The document summarizes Vaseline's "Be Prepared" campaign in India, which aimed to promote their skin whitening cream line for men. The campaign focused on social media like Facebook and created an app allowing men to lighten their photos. While it was popular in India, it received international backlash for promoting fairness. Vaseline eventually took the campaign down voluntarily due to the outrage, but it may have helped their brand in India despite damaging their global image.

1. Vaseline “Be Prepared” Campaign for India

2. Hindustan Unilever Limited India’s largest fast moving consumer goods company. Distribution covers over 1 million retail outlets across India directly and its products are available in over 6.3 million outlets in the country, nearly 80% of all retail outlets in India. The market leader in Indian consumer products with presence in over 20 consumer categories such as soaps, tea, detergents and shampoos amongst others with over 700 million Indian consumers using its products.

3. “Be Prepared” Purpose The campaign was created by Omnicom in efforts to utilize social media, its tools (images and applications) in order to promote their skin whitening cream line for Vaseline men.

4. Objective Skin lightening has long been an obsession of image-conscious women in India. Now, men on the subcontinent are also rabid for a paler complexion. The main objective of the campaign was to encourage male consumers to pick up and try the product.

5. Plan Focus on social media, and reach the young adult males that care about their looks. Create an app that allows men to lighten their photos and see the difference for themselves. Keep the campaign simple and fun to be a part of. Use national celebrities to endorse the product such as ShahidKapoor.

6. Communication Facebook was the primary tool of communication with the target market. They also created an app to accompany Vaseline’s facebook page that “transforms your face”. People participated largely in the Facebook posts that asked users about different shades of complexion ShahidKapoor could have.

7. Evaluation There was a huge response to the campaign’s facebook app, and not all of them were good. People from all over the world accused the brand of reinforcing the notion that fairness is more desirable, superior and causing great harm to society (racism). On the other hand, the response from Indian people was much more positive. The gift and the curse of internet; borderless digital world.

8. Evaluation (cont.) There are currently 212.886 people that like Vaseline’s facebook page, however a baseline study was inapplicable since we do not know the likes they had before the campaign. The campaign had about a four month run, but it was eventually taken down by Vaseline voluntarily after the international outrage. Overall, it seems like it has helped Vaseline in India, but might have damaged its image globally. It’s the dilemma such global companies have when promoting a special product to a specific target market at an international platform such as Facebook.

9. Evaluation (cont.) According to the stock market information available from www.reuters.com, Hindustan Unilever Limited’s index has raised from 263 Indian Rupee (July, 2010) to 312 Indian Rupee (October, 2010) and currently is at 320 Indian Rupee. This comparison is very limited in relevance to the campaign in hand since Hindustan Unilever Limited supplies products in over 20 consumer categories.

10. Statement from Unilever Vaseline is committed to creating culturally relevant products that meet the needs of its consumers in markets around the world. Much like self-tanning products in North America and Europe, skin lightening products are culturally relevant in India. In India, men use these products to lighten and even out their natural skin tone and to reduce the appearance of spots while protecting their skin from the sun. The Facebook application was created for the Indian market as a culturally relevant and engaging way for Indian men to interact with this product.

11. Thank you!