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Nubian Skin wins TFL's diversity in advertising competition, Mayor Sadiq Khan gets backlash on Twitter

Nubian Skin wins TFL's diversity in advertising competition, Mayor Sadiq Khan gets backlash on Twitter

Transport for London (TfL)  set up a competition with the reward of  free ad space across its network  for an ad that successfully tackles tokenism, combat stereotypes and challenge the “sometimes superficial” representation of the capital’s Black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) communities. The competition began in 2018, then with a brief for advertisers to better reflect women in the city.


The winner of this year's competition is Nubian skin, an underwear brand that specialises in 'nude' undergarments for people of colour, that is it offers an array of shades instead of just one, with their simple 'A Different Kind of Nude' poster that shows their USP clear as day. Reminiscent of those "Dove real beauty" ads from fifteen years ago that caused quite a stir when seen in US public transportation, this "reality" portrait of regular people posing in their skivvies demonstrates what the brand offers quite well. 

Ade Hassan, founder and CEO of Nubian Skin said: 



“It’s such an honour to have won this competition. As a small, London-based business it is incredible to know that we will be featured across the TFL system, which in itself carries every day a great representation of the diversity present in London. This campaign is particularly important to me because I feel advertising has a very one-dimensional view of what blackness means, and this allows us to give a broader snap shot of what being black means to different people.”


Vanessa Kingori, Publishing Director, British Vogue


Many replying to Sadiq Khan brought up Proteinworld's much-copied "Beach body ready" billboard that also caused controversy  and lead to Mayor Khan banning scantily clad women in advertisements in the London Underground. Nothing like getting your model near-naked to get attention, still. 










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