Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL) faced ethical issues regarding its skin lightening cream Fair & Lovely. The product was criticized for promoting fairness and exploiting cultural norms by associating fairness with beauty, success, and self-confidence. After facing bans of advertisements in 2003, HUL decided to rename the product to Glow & Lovely to change the focus from fairness to a glowing skin. However, critics said the name change was not enough and the product formulation should also change. HUL responded by saying changing the formulation would not be fair to loyal customers but promised to revise advertising to avoid promoting colorism or biased thoughts.

1. 1 | P a g e
MITTAL SCHOOL OF
BUSINESS
NAME: AYUSH PRASAD
SECTION: Q2016
Roll no: RQ2016A15
SUB: Business Ethics (MGN253)
BATCH: BBA (Financial Markets)
GUIDED BY: Mr. Ujjwal Kumar Pathak sir
TOPIC: Analyzing the Ethical issues, Problems
faced by an organization & their solution.
MNC (pick): Hindustan Uniliver Limited

2. 2 | P a g e
COMPANY OVERVIEW:

3. 3 | P a g e
Hindustan Uniliver Limited (HUL) is India’s largest fast-
moving consumer good (FMCG) Company with a heritage
of over 80 years. More than 9 of every 10 households use
one or more of our brands to feel good, look good and to
get more put of life giving us a unique opportunity to build
a bright future.
PRODUCTS OFFERED:
i. Beauty & Cosmetics
ii. FMCG
iii. Personal & healthcare
iv. Food & beverage

4. 4 | P a g e
• https://www.forbes.com/sites/m-unilever-rebrand-of-fair--
lovely-skin-lightener-as-glow--lovely/?sh=464aed194b7a
https://www.businessinsider.in fair&lovely to glow&lovely

5. 5 | P a g e
• After reading these articles it is clearly conveyed that in this
case there is a competition between LEGAL & ETHICAL
aspect of the issue.
• Here we can clearly see how the famous beauty and
cosmetic product “FAIR & LOVELY” has been facing
continuous criticism for promoting the product unethically.

6. 6 | P a g e
GRAMATICALLY
WRONG &
ETHICALLY??
ETHICAL ISSUES FACED BY THE ORGANIZATION
i. The morality of the company is questioned as it is said
that they promoted “FAIRNESS” through their beauty
& cosmetic product “FAIR & LOVELY” , which was
an unethical way to sell their product.
ii. HUL is said to socially perpetuate and promote the
stereotypic meaning of beauty which is quite often
correlated with “FAIRNESS”.
iii. This product is said to exploit the Cultural Norms of the
society.
iv. The company is criticised to make profits by
interpreting the real meaning of beauty as follows

7. 7 | P a g e
Fairness Beauty Self Confidence
v. The company is alleged to have an advertisement
strategy which exploits the Emotional sentiments of the
customers and shows how the cream would solve the
fairness problem.
vi. This type of advertising is criticized as it categorizes
women on the basis of skin colour and also demeans
women with dark skin colour.
vii. Some of the ever-controversial ads are as follows:
▪ One TV commercial aired in India (often referred to
as the Air Hostess advertisement) ‘showed a young,
dark-skinned girl’s father lamenting he had no son to
provide for him, as his daughter’s salary was not
high enough—the suggestion being that she could
not get a better job or get married because of her
dark skin. The girl then uses the cream [Fair &
Lovely], becomes fairer, and gets a better-paid job as
an air hostess—and makes her father happy’ (BBC
News, 2003).
▪ In a Fair & Lovely advertisement aired in Malaysia,
a train attendant fails to catch the attention of her
love interest, a businessman who buys a ticket from

