Unilever Slammed for ‘Poverty-Exploitation’ Advert

Jakarta Globe, SP/Yoseph A. Kelen, December 2, 2013

A still from a Lifebuoy commercial highlighting poverty in East Nusa Tenggara.
(Screen grab from Youtube)

Kupang. East Nusa Tenggara Governor Frans Lebu Raya has lashed out at Unilever Indonesia, claiming that a television advertisement for its Lifebuoy soap brand gives a false portrayal of the extent of poverty in the province.

“It makes it seem that without Lifebuoy soap, the children of NTT will not be able to celebrate their fifth birthday,” Frans said in Kupang, the provincial capital, over the weekend, referring to East Nusa Tenggara by its acronym.

“As the governor, I am offended by this ad. Honestly, [you] may help the people of NTT, but don’t exploit poverty for business interests,” Frans said, adding that he had instructed the provincial secretary to tell Lifebuoy to drop the ad.

The governor said the ad, in which residents of the village of Bitobe are depicted as not understanding the importance of good hygiene and sanitation, exaggerated the local level of poverty.

The ad said poor hygiene resulted in the deaths of one in four children under the age of five in NTT from diarrhea.

Unilever says the ad, titled “NTT can do five years,” is a pilot project aimed at improving the infant mortality rate.

The ad has also received a negative response from some NTT residents, who have labeled it demeaning and have launched a petition to have it dropped.

“We are disturbed by Lifebuoy’s ad, because for us it doesn’t depict the real conditions in NTT,” said Buche Brikmar, the head of the provincial chapter of Garda Bangsa, a community empowerment organization.

“We think it’s a form of poverty exploitation for business interests. The ad makes it look like if you buy Lifebuoy soap, you automatically save children’s lives and help them to reach their fifth birthday.

“This is obviously an image built for a product,” Buche added.

Heribertus Naif, the provincial director of the Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi), who was among those who initiated the petition to get the ad dropped, urged the provincial administration to stop the campaign.

“Is it really true that all NTT children die before they reach the age of five? Can Lifebuoy help me celebrate my 33rd birthday? We demand the KPI [Indonesian Broadcasting Commission] to immediately stop the ad and repair NTT’s sullied reputation,” Heribertus said.

Adina Tontey, senior brand manager of Lifebuoy at Unilever, said the company did not intend to demean the people of NTT.

“The ad depicted the real conditions in Bitobe village, in Central Amfoang subdistrict in Kupang,” she said.

“[It] was intended to prevent the death of infants in NTT in the future. According to data from the NTT health office, the infant mortality rate was 71 out of 1,000 births and diarrhea was the main cause.”

Adina said the company had also raised Rp 700 million ($63,300) to be donated to help the Bitobe villagers.

Adina also agreed to meet with those calling for the ad campaign to be dropped.

A nationwide survey carried out by the Health Ministry in 2010 found that 29.4 percent of children aged under five in East Nusa Tenggara were undernourished and 58.4 percent suffered from stunting due to poor nutrition experienced by mothers during pregnancy. The figures were the worst in Indonesia.

According to the Health Ministry survey, 17.9 percent of children under five are underweight nationwide, a decrease of 31 percent since 1989.

Fifteen percent is the widely recognized indication of a nutrition emergency.

A separate study conducted by World Vision International in 2009 found that 44.2 percent of children in NTT’s North Timor Tengah district were undernourished and 57 percent were stunted.

Dogels Maradesa, the maternal child health and nutrition coordinator at WVI’s North Timor Tengah office, said access to proper nutrition had always been a serious problem in the region.

“Much of the land is dry, while the soil is rocky and contains limestone,” he said.

With their land yielding poor harvests, villagers have turned to slash-and-burn forest clearing to open up new land, in the process damaging the ground’s ability to retain water and thus aggravating the chronic water crisis in the region.

“There have been a lot of initiatives here, but what we need is an integrated approach, because NGOs and the government have been working separately on programs that often overlap one another,” Dogels said.

A UN report released in September noted that while the government had made great strides toward ending malnutrition among children under five, the pace of progress was slowing and there was a danger that Indonesia could miss the target of slashing the rate by two-thirds by 2015 under the Millennium Development Goals.

In NTT’s South Oenenu village, the lack of knowledge about nutrition has led to mothers often feeding their babies and toddlers only rice porridge and salt.

“Many mothers in South Oenenu don’t realize that their children are undernourished because they don’t appear to be sick,” said Fridliukonas, the WVI facilitator in South Oenenu. “But actually more than 30 percent of children under five years old in this village are undernourished.”

Changing bad habits in the village was a tall order, he said, because the villagers preferred to spend money buying processed foods and snacks rather than nutritious food for their children.

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Unilever Defends Poorly Received NTT Soap Campaign