 Hello and welcome. The big breaking news a few days ago was fair and lovely dropping fair from its name and replacing it with glow. Now it was hailed as victory by some and termed as complete hawk wash by many others. Remember this is a brand which for 45 years has shown ads in which women scale higher, achieve more on the basis of their skin colour. There's something which is disputed by activists in India for years because it automatically associated dark skin with shame and disappointment. Now we can call it reinforcing stereotypes or maybe feeding into insecurities but the question is can a cosmetic change in a name help uproot this deeply ingrained bias that the beauty brands have been trying to perpetuate for decades. Now to discuss that we have a fairly balanced panel today on creative talks. Let me start with K.V. Sridhar. Global CCO, Nihilan Typer Collective and he has made a few fair and lovely ads in the past when during his stint with Linthas. So I think a lot of questions are going to come your way today Pops. Then we have Subhash Kamat CEO and managing partner of VBH India. He's also the vice chairman of advertising standards council of India. Then we have Ram Subramanyam, founder and director of handloom picture company. He's also popularly known as the Vohistar of Ram. Ronita Mitra, founder and she strategist brand Eagle Consulting and lastly we have Mr. Ramesh Juthomas. He's a president and chief knowledge officer of Equator Value Advisory Private Limited and he has been a pioneer in brand valuation. So a big welcome to everybody and before we start this discussion let me say that this will be the stream live on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. So I bet our panellists will be very happy to take questions on all of these platforms. So let's go back. I want to start with you Ram. You're an ad filmmaker turned activist and you know I remember in 2017 you made this one video which went viral asking Hindustan Unilever to stop manufacturing fair and lovely. Tell me what were your reasons? Okay so I'm an ad filmmaker who turned activist for a while and then I became an ad filmmaker because I got tired of activism. So one of the reasons I went through after fair and lovely was the fact that it's very personal to me. So I've seen what the cream does to people and I was in a house, a basic middle class house from South India and like every house we used to also have a tube of the cream and I'd use this over a while and it's only after you reach a certain age, after you're a little more aware that you figure out what how something can damage you. Okay and as an advertising person I'm aware of the kind of damage we do. I mean mostly benign in most cases because we if you look at it logically yes we are catering to insecurities every product at some level tells you you know this. But I felt that fair and lovely crossed the line. I crossed the line like as an Indian as and also a South Indian who's seen what happens. I felt that the line was crossed which is why I ended up making that film. So all the things that I had to say and that explains why I felt that this cream should go and to be honest I'm quite happy that they are looking at this change of name. I think during our childhood we've seen a lot of these ads screaming from our television screen saying fair is good. I think we have someone right here on our panel to thank for some of that. Mr. Devi Shridhar. Pops tell me you made some of these ads during your stint at Lintas. What was it like to be building a brand which literally aimed at generating confidence amongst the Indian women who are largely dusky by telling them that hey the solution to all your problems is to turn fair by using this cream. First of all I mean you have to do something for living correct. So you have to. There are two aspects to anything in life. One is what is legal and second is what is ethical. So you know a lot of people may have issues about ethics you know why fair and lovely is called fair and lovely and why it is advertised the way it is advertised. I think in our country you know a democratic country if we are allowed to manufacture any product and you should allow them to advertise. If you don't and explain the benefit of that product to people. If you don't do that then there is no justice there is absolutely why you know even liquor and cigarettes which are harmful are allowed in this country you know to be made and then to be sold and then a lot of money government also makes and everybody makes money in the process. So that's a legality of it you know legally it is allowed as far as the product is concerned. Fair and lovely historically you know technically they promise bring you back your skin color to your original tone. So if whatever is your original tone because of pollution because of whatever reasons it darkens and then what this cream promises is to allow you to go back and then restore your original complexion. It can't make anybody whiter suddenly we can't become like Julia Roberts. So that's the same misconception that's what the brand actually does and promises. It started as a cream for pharmaceutical thing you know where black patches and different patches for little babies when they have deficiencies you know to be used and then since the product works so well and then they actually commercialized it and coming down that's that's a scenario that's a scenario and then because you know all of us at one end you deal with with selling a soap or a shampoo with milk proteins and then the same evening you go to JJ hospital and then you are chatting up with with the warden there and suddenly you realize that so many infants die because they don't have access to milk mother's milk. So you have to live with these paradoxes of what you do for a living and then what kind of world you live in and it is not so easy that you can have a good night's sleep in the day because there are paradoxes and then you have to balance them and then today I think you know the biggest shift which Balki and I did when we were working on that is getting away from marriage and then you know bringing women to finding their own talent you know if you remember probably Ram might remember a commercial which we ran in south you know especially in Chennai called Pater class so it is a girl you know keep singing and then the boy does not even see her he only listens to her song you know her voice and then falls in love with her so the first step which we took was find your talent then you are more desirable than color of your skin because the confidence was very very low and then we have built you know on that and then discover your talents and your passions then we did that entire journey and cricket commentary and then the other the girl actually takes her father because father was disappointed that he didn't have a son so that he could have coffee as many times as he wants and then the girl actually finds a job and then he takes her father to a five star restaurant and get by him a coffee so gender equality you know but the stereotypes you know you try to make whatever you have within your limits and within your because each time when you write a story or a commercial you have a white paper in front of you and then no client will ever say that you know I want gender you know not sensitive stereotype you know but you want to offend people so in the past game it might happen yeah we having said that you know of course fair and lovely was introduced in India because you know there was this belief you know large belief which every mother has passed down to their daughter saying that you know fair is good so the actual reflection of the belief in the society shouldn't a large advertiser like actual be responsible about it you know I'd like to actually just mention the same two ads that you you know brought up the first one where this man is lamenting about not having a son and you know saying that I wish I had you know a son to you know pay my dues off or whatever and this daughter over here is it and then she runs and says I will be his son and then she gets his fairness tube and she becomes an air hostess because she turns fair so this this underlining I think the concept was you know be dark and fail be fair and succeed I think even for the genelia ad even though you spoke about women empowerment and how a woman can you know become a commentator you know in a male dominated speed you know but the the fact was you showing the shade card where there's this dark person and there's this white fairer person and you were saying that she became successful because she's fair I'd actually like to take a vote here what do you think Ronita um so what do I think about the about the other man and do you think as a response is it responsible on the brand's part even though it has to sell should it keep reinforcing stereotypes like that so you know um the skin color quite honestly is synonymous and rooted with a lot of other cultural codes in our society so I don't think we can just look at skin color in isolation although it's been the most talked about thanks to so many brands uh you know having appropriated that uh category uh there are a lot of synonymous uh cultural hoardings like the caste system like you know the income classes and socioeconomic classes um and what straight up of society or work you belong to or gender you know which is something that box just referred to so I think we just need to be careful and conscious of the fact that it's not just about looking at skin color at a very superficial level it is addressing many many other deep rooted cultural codes in the country and as as a as brands around anybody in a position of power and influence be it brand be it media be it television serials be it movies when you're in a position of power and influence you can either continue to portray these regressive belief systems or you can be the harbinger of change and actually shape and change and I think what happens is that and first of all of course there is this whole aspect of you know brands being responsible and box also mentioned you know what is technically right versus what is ethically right um so there is this whole aspect of responsible and brands taking the position you know taking a responsible position and not continuing to reinforce these regressive belief systems if they are actually in the position of power money via ad spends via distribution and everything to actually change and shape public and consumer opinion however I think what happens is that you know entities such as these brands you know media movies take this have this myopic vision and take a very myopic stance of a staying on the right side of public opinion and not wanting to rock the boat and secondly you know also the short term business gains and you know these and actually even if you change public opinion in the long term it will be profitable you know because when you have the the advertising might when you have the kind of right that these organizations have even changing public opinion can turn profitable however it is always the short term pressures of you know business gains and shareholder wealth and share prices which end up driving these decisions so even if uh so I completely agree that you know brands do have a responsibility and rather you know it's about this this short term business gain versus uh long term financials I think Ramesh would be in a better position to comment on it but to me it's always this you know myopic vision and the short term pressure well Ramesh what would you say okay she I have a strong views but I think my position on this panel is as a dispassionate left brain character I think so it may be worthwhile just to examine the numbers because if you look at it from a value standpoint the first thing is how valuable is uh fair and lovely to HUL and to the category okay so quick some quick overview on the numbers as on date HUL has about 40 brands give or take right there are only four who are more than 3000 crores and fair and lovely is one of them at 4100 crores right so it's a big one secondly if you look at the growth and the and profitability I understand that on the on the average as against the average of HUL the profitability of something like fair and lovely is twice the average of HUL based on 39000 crores lastly 2020 growth for HUL was 1.9% whereas fair and lovely grew at 20% so if you look at any of the base metrics that we use for evaluation it's an incredibly valuable valuable brand for HUL right it's it would almost be the flagship if it were more acceptable so to speak socially right I mean and therefore messing with this because of the way their hand was forced by the by the BLM campaign would have been a huge decision it's almost like somebody messing with the iPhone at Apple you know it's that bigger brand for them at that size so is it valuable HUL yes is it important to them very much the other question is therefore is it is this decision likely to you know affect the brand last week on Friday the shares fell by 1% okay and in 2012 when they changed from white color to pink color there was a huge pushback from the customer right so purely from a value standpoint from you know very dispassionately is this change good for them I suspect not okay right I'll tell you and I'll tell you why because the premise on which this brand was built was that you are better because you're fairer right and if the renaming is going to question that premise right then the entire thing begins to fall apart and why is it risky because it's a young people's brand most of all and therefore customer acquisition another very important metric of valuation is going to be highly risked as a consequence of that so is it it's