Advertisements for skin-whitening products in India may no longer be able to depict dark-skinned people as losers, unworthy of professional success or personal happiness. New guidelines by the county’s advertising sector watchdog might force the beauty companies to abandon such discriminatory portrayals.
The Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) has released draft guidelines on its website that you can read and comment on here. Its concern over the ethics of lightening creams is hardly new, of course. Since 1978, when Unilever first launched Fair & Lovely cream, the fairness cream market has grown to a Rs3,000 crore ($500 million) industry.
A part of its popularity stems from marketing and ads like these. Here are five ads that might make you cringe—and wonder why it took the ad council so long to do something:
