Avon Body-Shaming Controversy

Overview

Avon Body-Shaming Controversy refers to the online debate surrounding an advertising campaign by the personal care company Avon, which promoted various skin care products with messages critical of features like thigh dimples and cellulite.

Background

On January 19th, 2019, British actor, Jameela Jamil, known for playing Tahani Al-Jamil on The Good Place, ^[1] posted a tweet accusing Avon of body-shaming in their new ad campaign (shown below). Within 48 hours, the tweets gained over 12,000 retweets and 64,000 likes. Jamil previously launched the #iweigh hashtag movement on Instagram, inspired by a photo of Kourtney, Khloé and Kim Kardashian with their half-sisters Kendall and Kylie Jenner, detailing each woman's weight. The Instagram movement involves users listing positive aspects of their life beyond weight.^[2]

Development

On January 19th, Jamil continued to post on the subject with a tweet criticizing the beauty industry in general (shown below). The tweet garnered over 1,000 retweets and 6,000 likes in two days.^[4]

That day, Avon gave a response directly to Jamil stating, "we completely understand where you’re coming from. We realize that we missed the mark with this messaging. We have removed this messaging from all future marketing materials. We fully support our community in loving their bodies and feel confident in their own skin." The tweet gained over 4,000 likes in two days (shown below).^[3]

At first Jamil responded elated stating that this response by Avon was "progress"(shown below, left) but quickly responded to Avon again labeling the product names problematic (shown below, right).

Search Interest

External References

^[1] Wikipedia – Jameela Jamil

^[2] HuffingtonPost – I Weigh

^[3] Twitter – AvonInsider

^[4] Twitter – JameelaJamil