Controversy – Dove is one of the most used brand names in
the beauty industry. However, a controversy was brought to the attention of
many social media users when Dove released a controversial ad on specific social
media platform that caught the attention of many different women, but even some
men had some input on the new commercial. The controversial ad: “Beauty brand Dove deleted a "three-second
video clip" from its Facebook page and admitted Saturday that it had
"missed the mark in thoughtfully representing women of color" in an
ad for body wash. Consumers had reacted angrily to images of a black woman
removing a brown shirt and appearing to transform into a white woman removing a
similar shirt” (Held).
Stakeholders – A stakeholder to a company means that any
person, organization, social group, or society at large that has a stake in the
business. Stakeholders usually want the business or company to make positive decisions
because if they do so the stakeholders would be affected positively. This is
the same principle if the company or business does something negative to hurt
the brand name which would also hurt your stakeholders. If the company or
business does something negative to hurt the brand name, stakeholders could
potentially sell their stock and not be associated at all with the company or
business. In this case, since this ad affect a major culture group in America,
Dove could see some backlash from their stakeholders backing out of their
investment deals or simply selling their shares. Product sales would also be
down after this ad touched the internet.
Individualism – The only direct goal of business is to
profit, and the primary obligation of the business person is to maximize profits
(Salazar). Even though profiting is the main goal, the theory states that you should
respect human rights and the laws of the state which your business or company
is located in. In this case, Dove is the individual that is trying to maximize
their profits with the ad surfacing on social media. An advertisement is
definitely a good way to spread awareness of a product which can lead to more
sales. However, the message being portrayed in the commercial caused a lot of
backlash on social media calling the commercial “racist”. In this case, this
would not be maximizing profits due to controversy that Dove created.
Utilitarianism – Utilitarianism
is when we ought to bring out happiness and pleasure in all beings capable of
feeling it. The reason for that is if happiness is valuable, there is no
difference morally-speaking between my happiness and yours. With that being said,
it was obvious that the majority of people did not agree with the message that
was being portrayed in the ad. In this case to have Utilitarian value present
in this situation, everyone from across all ethnicities would have to approve
of the commercial not being racist and that it does still portray Dove’s
products.
Kantianism – The basic principles of Kantianism is to act
rationally. Don’t act inconsonantly in your own actions or consider yourself
exempt from rules. In relevance to Kantianism, I believe that the people reviewing
the commercial did not act rational to what was really being displayed in the
message being sent out to the world. People where very outraged at the fact
that it was portrayed that if you were any other color than white you would
have been labeled as dirty. Kantianism also affects the stakeholders because
based on the principles of Kantianism your supposed to act rational which you
have abstained from impermissible actions and have done what is morally
permissible or morally required. Dove did not follow the principles of
Kantianism which hurts the stakeholders because it leaves the company in a
negative light.
Virtue Theory – The last ethical theory I will use to assess
this controversy is the virtue theory, the virtue theory has 4 main
characteristics which are labeled as courage, honesty, temperance, and justice.
Courage stands for risk-taking and willingness to take a stand for the right
ideas and actions. Honesty is the agreements, hiring and treatment of employees,
customers and other companies. Temperance is the reasonable expectations and
desires. Finally, Justice is hard work, quality products, good ideas, fair
practices. Sadly, Dove did not meet the measures of the Virtue theory since
they broke the courage and justice characteristics. Dove did not display
courage nor justice because the board that passed the commercial to be aired
did not have a fair practice or a good idea along with not standing up for what
would be right ideas and actions.
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