8. 8 | P a g e
PROBLEMS FACED
i. Also in 2003 two of its ads we banned showing
something which is not ethically correct and it
demeaning to women.
ii. So finally after these series of criticism HUL finally
decided to change the name from FAIR & LOVELY to
GLOW & LOVELY, so that the advertisements could
also be framed is such manner.
iii. Skin-lightening brands have been hit by a wave of
criticism in recent weeks for promoting whiter skin as
the ideal standard of beauty, causing market leaders like
L’Oreal and Unilever to announce product rebrands,
while Johnson & Johnson said it would step away from
the multi-billion dollar market entirely.
iv. Many experts say that just changing the name is not
enough. The formulation must be changed.
v. The company is criticized that this change has been done
only to avoid legal procedures and a whole procedure to
circumvent supreme court draft amendment.
vi. The brand is alleged to use existing prejudice for their
advantage.
vii. It was termed merely an eyewash for the audience, i.e. a
surface level change, though the product was same its’s
composition same and the purpose for which it is being
her every day, until she appears one day with fairer skin as a
result of using Fair & Lovely (Prystay, 2002).

9. 9 | P a g e
purchased is same, i.e. for looking fairer. And all this
because a wrong perception of beauty has been
inculcated in the viewer’s mind of beauty.
SOLUTIONS OFFERED/COMPANY’S
STAND
▪ The very first and foremost solution that the company tried
to offer is the name change of the bran, by replacing the
word “FAIR” from “GLOW”.
▪ In its other products of beauty & cosmetics segments also it
had made many changes like dropping the word
“NORMAL”.
▪ In response to the critics the previously called “FAIR &
LOVELY” have been changed to “GLOW & LOVLEY” in
order to embrace a more beautiful vision of beauty.
▪ In men’s range of products also the word “FAIR” would be
dropped and henceforth it will be named as “GLOW &
HANDSOME”.
▪ We are offering “RIGHT TO CHOSE” to each and every
individual irrespective of their status.
▪ However changing the formulation of the cream would not
be fair for the existing loyal customers & it would be a
deprivation of people desires.
▪ Afterall having a fair ski or not is one’s personal choice.
▪ There are millions of loyal customers who have faith on this
brand & will expect the same quality under the new brand
name.

10. 10 | P a g e
▪ So we need to ensure the same.
▪ Not only this Uniliver also promised not to digitally alter a
person’s body shape, size, proportion or skin colour in its
brand advertising.
▪ And to increase the number of advertisements that portrays
people from diverse groups who are unrepresented.
WHAT MORE HUL MIGHT HAVE
DONE:- SUGGESTIONS
▪ This change must not be a mere name change rather the
company should stand strong and rather try to bring a
positive change in the people’s mind, about a more wide
and intrinsic view of beauty.
▪ The advertisement strategy should be revised in order to
make sure that the brand again doesn’t go into
controversies.
▪ As this would really strike the brand reputation.
▪ This time the company need to make sure that the ads are
not promoting and biased thoughts and are not feeding their
product on basis of colour discrimination.
▪ It should crate a benchmark for other rivals as well in this
skincare sector.
▪ And this positive wave should not be limited to one brand
i.e. “GLOW & LOVELY” rather this wave should be set
free to bring some positivity across all the subsidiary brands
under HUL.

11. 11 | P a g e
▪ This would really wok upon the goodwill of the company
and restore the damage caused due to early mistakes.
REFERENCES
• /start-a-little-good/ ARTILE LINK
• /hul-to-remove-normal-from-packaging-advertising-of-
ARTICLE LINK
• /hul-to-be-plastic-waste-neutral-this-yea ARTICLE LINK
• should-hul-give-glow-lovely-a-new-formulationRTICLE
LINK
• https://www.afaqs.com/news/pov/should-hul-give-glow-
lovely-a-new-formulation
• should-hul-give-glow-lovely-a-new-formulation
CHALLENGES ARTICLE LINK
• https://www.afaqs.com/news/pov/as-unilever-ditches-the-
word-normal-in-packaging-and-ads-experts-opine-on-the-
ripple-effect

12. 12 | P a g e