no longer fair but glow I can get that from a lot of people why do I need to go to fair and lovely and remember the last thing fair and lovely is 66% of the fairness market okay so it is almost the category by itself yeah so technically you're saying that you know the the whole point of you know if you take away the promise of fairness and the customer was of course going to the screen because it was going to give you fair skin then the category it might itself might get decimated along with the brand that's what you're trying to say I mean you can say all you want about Trump but he's got 68 million followers on Twitter itself so it's a highly it's a highly relevant brand it's a huge brand it's got it's got a very good growth path yeah the only question is the it's the brand is great value the question is whether the brand has values that we'll discuss another segment Subhash I'd like to come to you what do you think what happens to the category now and you also have made some fairness brands in the fairness brand ads in the past what do you think okay so I've been hearing everybody's points of view I think there are four or five different questions we're attempting to answer all bunched under this whole thing called fair to glow right and everybody has touched upon different aspects of it first question which I think Ram touched upon is whether the product itself should be legally or ethically sold in this country which is full of dark people that is one question okay should the product be basically skin whitening as a category should that be legally and ethically sold in a country of dark people right now let me answer that question first skin whitening is a very asked for required consumer need all right just as white people in in Caucasian countries by tanning products to become dark there are enough people who are dark skin who want don't want patches as pops put it or you know which is the biggest skin skin whitening market in the world Japan is surprised it's about 10 times bigger than the Indian fairness market okay Japan Korea and you might wonder this skin is already so enormously fair why is it so big because for them it is not just about dark to fair it is about blemish free patch free even toned glow okay one of the biggest brands in the world in skin whitening is L'Oreal not even fair and lovely fair and lovely is a huge huge brand as Ramesh outlined in India right but at other places in the world there are so skin whitening the point I'm making just as Indians would desperately buy spf products to stop getting darker under the sun okay the foreigners are buying tanning products to become darker under the sun right so so so is skin whitening a relevant need yes it is is a brand legally allowed to sell skin whitening I'm sure they are we don't make the laws of the land somebody else does the government does the supreme court does so there is one is on the product the other is on the marketing of the said product the how how do we market this how do we convince consumers and persuade consumers this is where I think fair and lovely has in the past created the biggest conflict in our minds by by the whole narrative that you talked about about dark skin being sad dark skin being loser fair skin being happy fair skin being winner etc so the contexting of that proposition was always against dark skin being bad it was deriding dark skin while promoting fair skin as a thing now as Runeeta pointed out are these all deep rooted in Indian society yes it is it is deep rooted cultural upbringing oriented stuff in our country the number of ads you will find in bride fair brides wanted in the newspapers even today is not funny all right I'll give you an anecdote from my own personal life okay but I was growing up amongst three brothers both my brothers were much fairer than me I was a dark one in the family you know uh jokingly they used to call me the black sheep and today I am in bbh so I guess it was ordained but you know I used to one day I asked my grandmother I was I think about eight or nine years old and I asked my grandmother why is it that my brothers are fair and I am dark what have I done and my grandmother told me something very beautiful she said you know Krishna and Rama were both dark and I argued with I said no no they are purple because in Abhachetakha comics they were drawn purple I said no they are purple this she said no they were dark since that day I used to mock at my brother saying you pale faces I am Krishna and Rama dude I am dark you know I've never had a problem with my dark skin before so again it's all about upbringing yeah you know so the way I think in the past the advertising of fair and lovely especially when it came to a dark girl can't get a groom or dark girl has underplayed in our confidence and dark girls are this that was where I think the biggest problem was the contexting of your fairness proposition in the light of dark being bad okay now uh black lives matter is a big thing today but I think the process of change at Unilever started almost six years ago I know it because they were we were all part of the conversation at ASCII and Unilever was very much part of it when we actually instituted a policy you can see it on the website and Unilever has followed that for the last four five years okay 2014 yeah 2014 there you go six years where you cannot deride black skin in any way darker skin in any way and that was a self-regulated policy that we put into place you cannot show dark people as unhappy you cannot show dark people as a downer or a lesser in any way okay and in the last six years that we have sharply noticed the advertising of fair and livery thankfully they have stayed on that part they have not tried to do that what they used to do in in the past right so that is one part of it the second question that you brought out in your introductions Neeta is is this just a superficial change just changing one word and life carries on as normal right uh I don't think it's a superficial change a close friend of mine wrote an article on LinkedIn recently he used the term is it too little too late my counter to him was you know when it comes to any form of discrimination or bias whether it's religion or gender or sexual preference or color or caste any form of discrimination it is never too late I'm glad they have done it would I have been happier that they have changed their stance 15 years ago yes but am I happy they have done it today yes I am I think it's a brave move for a brand of the kind of success that Ramesh is just outlined to change a brand name of one of their most successful brands takes a lot of thinking now whether they've been compelled by social pressures or whether it's their own social consciousness I don't know you don't know but is that change important today it is it is important it is interesting that for years activists have