It hardly seems possible, but Nivea managed to steal Pepsi’s crown in the “least thought through ad campaign of the week” contest on the same day, thanks to a disastrously tone-deaf new deodorant ad campaign called — and we are not kidding — “White Is Purity.”
As if the unfortunate tagline wasn’t enough, Nivea upped its bad decision game considerably by unveiling the new campaign — for its “Invisible for Black & White” deodorant — late Tuesday on its Facebook profile targeting the Middle East region. Whoops.
The blunder soon caught the attention of consumers outside of the Middle East. Unsurprisingly, aside from a few white supremacists, it was met with immediate and nearly-universal revulsion. The resulting firestorm of condemnation was so intense that Nivea was forced to cancel the campaign mere hours after it was unveiled, along with an apology. “THE NIVEA Middle East post was not meant to be offensive,” said the company in a statement on Twitter. “We apologize. It’s been removed. NIVEA values diversity and tolerance.”
Alas, that apology wasn’t enough to stop social media from raking Nivea over the coals for using a slogan that sounds like it could have come from Mein Kampf. Particularly because “White Is Purity” followed so quickly after Pepsi’s disastrous Kylie Jenner ad that co-opted the imagery of political movements like Black Lives Matter.
they don't use focus groups or anything? https://t.co/NyvStGuiiR
— bomani (@bomani_jones) April 5, 2017
https://twitter.com/4evrmalone/status/849669915204308993
https://twitter.com/KrangTNelson/status/849704885423665152
https://twitter.com/imemeweII/status/849714828000329729
Between Nivea's "white is purity" ad and Pepsi's "Black soda matters" ad I think it's time to open my "Ask A Black person" consulting firm.
— Travon (@Travon) April 5, 2017
Pepsi. Nivea.
"We learn from history that we learn nothing from history." ~George Bernard Shaw pic.twitter.com/NagR9CCLpD
— Kishau Smith Rogers (@kishau) April 5, 2017
This isn’t the first time Nivea has blundered into a racial insensitivity-inspired backlash. It managed to do so in 2011 with an ad showing a black man with a shaved head, throwing a head with an afro into the trash, with the tagline “Re-Civilize Yourself.” Presumably, second time will be the charm for Nivea and the company will take steps to keep from hitting the public backlash hat trick.
That said, we’re betting there’s at least one group of people grateful for Nivea’s now-jettisoned campaign: Pepsi’s Board of Directors.