Kicks is accused of “racist” advertising

Published 17 October 2024 at 11.32

Domestic. The Advertising Ombudsman (RO) has condemned the cosmetics chain Kicks for ethnic discrimination in an advertising article where a customer's skin care routine was presented. The article showed before and after pictures of a woman where her skin color was lighter in the after picture, along with the quote “my skin has never been fairer”.

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Three individuals reported the ad, as they believed it conveyed the message that lighter skin is more desirable than darker skin.

One of the complainants wrote that this was “racist and completely unacceptable by the advertiser”.

Kicks replied that the image was affected by the lighting and the photo opportunity, and that the intention was not to portray lighter skin as ideal. The image has since been removed from the company's website.

The Advertising Ombudsman's opinion board found, however, that the combination of the images and the text could give the impression that lighter skin is better, and therefore dismissed the advertisement for ethnic discrimination.