been screaming about you know stopping this product or taking away fairness and then they finally are compelled to add over a moment which happens like whatever it is if they have decided that it is no longer going to be relevant to follow that same path and we need to change and we're going to make the biggest change by changing the brand name itself first I think it's a great first step now secondly if they only remain just at a brand name change and the narrative remains the same then it is a superficial change but I don't think that I don't think the narrative will remain the same I think the narrative will change because they have to make it socially relevant for today's and future generation and they are smart marketers out there they're not fools all right and I'm I think the jury will be out on that let's see what they do right now they've just changed the name and this announced the name change but the the communication the theme around it around glow will come and then we will then we can opine whether it's just a superficial change or not a superficial change that's point number two point number two is glow itself the word glow that you use is glow the new fair right now glow on its own is not a new thing it's one of the oldest skincare benefits that have been in our country and everywhere in the world for years okay in America for example there are skincare creams for afro-american people that promote glow glow is something everybody likes whether it's dark skin or fair skin glow is glow in india you've used the word nikhaar for years and years vico turmeric vanishing cream has been doing it in the context of kya roop nikhla hai du lanka for 25 30 years glow is not wrong glow becomes terrible if you continue to do it in the context of dark is bad if you take that part of the contexting of the narrative out anybody would want to have their skin glow and look nice nothing wrong with glow right but uh subhash actually so far not really mentioned anything about a change in formulation of the product okay so technically it's just old cream in a new more acceptable bottle so it's it's like surrogate advertising right everybody knows red label is not selling CDs and they're going to sell alcohol i'm going to buy that only right so how does it change the bias ram i'd like to come to you first you know since you said you've been a you've grown up hearing this and you were a victim as well yeah and i have a point to back up that i will i will also talk about the fact that i'll i'll uh answer that i will also go to the talk about what subhash said i mean um before that uh what ramesh said was that it is a very valuable brand and then um it it means something and that value means something and uh i agree but then there are a lot of things which can become valuable and that does not mean that we allow it to continue for instance uh if you sell cocaine legally today it's a very valuable brand i mean if you all of us have seen that in narcos how columbia became a narco country and we know that it's worth value for it and it makes a lot of money um the other thing about the legality yes there is if it is legal if it is allowed and if there is a market for it we should let it we should we should allow that product to make money and we should all benefit from it absolutely in game with that um but the thing about legality is in it's also an evolving concept like uh once upon a time it is it was very legal to have slaves today it is not so the definition of legal changes over time and what makes that change that change comes because of because of social conscious people bringing about that change it and that it becomes cultural and then it becomes legal at some point of time so my reason for also doing that video was also cultural i wanted to bring in that cultural change so that it becomes a legal change i wasn't aware that aski had done this four years back it would have saved me the trouble had i known that they're done this in 2014 i wouldn't have made that video and made a lot of enemies in the advertising industry in 2017 so uh there's a blowback which comes when you do things like that and i'm aware of it and i went ahead and made this video despite understanding that now there is the legal side of it and then there is also the uh political side to it what i mean by political side is when we say political we only look at india as politics but there is also a global political narrative which exists uh can you hear me yeah clearly yeah so there is also a global political narrative which exists which is why you see such creams in selling in japan and korea because these were all countries which were like you know which were occupied by the western world and there is a very clear western narrative which is the white supremist narrative and we were all aware of it now that narrative also trickles down all the way and it becomes a cultural thing in india because in india the westerners ruled us the british ruled us for a long time which is why we have this habit of looking up to uh white people and that that the it's percolated down over time and at some point of time we need to become confident in our skin i know i know the pun just fits in very beautifully over here when we say confident in our skin because this is the time right now when we say you know indians don't need to be under confident about anything and we need to stand up and say this is very what i am in my skin is good enough i don't give a damn about your skin color or my skin color let's talk about the quality of what we bring to the table be it like as professionals in whatever field we are in or like uh promoting the kind of culture that we are uh promoting today so yeah so uh all all these reasons add to uh this point in time which is like you know changing the name from fair to glow um well i also did that film i didn't follow up with other parts like as a as when you say uh when we make a piece of communication you also follow up with other things you also follow up with other campaigns so when i said i wanted to shut it down but i didn't follow up with other things to make sure that it became uh higher pressure i didn't want to build more pressure onto that because i understand that it's uh it's it's it also gives livelihood to a lot of people it's a brand that is giving livelihood there are a lot of people in in that supply chain who depend on it for the money that they make so it was important to just make the point and walk away for me um and it's good that uh it's it's translating into a word change which is fair is going and it is becoming glow and as ramesh mentioned earlier uh or subhash mentioned i forget who but it was a very valid point which is the movement the color went from white to pink the product lost a lot of audience then the the fact that it is going from fair to glow will definitely dent the narrative