Oh look, another insensitive, wannabe 'woke' ad campaign. Here's how to stop f*cking up.

Plz stop.
 By 
Kerry Flynn
 on 
Original image replaced with Mashable logo
Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

Russians may have had luck advertising on Facebook.

Dove, not so much.

The soap company apologized this week for an ad that showed a black woman removing her brown shirt and revealing a white woman in a lighter shirt underneath.

But that non-apology begs the question: How the f*ck did this happen?

Grossly, it's just another example of a major corporation failing when it comes to wannabe woke advertising. You may remember the Pepsi ad from April, in which Kendall Jenner single-handedly eliminated racism by handing out cans of the soft drink.

Corporations be corporations. Dove is a part of the consumer goods giant Unilever, which employs about 170,000 people. Like most businesses of that size, the company hires ad agencies to help concept and create its campaigns.

Unilever Chief Marketing and Communications Officer Keith Weed told AdAge in June that his company works with "creative agencies – WPPs, Omnicoms, Interpublics, Publicis of this world," and it also has its own in-house production teams.

All. Those. People. And. This?!

In that same AdAge interview, Weed said Unilever had cut down the number of ads they were making by 30 percent. But apparently, despite the decrease in quantity, the quality is still suffering.

Dove representatives did not immediately respond to our request for comment on how this all went down.

It's quite outrageous for Dove especially given how much they promote "Real Beauty." The company enlisted Shonda Rhimes to share her own story and help find other stories to share about women "loving the bodies they're born with" across the world.

"I think it's particularly important for women and girls to know that they have an amazing story," Rhimes said. "Share it at Dove Real Beauty dot com."

One way to prevent another offensive ad campaign disaster? Maybe run it by Rhimes or one of the women she had share their stories. Definitely don't leave it up to men in the boardroom or men in front of their computer. It's not like this is your first rodeo:

Nothing wrong with another set of eyes.

Mashable Image
Kerry Flynn

Kerry Flynn is a business reporter for Mashable covering the tech industry. She previously reported on social media companies, mobile apps and startups for International Business Times. She has also written for The Huffington Post, Forbes and Money magazine. Kerry studied environmental science and economics at Harvard College, where she led The Harvard Crimson's metro news and design teams and played mellophone in the Band. When not listening to startup pitches, she runs half-marathons, plays with puppies and pretends to like craft beer.

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