PSY – 101

Project work
Analyzing ‘Fair & Lovely’ TVC
Summer – 2020

Presented to:

Ashma Rahman

Presented by:
Rakib Hasan Talukder
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Section – 01
The motto of the company:
The message of ‘Fair & Lovely’ TVC was; apply the Fair & Lovely cream, become fair in a few
weeks, gain confidence, and win the job! Be it at a dance competition, an interview for an air
hostess, or wooing a groom, Fair & Lovely consumers always find success in life as they
systematically apply the whitening cream. (Naidu, 2015) It gives the impression as if there is
something wrong with having dark skin tone and this cream is the solution for it. (Moshtaq,
2015)

As human beings, we have the primary needs as well the secondary needs. In primary need
includes food, cloth, shelter, sleep, medicine. Whereas secondary need includes: Money,
Power, Respect, Dignity, and Recognition. We cannot live without society. We want to be
respected in that society. It’s our human nature. In our society, it is adopted that if a girl has a
fair skin-tone, she is beautiful. Only she deserves confidence & attention in every aspect of her
life! On the other hand, if the girl doesn’t have a fair skin-tone, she is not beautiful. People start
to say, no boy belongs to a good family is ever going to marry her! No matter what skills &
qualifications she has, she even deserves no confidence in the workplace. She should be always
rejected in the interview!

Based on this culture or mindset of the society, The ‘Fair & Lovely’ company made the TVC
of fairness cream. If we will apply that cream it will make us fair in a few weeks, so that the
society can consider us beautiful. A girl will have her confidence to show up her skill of beauty
& she will deserve to get her dream job! In this TVC we can learn that the girl needs a job
because money is a secondary need which can buy us all the primary needs. But according to
her society, she doesn’t deserve her dream job because she is not fair. There comes the ‘Fair &
Lovely’ advertisement which tells her she can be successfully fair by applying the cream. In
some weeks of applying ‘Fair & Lovely’, she went to the interview and everyone was pleased
with her beauty. She looked so confident as if her beauty has accurately matched with the job
criteria. After an interview, she became an air hostess. Now, she can support her family
financially and buy them whatever their needs are.
Key points’ of the relevant theories:
We know, money can buy us needs & it can come from a job. Here, her desired job worked as an
unconditioned stimulus. It’s a stimulus that brings about a particular response naturally, without having
been learned. When a person needs a job she has an unconditioned response towards that. A response
that is usual and needs no training. Before any condition, the Fair & Lovely cream was just a Neutral
stimulus. A stimulus, before conditioning which doesn’t naturally, brings about a response of interest.
After conditioning the cream with fairness which can give her confidence in her workplace, that cream
became a conditioned stimulus. It got capable of eliciting an interest, which previously caused by only
the unconditioned stimulus after being paired with it.

The ‘Fair & Lovely’ cream made this conditioning response with our job performance. Which is a
response that, after conditioning, follows a previously neutral stimulus. A stimulus that became capable
of eliciting a response previously caused by only the unconditioned stimulus after being paired with it.
What the TVC did, it made the cream a conditioned stimulus, is a must need to achieve our goals of an
unconditioned stimulus. By observational learning & modeling, a girl can learn that that the cream can
give us perfect fairness like a life-changing miracle to get our unconditioned response so that we can
easily catch people's attention & get our dream job!

Shaping the audience perspective:

It is a common perception that many south-Asian women are partial towards fairer skin. Recently,
dermatologists commented that people are now openly asking for a solution to something that has been
an obsession through the ages. Equating fairness with beauty has turned out to be a key consumer
insight within the case of the fairness creams industry. Hindustan Unilever earning nearly 53% of the
market share with ‘Fair & Lovely’. The company has implied particular scrutiny for its promotions and
advertisements featuring darker-skinned women turning fairer on using the cream.

Hindustan Unilever's star product within the fairness creams segment had produced into one among the
most successful brands over three decades in many distinct phases. Phase 1 saw the launch of the
merchandise in 1976 on the basic premise that "younger women wanted to have a fairer skin tone to
attract a better-looking husband." HUL marketed this brand as a beauty cream that is capable of
providing fairness within 2 months or 8 weeks. The value proposition easily communicated to the
consumer base read, "Get noticed by the man of your life."

During Phase 2 of ‘Fair & Lovely’s evolution, the brand talked to a younger college-going girl who is self-
confident and more modern in her outlook and believes home remedies for facial care to be old
fashioned. In Phase 3, this further metamorphosed into a brand offering emotional benefits for
achievers who actively seek solutions and do not see marriage as the ultimate source of personal
achievement. Fair & Lovely thus became a brand that communicated a message that Fairness leading its
beauty to good looking husband and Fairness leading to Self-confidence leading to a Good career.
(Mulky, et al.)

As long as we have the mindset that we need to be fair to be successful, girls who are not fair will have
the interest to buy that cream. Not only for crack the interview for a job, a girl who is not fair enough,
but the cream will also be the best solution for her to become a fair & lovely one!

References:

Naidu, P. (2015, May 14). Why Fair & Lovely's YouTube Video Series For Millennial Is Falling Short.
Lighthouse Insights. Retrieved June 3, 2020, from http://lighthouseinsights.in/fair-lovely-youtube-
strategy.html/