is the narrative important for the brand yes it is very important because that's the that's the key to the selling of the brand but it's as a country do we need this narrative to change i believe we do so we as indians we need to not make sure that narrative shifts from fair to glow and uh i'm really glad that they're doing this because uh glow can celebrate all kinds of skin tones and that is what we need absolutely and this point and we should actually support this and promote this because the need to make them understand that it is a mistake but like i said once upon a time it was fairly okay to have slaves it was celebrate you can you'll be celebrated if you have a lot of slaves and then now it has looked down upon this so then the need to make this change is not to be punitive it is to be uh supportive understanding the economy behind it understanding the reason behind it and then make a stand as a country as individuals that say uh in india i don't think you should be selling uh white skin you should be selling brown skin you should be selling uh the health uh you should be selling the uh the the suppleness of the skin these are things and we'll very happily support this a point that came to my mind just when rama's talking was one of the points i couldn't finish uh because i think it adds exactly to what he's saying uh and that point is about your responsibility as a marketer right uh for years there has been the axiom that advertising is a mirror of society isn't it uh and therefore whatever is there in society advertising will reflect right i think the power of advertising has changed over the years i think it's no longer just a mirror it can actually influence opinions and minds right so from that perspective i think there's a huge responsibility on marketeers and their creative partners to be able to mold that opinion so for example uh coming back to glow if i take glow today if i have a unilever i would actually create a very inclusive narrative around it that no matter what your skin type is you can glow and we'll help you make you glow right uh and that is not a that is not discriminatory at all the same company for example has done such a wonderful job and dove globally by saying campaign for real beauty no matter who you are whether you're wrinkled or old or young you're still beautiful you know uh and i think that is uh uh uh something that i would hello can you hear me yeah yeah of course and that is no i certainly saw a lot of faces frozen so i was wondering whether it's my wi-fi or yeah so i think that the the issue about how responsible market here you are because you have the power and the resources to mold public opinion about something right and therefore we all have to be more future facing and therefore if i take if you give me a a benefit like glow i would look at what is the most relevant context in which i will promote glow it is a skincare product it will give glow as a benefit but what is it going to be the most relevant for today's and tomorrow's generation that i can responsibility responsibly uh this thing so if inclusivity diversity uh including acceptance are all part of the new narrative then i don't think anyone of us will have a problem with glow as long as glow doesn't go back to the past of against dark skin that's my that's my issue that's something one of our viewers wants to add to that you know Sharon Ishika says you know the drop in the number of people using it when the color changed from white to pink did not really have the advantage of happening at a time when there was high social media penetration now right now the change of name perhaps will not really change much for the brand it might actually come up with a different narrative and really it might help it after all it's the same brand which has doubt like i said they are they are smart smart marketeers and if they have made such a bold decision to change the brand name itself which i think is a significant step now they have to follow it up with a equally relevant stroke inspiring narrative around the brand they have to make a change change from the past do you agree um i i i struggle to be so kind to the brand for honestly as kind i i'm struggling to be as kind to the brand as subhash is being um you know i have read a lot of quotes and comments in media in the last two months from hql about how the process of change and repositioning had started last year itself and how the repositioning had started shifting from fairness to glow and radiance in the year 2019 itself and how those important markers like the cameo of the two faces the dark and the light face and the shade card which was there on the back and every ad how these have been taken off since last year itself now the question to me is if the intent to shift the positioning was so genuine last year then why was it only a communication change you know because a brand is not just about one element i mean you know i don't need to tell anybody here or in our audience that a brand is really about the entire package for the product is the positioning is the need is the differentiation is the packaging the name everything so just shifting one element of that marketing mix to me was not sufficient to actually change this whole perception about you know about the new positioning uh direction um now if the other important markers while i understand that an important marker of the shade card had been taken off then the most important marker is a brand name itself so if the shift in positioning was so genuine last year in moving away from fairness to glow then why was the name not changed last year why would you stagger it to a year later you know in fact if you want to communicate in your position it is best to do it as an entire package and wait for a couple of months more but you know bring in the entire package with the whole you know packaging change was done but with the name change why did the model in the ad continue to be this fair-skinned person right so why does it still glow for a fair-skinned model you know why why is it black and white not bringing in a brown-skinned uh model now the name fair and importantly the name fair and lovely is is amongst the most trusted powerful and influential brands in India generations are grown up with this brand trusting this brand okay the and the name is so strongly associated with cues of fairness that every time you buy the pack every time you pick up the pack to use very lovely every time you see it on the storefront you are being reminded of fairness as a concept so to me the whole shift that started last year was really not a complete step yeah and of course as Subhash said you know today if the name is going to change then you know it's got to change as an entire package what does glow me yeah and a lot of those references have already come up in this discussion the skin color Indians