Ethical obligations towards consumers
My take from the Fair & Lovely case and the Dark is Beauty campaign, is that we do not necessarily need to ban or suppress products that cover social needs such as skin whitening, in the same way, that we do not ban or suppress products that focus on skin tanning. What we need to address is the implications of marketing products with a negative connotation way such as race, caste, color, creed, or nationality discrimination. Whether consumers want to buy products that whiten or darken their skin or not is their choice. What we really need to address is the implications, perception, and influence of the way brands are marketing these products to society.
From the middle-school child considering the premier brands of soccer shoes to overpromising cosmetics depicting fairness as the key to success, a common marketing message from consumer brands is "you will perform better with us".
Recalling the Dove Beauty patches example seen in class, ads overpromise results that are never successfully achieved. Laboratory studies demonstrate that this performance brand effect emerges through psychological mechanisms unrelated to functional product differences, consistent with a placebo. This effect emerges only when there is an expectation that the performance branded product affects outcomes. Those consumers lower in preexisting domain self-efficacy beliefs exhibit more substantial performance gains, whereas, for those particularly high in domain self-efficacy, the placebo is mitigated.
Products bearing premium brand labels are known to increase perceptions of efficacy and improve objective consumer performance relative to lesser-branded equivalents, in what is traditionally described as a marketing placebo effect. This same marketing placebo effect is reflected when using celebrities to promote certain beauty and consumer products.
Again, what we really need to address is the implications, perception, and influence of the way brands are marketing products to society!
