more brands bring more similar propositions, it’s important for the corporate brand to bring relevant platform ideas which will embed distinctive memory structures in order to reconnect with the evolving consumer’s needs & bandwagons.?

The repositioning of the brand in recent times was done just to squeeze the imminent controversy (waiting for it to die down). So, just renaming the product is a myopic move by such a conglomerate as they do not want their piggy banks to get affected in the short term. Post the renaming of the product brand, HUL has put out a new campaign in which DeeMC raps “Glow ko na roko” which is just a superficial repackaging of the same regressive narrative to position this new Glow and lovely nomenclature, but the ad isn’t able to position the exact meaning of Glow and how is it different from the traditional narrative of Fair and lovely. It is just that now, HUL has to camouflage their raw intentions so that they appear relevant and responsible.

The obsession of skin lightening is so deeply embedded that if HUL decides to retrieve from this segment, then the market share will be devoured by some other indigenous products such as Neha & Love, Lufina, Melas, Zohra etc. or multinational brands such as Lakme, Dabur, Emami etc. as the game board have always been about demand and supply, so abandoning this cash cow can also lead to a severe body blow for the corporate brand. It is unlikely that the brand will amend its chemical compounds and even if they did, it would be of less use as discrimination is so deeply entrenched in Indian consumer’s cognitive real estate that they will still leverage other products for skin lightening.?

HUL has always executed certain cosmetic alterations in their fair and lovely propositions over time and has maintained its 80% market share of this 10,000-crore fairness cream market. They need to change the cognition of consumers and make them embrace their real beauty which is paradoxical to the fundamental narrative on which the brand has been constructed i.e., fairness equals success.?

The first step to bringing such change is brand communication which has to be more responsible, conscious, consistent, persuasive, and credible in its rhythm and not shallow, superficial, and morally infertile in its proposition & communication framework and this will require an integrated effort across the spectrum of channels in form of communications & executions. In order to do that what they need is a strategic and consistent platform idea that will leverage smart and conversation-changing semiotics to establish more value-driven distinctive memory structures & nomenclature in the beauty & skincare segment going forward which will manifest that the brand values act over ads.

Link referred for Fair and lovely marketing campaign:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ol_PAbSJTWc&t=498s ?