are not the light skin uh you know race we are brown skinned as an average celebrate the color of our skin celebrate the color of the average person the skin color of the average person and you know so I think it will be very important for you and now to really give meaning of complexion uh depth to what glow will be and and do it with complete genuineness and wiggle and honesty and the the amount of spend uh the brand has seen in the last 45 years since its launch and the amount of marketing might that has gone behind creating fairness as a differentiator and positioning I am only hoping and this is really my hope for the sake of you know consumers who who who don't have to see this whole different this uh divisive positioning of fairness anymore I just hope for their sake that the brand and the organization will put as much marketing might and money into this new positioning and you know really make that radical shift as it has done for the last you know close to half a century in fact so it's so interesting that you know just yesterday as you know the the mailer around mailer about today's discussion panel discussion was going around on social media and various groups you know what's happening that you know part of uh one of my classmates you know his uh doctor studies in the university of Berkeley and at the age of 20 she had written an essay so she's an Indian student who's now studying over there and you know about the whole trend in the US about moving to bronze color moving to tanism at that being the new desired color anyways to me fundamentally you know whether whether we are talking about light color or tan or bronze or dark you know to me I think that bold narrative just has to move beyond the color of the skin completely you know I'd like to bring in uh pops here you know pops as a creative person tell us how how will the industry rise up to the challenge you know because fairness at the moment is the easiest formula for a beauty brand that will have to completely change now we use we see more fairs dark skin models and actually preach something which is relevant and not just you know for uh for the sake of it there are two things you know one me as an ambassador for gender sensitivity for UNFPA in this country I really love you know whatever uh Ronita was saying is music to my ears second I also represent an industry I made my living in this industry and somewhere you know the real India is different the real India it will take long time if not fair and lovely some other brand will take that and then you will have the regional brands putting not just three faces but 20 faces and then keep selling it in different names because the very point which Subash has made is a consumer need who are you to stop the consumers not buying it not having a desire to want whatever they want so as long as people buy people will make it and then sell it to them and you can bring in societal change but it takes longer time it took almost you know even even today you know 30 40 years or 50 years you know our campaign has started there was no television campaign in that only two adults and then one boy and one girl and then that has literally killed so many baby girls of girl fetuses in this in this country because everybody wants an ideal family of a boy and girl if the first one were to be a boy you will have an opportunity for the second one to be a girl if the first one happens to be a girl the second girl will never be allowed to be born so there are so many issues it's a paradox but you know leave all those aside you know coming to fair and lovely one they need to find a positioning you can be a goody goody person all the time correct you need a strong will and if there is no problem what are you solving so and you know if people are not tall in this in this country you know all the health things you know what are you promising make your children taller how can they become taller it should be there in the genes if father and mother and entire family is five foot nothing they can't have children who are six footers correct so people want you know i mean the more you dramatize being shot you'll be ashamed and then you will have disadvantages the more tall will become aspiration so the more you know you show the problems with a scooter the more cars you will sell so you have to find a way of finding another demon if not this in a legally and socially acceptable way so that is going to be the biggest challenge for the category forget about it you are 60 percent 70 percent market share but rest of the 30 percent will become 70 percent if they change anything because that is how that is how the brand is built and that is what people want if whatever i mean why are we i mean we don't go and then watch those masala movies but they make millions of dollars because that's what people want and then people are making it i would like to add to this this is commercial this is all money this is not charity however secretly or publicly i wish you know there are more sensitive films there are more brands purposeful brands which can bring in so changes in the society however much you wish there is a reality which you can't escape otherwise it will become a wishful thinking of writing to candle and then forgetting about it the next day morning i would like to add to this and it was a very valid point that pops made which is the fact that if these people don't get fair and lovely this narrative exists in 67 percent of people's minds the ones who buy this fairness ideology now to the brand has this wonderful time where they're changing and it's a and they can do it in the most responsible way so if your question is which if they should do it absolutely immediately or if they should take their time to do it i would go for the fact that you should take your time to do it because this ideology exists in 67 percent of the market's minds it's that's like 60 that's a lot of people in their head they're hooked on to fair and lovely the moment they are removed they're being away from this or they're shaken away just out of this they will go on to the next snakeskin oil guy who's saying come on i'll sell you a fairness product and you have a lot of snakeskin oil guys in that country right now so to avoid that you should actually navigate this ideology away from fairness to glow in a very slow manner because a dip in their market share will also mean that people are going to other other products which are giving them the same ideology and if the idea is to move away from remove take india out of this rut which is this fairness rubbish which we are stuck in then it has to be a very organic move and it shouldn't be like you know okay you said fair and lovely now you're saying glow and you're showing fair skin people still we will punish you for it that shouldn't be the way we should like actually be thoughtful about it