Newsletter – Want to Avoid Dove’s PR Diversity Disaster? Here’s How

How Can You Prevent a Las Vegas Disaster in Your Workplace? Take These Steps

This week, Dove briefly ran an online ad showing a black woman magically transforming into a white woman, presumably because she used Dove. Sharp-eyed social media users trashed the ad for its lack of awareness about diversity and inclusion issues, as well as Unilever’s (the corporate maker of Dove) lack of knowledge about the history of soap ads showing people transformed from black to white after using their products.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/08/business/dove-ad-racist.html?_r=0

“How extensive is YOUR diversity and inclusion training?”

While Unilever removed the ad and apologized for “missing the mark”, the criticism continued.

While it’s difficult to see how their marketing executives could have missed the obvious message, there are ways to avoid similar PR disasters.

What Should You Do?

To avoid Dove’s fate, consider the following:

• Who makes similar decisions in your organization? How diverse is the group? Who has a seat at the table?
• How extensive is your diversity and inclusion training? Have you educated your people so – at the very least – advertising campaigns that attempt to raise diversity issues will not be launched without careful review?
• How inclusive is your recruiting effort? Is your organization diverse and inclusive?

Nothing hurts a brand more than a PR misstep such as Dove’s. While any threatened boycott may or may not materialize, you can avoid a similar tsunami if you follow these suggestions.