The Philippines’ Obsession Over Fair Skin: On Nuffnang and Its SkinWhite Promo

I was catching up on news/blog posts the other night when I saw this post from Nuffnang. They’re giving away tickets to the exclusive screening of Snow White and the Huntsman.

Okay so that sounds fine. A contest. Cool.

Oh but what is this I see? To join the contest, you need to write a blog entry with this specific title: “SkinWhite and Nuffnang bring you Snow White and the Huntsman.”

As I was reading this, my reaction was, “No way.” Little did I know I’d keep saying that throughout the blog post.

Turns out, not only do you need to use that specific title, you also need to answer this silly question “How does SkinWhite give you that beautiful blush white skin that your prince charming can’t resist?” It doesn’t end there, you also need to blog about the darn “syncrowhite action that works in FOUR ways!”

I promised myself I will look into this over the weekend. So today, I googled the required blog title to see if people are actually participating in this thing.

Holy mother of mindless marketing.

I looked at their blog post’s comments section and saw that there are 38 comments, most of them linking to their blogs; some asking why they haven’t received their confirmation emails. It looks like Nuffnang can only accept 100 entries. If they reach their goal, that would give us at least one hundred blog posts on the same exact topic.

Great idea? I disagree.
 

1. Bloggers Can Think for Themselves

At least I’d like to think that. I’ve met a couple of bloggers and they’re smart. They’re creative and they’re hardworking. Isn’t this an insult to their creativity by forcing them to use specific titles and include content (e.g. syncrowhite) they would not otherwise write about? Do they think bloggers are not capable of coming up with their own blog titles that it is given to them in verbatim?

Won’t they also feel like they’re being taken advantage of? Clearly, SkinWhite just wants them to write about their product. Who cares what they think? Here’s what they need to write.

If a blogger, one who really wants good content for his readers (not freebies from companies), saw this contest, would he participate?
 

2. More Content Junk, Less Thinking

If Nuffnang and SkinWhite get what they want, then the interwebz will have 100++ blog posts with the same title, same content, same links. Of course this promotes SkinWhite but does this promote quality content? You know, content that bloggers actually think and care about?

I went through the first 2 SERPs to be sure that I have an idea of what types of content they’re getting. A lot of them were just literally following instructions. I’d be lying though if I said I didn’t spot some good ones. I found about 4 “almost genuine” blog entries. I say almost because of my reason number 3.
 

3. Bloggers Lose Their Readers’ Trust

Now that I know about this contest, if I read a blog post that talks about SkinWhite, will I say, “Oh wow SkinWhite must really be effective!” or will I say “This was a contest entry. Hmm. I’m not sure this is true.”

Why is she writing this post? Why does it look so advertising-y? Why does she suddenly know all about the syncrowhite action that works in four ways? Oh okay. She wants to win movie tickets to see Snow White and the Huntsman. Hmm.

Do I lose trust in the brand? Maybe, but in this case, I don’t really care about SkinWhite. If I wanted to try it because of these blog entries, I will. If I like it, then maybe I’ll get more. If I find that it sucks, then I won’t buy it again. Simple.

The blogger though, loses credibility points. I read other people’s blogs to learn about different perspectives; not to read contest entries.

Is this the type of blogging environment Nuffnang wants to promote?

 
BONUS: Seriously, what’s wrong with not being fair-skinned?

This weekend, yet another whitening product is getting flak for their most recent commercial:

SkinWhite in this campaign does the same thing albeit not as ridiculous as Block and White. It basically tells me that the only time a “prince charming” will like me is if I have “beautiful blush white skin.”

What are we? 12? Is this Disney country? Who wants “princes”??? This is why women have fairy tale worlds, referring to men as princes (because they think they’re princesses).

Why would you want to be a princess anyway?

In the real (non-Disney) world, princesses usually couldn’t choose their prince. That choice was made by their parents in order to form alliances between countries. I’m pretty sure King Daddy and Queen Mommy didn’t care whether he was Prince Charming, Prince Douchebag, or Prince Dumbass. Once married, the princess was then expected to obey all her prince’s commands.

Come on ladies, does that sound fun to you?

Women in the PH Tech Scene, Where Are You on Twitter?

I know there are already a number of Filipino women in the tech scene out there (e.g. awesome Ms. Myla Villanueva) but for this post, I’m talking specifically about those who are active on Twitter or who blog often. I’m obviously not looking for a PH counterpart of Meg Whitman or Marissa Mayer as I don’t think they will have time to tweet or blog, but perhaps someone like Alexia Tsotsis, Sarah Lacy, or in Asia, maybe someone like Vanessa Tan.

Okay fine, so the last three names I gave are all writers. But maybe that’s a sign? Look at some of the popular tech blogs in the Philippines… YugaTech, unbox.ph, pinoytechblog, are they represented by women? Do they have women contributors/writers?

Is it safe to say then, that Filipino women are just not inclined to writing or talking about tech? That they’re not interested in it? Or is it just because the tech industry here is still really small? I will leave that question alone for now.

What I did end up doing was bugging Francis Tan, asking if he knows other women from the Philippines who like blogging or tweeting about tech-related, even social media, topics. Like me, he was only able to give a handful.

But a handful is better than nothing! Here’s the list:
 

1. Alora Guerrero
   

Alora Guerrero used to be the Managing Editor of techie.com.ph and is also the lady behind TechLokal.com. She tweets daily and shares interesting articles. She also seems to have a very bubbly personality!


 

2. Anne Jacobe

I didn’t know about Ann until I discovered Shoephoric just recently. She’s the founder! Her company was also just recently showcased by Smart in the 2012 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.


 

3. Marga Deona

Marga is a PR consultant and a digital marketing strategist for a mulitnational software company. I obviously just copied that from somewhere. Ha! But in all seriousness, you’re sure to get not just tech news commentary but also thought-provoking tweets from her.


 

4. Katherine Pe

Kat is one of the more “social media active” female Ruby on Rails developers here. I don’t know if there are others out there but if you ask me to give you a woman RoR dev, her name is the first one I’ll give you. While I don’t understand some of the things she tweets about (I’m no developer), it’s always good learning something new. She also tweets about non-dev topics of course.



5. Ros Juan

I met Ros last year at Twestival MNL – she was one of the event organizers. Ros is an internet marketer and a heavy social media user so if you need to stay updated with the latest social media trends in the Philippines, be sure to include her in your to-follow list.

 
I know my list is extremely short so if you know someone who fits the description of what I’m looking for, please let me know! I’m not going to stalk them or anything (or maybe I will…), I just want more Filipino women (in the tech scene or someone who just appreciates it) to look up to and be proud of. :)

I’m a huge fan of Sheryl Sandberg so I will end this post with this (really short) video:

Watch Sheryl Sandberg on PBS. See more from Makers: Women Who Make America.