and take it in a very logical manner so its change is going it's not overnight it's like it took a long time to build this narrative into people's heads which was already an existing narrative which they built so you'll have to take time to make sure that you take this narrative out of it i feel like even like it might take 10 years or something like that but it is it is important that we do it properly and not like you know just overnight change and you know i'm sure i'm sure they will take one second and they might take their own time because a little change in the brand name is not going to affect the rural market there's a lot of people you know a lot of markets in india or entire rural market they don't they cannot read english they cannot read words they see a logo and then identify i'm sure logo going to remain the almost similar to the fair and lovely and then people will see and then second the eco effect of that is going to stay so next five years you know i'm sure nothing much will change this is not a stock market whether it will dip by one person two percent we are talking about mass audience and then they will go and then buy by habit and then fair and lovely they will ask they will get this back and then still it will be called as fair and lovely for next five to seven years yeah and after that i'd like to bring in mr thomas here you know from a business perspective like he's saying do you think it makes sense because it's about 2000 crore plus market for fair and lovely alone and 5000 crore market maybe overall fairness industry so of course if i don't sell you fairness the other brand might so from a business perspective how much of sense does it make that's what i said at the beginning but you know there are a couple of points i want to make which i've been waiting to make for some time one is to what ram said i began by saying what i'm going to begin with is purely the numbers and from a numerical standpoint because there is a need and everyone's spoken about it because there's a context it has gained traction okay and i also ended that segment by saying the brand has value the question is whether it has values point number one the second quick point i want to make is see as much as you would like to skirt the issue by talking about how relevant it is and how it removes dark patches and you know if you have a need we must buy it i'm not sure that anybody in this panel will agree that if there wasn't a context the one that subash referred to into which you are selling it and therefore the positioning was around darkness to light because that's what indians wanted that brand wouldn't have had a hope in hell right if you had done glow in 1975 when you first launched it nobody would have looked at the brand it is in that context that it gained traction and it became such a valuable brand and therefore to nita's question right if it loses that context and i said right at the beginning the premise on which it was built you lose an entire market please understand that tomorrow in november trump starts talking about an inclusive america he's dead okay that is that is not his context his context is a device of america right and that is how it was built now the question is whether that's a right thing to do or not even today the website has talks about dealing with darkness right the the website in which the product is spoken about talks about fairness problems talks about something like niam is saying which is an you know meledin retardant therefore it's all as as ronita said the product is still very much the product right and it is in a context that it is selling now i just want to end with this and therefore the whole business issue of the business question which you asked okay i know at least two large groups in this country that we have worked with where the board of governors would have questioned the validity and and the ethics of even launching such a product okay are they the only fools in this country that's up for grabs and ronita you wanted to add something when i you know we might talk about yes fair and lovely is 66 percent of possibly the value market share i think it's a value market share not the volume market share it makes 66 percent but you have all it's one brand 66 percent and all the other brands are fragmented in that 33 percent so it is the unequivocal leader in the category and it is in that sense the lighthouse and the torch bearer of this category and you know the other 33 percent of the brands cannot ignore what a fair and lovely is doing they just do not have the confidence or the mic to stand alone in their positioning if the leader with unequivocal market share position actually makes such a shift and while we may talk about a value market share of 66 percent its brand equity or its share of the mind i'm confident would be much more than a 66 percent you know so consumers may be buying other brands possibly because of reasons of pricing availability whatever it is and to some extent you're not sure there would be about you know 25 percent who are genuinely preferring the other brands proposition but you could have about nine to ten percent who are in their minds fair and lovely users but actually using other brands for other reasons so its share of mind is far more powerful than that so quite honestly i think that a share when lovely starts making that that genuine shift you know in in its entire package then i think the entire category will have to question itself all the other brands will have to question itself and many of the brands actually in that balance 33 percent are global brands so you never know if the global pressure in in light of the BLM that will actually come on those global brands too you know how much time do you think this shift should take Ranitha i really can't put a timeline to it but i would say that you know i would say five years is a least five years five years starting from now for the yeah i think that's that's very fair five years is like a very fair category but i'm saying fair and lovely but it's kind of might of you know money, brain, everything can actually make that shift much faster and the rest i just want to remind people that 55 years after the civil rights movement you still have a black man who was throttled by a very biased police force yeah the fact that i'm not so optimistic about the yeah the fact may i may i may i say something commercial category i'm not talking about the entire mindset i'm only talking about this as a as a as a you know commercial mindset i'm purely talking about mindset subhash you wanted to say something yeah i think i think uh whether they take one year or five years or seven years is material okay to me uh because like people have just said for consumer or people's mindset to change their bias against dark skin is far more deep rooted than what one brand can do all right uh that