Fairness cream firms get innovative with marketing, use synonyms for 'fair'

Estimated at Rs 5,000 crore in size and used by both men and women in India, the fairness category for years has been criticised for promoting gender discrimination

Hindustan Unilever (HUL), the country's largest consumer goods company, replaced the word 'fair' with 'glow', when it recently initiated a rebranding of Fair & Lovely, its Rs 2,000-crore brand. The deceptively simple solution had much thought going behind it.

The company had been marketing Fair & Lovely’s product attributes using words such as ‘radiance’ and ‘glow’ for over a year before the actual name change took place. When the rebranding happened, replacing the word 'fair' with 'glow' wasn't difficult, it said. Consumers were ready for the shift. 

Yet, some brand experts argue that taking 'fair' or 'white' out of fairness