Unilever to remove 'normal' from its advertising

Mumbai: Unilever on Tuesday announced it will eliminate the word "normal" from all of its beauty and personal care brands packaging and advertising. In addition to removing the word "normal", Unilever will not digitally alter a person's body shape, size, proportion or skin colour in its brand advertising, and will increase the number of advertisements portraying people from diverse groups who are under-represented.

"The decision to remove 'normal' is one of many steps that we are taking to challenge narrow beauty ideals, as we work towards helping to end discrimination and advocating for a more inclusive vision of beauty. It comes as global research into people's experiences of the beauty industry reveals that using 'normal' to describe hair or skin makes most people feel excluded", Unilever said.

"Positive Beauty, which sets out several progressive commitments and actions for our beauty and personal care brands, including Dove, Lifebuoy, Axe and Sunsilk, will champion a new era of beauty which is equitable and inclusive, as well as sustainable for the planet," the company announced.

A Unilever survey showed that in India, making products that cater to all people is recognised as one of the most pressing challenges that the beauty and personal care industry should address; only behind making products affordable for all and being transparent on what ingredients are included.

Almost two in three people in India (64 per cent) agree that the beauty and personal care industry makes certain people feel excluded. Six in ten people in India (59per cent) say the industry makes certain people feel bad about the way they look and makes certain people feel bad about themselves (59 per cent).

The beauty industry is seen as contributing to the spread of narrow beauty ideals: over six in ten people in India (63 per cent) agree that the BPC industry shares narrow beauty ideals, and two in three (66 per cent) think that the industry pressurising people into thinking they need to look a certain way contributes to narrow beauty ideals.

The majority of people in India agree that the BPC industry still has some way to go in representing people of various body types (76 per cent), people from different age groups (77 per cent) people from different ethnicities (74 per cent) and people from the LGBTQIA+ community (67 per cent).

Over eight in ten people (83 per cent) think that using the word "normal" on beauty product packaging and in advertising has a negative impact on people.