is cultural that is upbringing that is far more deep rooted as ramesh has said uh dark skin and black lives matter is alive today after so many years right uh it's relevant so i don't think uh brands while they can influence and shape uh points of view i don't think one brand can change the cultural context in this country to the extent in five years that will take time okay having said that i think whether they start the process now and as pop said it may for the next five years people may continue to refer to it as fair and lovely that time will tell we don't know right you've taken a bold stance to say i'm going to change my brand name first and i'm going to now talk about glow and i'm not going to talk about fairness anymore right a lot of our debate is whether glow is just a representation of fair only and is there a new narrative right that's what we have to see we have to see the new narrative it can be more responsible it can be more inclusive what i do know is that if it is not relevant they will lose they have to come up with something that is relevant to the future consumer and they have to whether it's inclusivity diversity celebration of all skin i don't know that will see when they come out with it right this other point which somebody just touched upon is that why aren't they changing the product formulation why only the brand name and the marketing right my point is if the same product formulation can actually go for another positioning so be it why do they need to change it so today they are committing to glows because they have to tweak their product formulation to suit glow they should do it i mean pepsi was started as a tonic for dyspepsia and later it was sold as a choice of a new generation no youth drink so it's the same drink that was created right jinn and tonic was created against malaria yeah all i'm saying is i don't think it's about the changing of the product i think it's about what is it that you're offering the consumer okay and is that relevant is that socially acceptable is that socially responsible then your product deliver on that benefit if it doesn't they will lose the market share i just like to take one last question with the pops pops you spoke about how advertising's role is to be aspirational also we have to balance out this you know the change in we have to challenge the stereotypes as well so tell me how do we move forward from your ronita said it might take five years to actually bring about a big change there how as an advertising industry creative industry how do we move from here i think like what subash was saying one brand one category cannot make a difference today across the world racism is on an upswing upswing everybody is promoting that and a lot of things you know gender is another thing you know it all comes out of gender why you need to be inferior so that is where the confidence needs to be built education is an answer to everything today whether you are residing in this small village or a bigger city if the window to the world is the same your mobile phone and that is going to change quite a lot in five years you know we are we are trying to see if brand can change its positioning and then try and then become synonymous with glow in five years who knows you know the societal change might happen and then you will have the new generation of girls coming out with a lot more confidence and they might not choose to be what their mothers were and then societal change cultural shift may happen but going by what history is telling us societal or cultural changes you know cannot happen overnight it takes generations together you know for it to really do that changes began you know maybe little late but last 50 years more actively last 20 years changes began let's hope that next 20 years a lot more change will happen than last 20 years and societal change will actually push people to do that even today it is NGO's pressure and then the regulatory pressure it is not the consumer pressure consumer wants you know they all want you know it is the pressure of the other forces which is pushing people to take a back step rather than the consumer pressure so for consumers to change for people to change it takes a lot more time and we need to be patient and whatever way we can contribute to make that change you know no change is small and then we should make that contribution anybody else wants to add something or can I sum up I just want to say one one okay no no go for it so much no it was me yes yeah you know somebody referred to the fact that the same guys who did dove and therefore okay so when you juxtapose that to the fact that they've made a bold step right now dove has a positioning in a context has been around for a while and they've done a great job with that okay I don't want to use the word hypocrisy it's too strong a word but they have chosen their battlefields and spoken to those people what they wanted to hear so this is no bold step according to me this is completely the pressure of BLM and if there was no BLM I would question whether they would have gone for the change or not I would like to add I was aware that they were planning on adding like making the change even before the BLM movement came out the BLM just like became the catalyzed it yeah they just became the catalyst to make this change will it considering the fact that they control so such a huge part of the market and they are there they have the lion's share of the narrative they do have the means and the tools to shift the narrative from fair to glow in in the fastest manner possible because this movement is here the black light movement just black light movement just goes to show that it is here it is here to stay this voice is grown to grow louder so it is only a matter of time before it becomes from an ASCII rule it becomes a law which will which says like you know you cannot sell fairness in India and then it will just topple the brand topple the money it makes and I think Subash asked a very important question like why is nobody talking about the formulation the fact is that the formulation does not work I am your proof for it I used it for many years I was supposed to use it so it does not work so it is only the narrative that works and that is what we are trying to change I guess so let's hope the move from fair to glow is not meaningless in the long run and not a case of old formula and a new bottle and this really becomes a movement to love and respect healthy skin and you know more so our creative agencies can responsibly work towards creating and changing the definition of beauty so that each and every person in the country even those maybe who felt pressurized to use these bendage creams in the past can say that it's not only fair that's lovely thank you so much for joining us thank you thank you thank you thank you so much thank you so much everyone run it