Sweden's issues: White bandages are racist.
- Thread starter Kyriakos
- Start date
BvBPL
Pour Decision Maker
It costs more than you think.
The actual manufacture is assuredly inexpensive, however there are a variety of other concerns. They would need new packaging for the product, new SKUs, and new space on the shelf. Producers have to pay for the space used by grocers and druggists to have the product on their shelves so if you produce three different colored bandages you've just tripled that expense. Where the druggist has limited shelf space for bandages, they can charge a premium for the space and so it gets expensive fast. There's logistical issues, do you offer whole pallets of your different colored bandages to retailers or do you revamp your warehouse procedures to enable cut pallet shipments?
Does all of that pay off? Maybe, maybe not. As Johnson & Johnson, you've probably seen and conducted past test data on market responses to differently colored bandages. You are not coming at the problem from head-scratching pure ignorance, but from the position of a market leader who has researched this question. You can make an informed decision about how much it benefits the company to produce and sell these goods versus the alternative of not doing so.
Formaldehyde
Both Fair And Balanced
Only, again, we don't access to other "plasters" in this country. And apparently neither does Sweden.
Did you forget to read the OP? That is actually the topic of discussion here. it is about the complete absence of other choices of "plaster" in "skin-tone" for many people.
And here in the US, that is even true for the vast majority of people. In this country, Johnson & Johnson enjoys a near monopoly on "plasters", so we are relegated to a single choice of "skin tone".
Only I haven't actually been "ranting" in the least, unlike this post which is vastly more of a "rant" than anything I have posted in this thread.
Apparently not. Otherwise they wouldn't have so many other boutique versions where they even have to pay royalties. I take it you missed my previous statements to that effect.
But, again, I think it would be worth it just for the PR value. Not to mention I could actually get a Band-Aid which was "skin-tone" myself. Or maybe they should just change the wording of their advertising: "skin-tone for perhaps 25% of the white population".
warpus
Sommerswerd asked me to change this
People who compare their skin colour to bandaids could use a hobby or two.. I wouldn't care if they're brown or black or purple, I buy bandaids based on how well they work, not how well they camouflage with respect to my tan. Anyone who does just has too much time on their hands.
Formaldehyde
Both Fair And Balanced
That is what happens when a vendor claims their product is "skin-tone". Many people actually expect it to be so.
And they usually are...for the majority of their customer base. Show me a company that doesn't pander to its majority customer base, and I'll show you a company that won't be in business very long.
classical_hero
In whom I trust
Who doesn't use the term "ban-aid" when they are talking about those plasters we use, even if they aren't called that?
Formaldehyde
Both Fair And Balanced
Only, again, it isn't even "skin-tone" for the majority of whites.
trader/warrior
Deity
Eh, why have quasi-segregatory skin-tone specific band-aids when
Spoiler :
is universal.
Beat that Sweden!
It's close enough for me (along with the majority of people) to not care. I'm with warpus on this one; anyone who's getting all bent out of shape about the color of bandages seriously needs to take a step back and reevaluate their priorities in life.
BvBPL
Pour Decision Maker
The box of J & J band aids I have hear make no claim that they are a particular skin tone. They just say "sheer."
Formaldehyde
Both Fair And Balanced
Well, that is probably true given how few actually are.
But, yet again, the color of Band-Aids is hardly "skin-tone" for the "majority of people".
Then you are ignoring the obvious.
Since its unpretentious invention in 1920 by Johnson & Johnson in New Brunswick, New Jersey, the Band-Aid was long manufactured in a single color: a soft pink. In a 1955 TV commercial, the company showed one on the hand of a Caucasian woman: "Neat, flesh-colored, almost invisible," a voice-over said.
Orundu Johnson, a 66-year-old African American woman living in Harlem, remembers. "The bandages would say flesh color, and I'd explain to my kids, 'Well, that's not your flesh.'
The irony of African-Americans sticking pink patches on their darker flesh did not go unnoticed by the black liberation movement either. In White Is, a militant cartoon book published in 1969 at the initiative of Harlem-based activist Preston Wilcox, a drawing depicted a young man in Black Panther garb with eyes rolled upwards, fixated at the protuberant white adhesive bandage on his forehead. The caption read: "White is a flesh colored band-aid."
Johnson & Johnson, the market leader, estimates that it has sold more than 100 billion Band-Aids worldwide. As of 2011, the multinational claimed 62 percent of the adhesive bandage sales in the United States. While there are now clear Band-Aids, it is still to the chagrin of Orundu Johnson that none of the dozens of designs, from the standard beige to the model embellished with Muppet characters, are made to blend with African-American skin.
The persistent market gap for black bandages doesn't surprise marketing consultant Pepper Miller. In recent years, the African-American population has become a driving force in the U.S. market at large, increasing at a faster pace than that of the rest of the country and projected to represent a market share worth $1.1 trillion by 2015, according to Nielsen. That was not always so, though. Cosmetics giants such as Cover Girl and Estee Lauder only began offering makeup lines for dark-skinned women in the 1980s.
It was 15 years ago that New York entrepreneur Michael Panayiotis created Ebon-Aid. The orange box read: "The bandage exclusively designed for people of color," and they came in shades called black licorice, coffee brown, cinnamon, and honey beige.
Johnson recalls the day she found Ebon-Aide in a Harlem pharmacy. She bought dozens of boxes. For her kids, but also to pack into the first-aid kits of the Harlem school where she worked as a director. "It was always a political statement for me," she said.
But one day, Ebon-Aides disappeared from the shelves. Johnson reached out to the manufacturer repeatedly.
Panayiotis remembers her requests.
A Cyprus-born father of two, Panayiotis thought he had found a niche market with promising returns when he launched Ebon-Aide. Retail giants from Wal-Mart to Rite Aid agreed to carry his product. "We found out with our market research that between the African American market and the Hispanic market we would capture about 25 percent to 28 percent of the market," he said. "We wanted to do all the first-aid products in black."
But Panayiotis was frustrated by the placement of his product, which usually ended up on separate shelves dedicated to satisfying the needs of Afro-American customers. "If you don't show it to people, how are they going to buy it?" he said.
By late 2002, out of an original lot of 1 million boxes of bandages, he had sold only around 20,000. After losing his original $2 million investment -- including $600,000 to manufacture the product in South Korea and Canada -- Panayiotis' company folded.
He stored his inventory in a 10,000-square foot warehouse, donating the bandage boxes little by little to whoever showed some interest, and selling the last lot to a Miami company. Panayiotis, now 65, has since moved on to run an IT service company.
warpus
Sommerswerd asked me to change this
That's a stupid claim then, since there is no such thing as skin-tone, obviously.
Formaldehyde
Both Fair And Balanced
Indeed. One might even claim it could possibly be considered to be racist by some.
BvBPL
Pour Decision Maker
How is it racist? Break that argument down for me.
Certainly having a taupe band aid labeled as flesh colored (even though they aren't actually labeled as such) is presumptive of a white normative mindset. Is assuming that an unknown consumer is white racist? Why or why not?
Certainly having a taupe band aid labeled as flesh colored (even though they aren't actually labeled as such) is presumptive of a white normative mindset. Is assuming that an unknown consumer is white racist? Why or why not?
Formaldehyde
Both Fair And Balanced
I didn't claim it was.
"Break that argument down for me. "
"Break that argument down for me. "
BvBPL
Pour Decision Maker
You said the claim could be made. Spell it out.
Eh, why have quasi-segregatory skin-tone specific band-aids when
Spoiler :
is universal.
Beat that Sweden!
What does "Bling Bling" mean?
