One year ago Nivea, a german skincare company, started an advertising campaign for their new deoderant brand that was trying to exagerate the importance of keeping white clothes clean of imperfections using their deoderant.

Now the inappropriate nature of this advertisement is most likely readilly apparent to us Americans because of the racially charged climate we live in now, that allows us to better understand the offensive nature of this advertisement. The slogan “White is Purity” caused some minority groups to perceive the ad as white supremacist because of this tagline. Nivea clearly misunderstood their audience because the chosen slogan to be advertised in the U.S was so racially charged and able to misconstrued in the U.S.

Nivea also attempted to appeal to pathos by showing an ideal bright and well lit backdrop to accentuate the “purity” of white, but this ended up backfiring on them because of the poorly chosen slogan. It doesn’t quite help dissuade critics from believing this to be a white supremacist message when the model in question is a standard European woman.

Because Nivea did not properly understand their target audience all of their attempts at appeals ended up backfiring on them and further dug their own grave. Shortly after this ad was posted Nivea decided to pull it down while also issuing an apology to the general public, their public statement being,  “We are deeply sorry to anyone who may take offense to this specific post. After realizing that the post is misleading, it was immediately withdrawn,”. The insensitivity of this ad had cause Nivea to lose some public good will and caused them to take a hit to their credibility as a company. It shows just how important it is to make proper appeals, while also being knowledgable of your target audience, elsewise you’ll end up diggin yourself into a hole, rather than boosting your reputation up as intended.