A visual aspect of any campaign should sell a product and be morally evaluated and correctly perceived by the broad audience. Any organization needs to provide clear communication through texts and images about their products. The ethical aspect of applying an image or video to an advertisement is related to considering the consequences of constructing a particular visual element in a certain way (Kienzler, 1997). Modern technical capabilities made it possible to craft marketing masterpieces, however, not all campaigns were understood correctly due to their unethical communication.
The chosen campaign is Dove’s lotion 2017 Facebook advertisement, where the visual part raises ethical concerns based on racism. A dark-skin woman takes off her brown shirt and turns into the light-skin one in fair-colored clothing. The communication of the campaign’s visual part can be described as insulting to women of color as it makes people think that only whites can be clean. Offensive material violates ethical norms, such as respect for others, universality, and standards against discrimination (Kienzler, 1997). Dove’s product line is mostly for women’s care, and their visual communication must have a respectful message for the targeted audience.
The campaign raised a loud discussion about racism and women’s body image, Dove faced a scandal on social media and removed the advertisement. Wootson Jr. (2017) states that Dove’s apologies were “an image we recently posted on Facebook missed the mark in representing women of color thoughtfully; we deeply regret the offense it caused” (para. 5). Although Dove eventually solved the issue, the company’s representatives were quiet for so long that many concerns appeared in the media and forced its consumers to boycott the products (Wootson Jr., 2017). It is necessary to assess a broad audience’s reaction to each campaign’s visual communication as an unethical advertisement harms the business.
There are several approaches to decrease the unethical rate of Dove’s campaign. Firstly, they could respect diversity by showing women of different races. Secondly, the color of shirts might be the same, and the context of washing revealed in another way. Lastly, Dove could provide proper text accommodation to make its message clearer. The Facebook advertisement had to be shown to a focus group before its implementation, and it could help the company avoid a scandal.
References
Kienzler, D. S. (1997). Visual ethics. The Journal of Business Communication, 34(2), 171-187. Web.
Wootson Jr., C. R. (2017). A Dove ad showed a black woman turning herself white. The backlash is growing. The Washington Post. Web.