Contents

1 Introduction
The concept of preferring the people with “fair-skin” has long been recognized socially and it has been the psychological and social impact on women to be fair. But in the recent years, men too have started giving importance on personal grooming, beginning with fair skin. The market for fairness cream was restricted to women only till 2005; but Emami catered to men with its product Fair and Handsome. Till then the fairness cream had dominated the cosmetic market covering male and female segments.
It is clear from television and matrimonial advertisements that the market for fairness creams in India is huge. The increasing demand of fair bride and groom creates the field for the national and
They go ahead to explain the various approaches towards marketing the same product to both masculine and feminine genders, with respect to three different scenarios. (5) Rural markets are still untapped to a large extent by the fairness cream industry. S. Najma (2010) that a key part of the success of a fairness product in a rural town like Tanjore was based on celebrity endorsements and advertisement quality. (9). At the end of it all, there have been a mix of speculative and supportive theories on the actual working of fairness creams. In this direction, M. Agarwal et. al. (2012) came up with the recommendation of carefully segregating the product being used as under (10):
If agents act by protecting UV radiation absorption, they should be called as ‘sunscreens’, preventing further darkening and not causing fairness.
Fairness creams that are acting by modifying chemical reactions within the body i.e. by inhibiting melanin synthesis should be brought under the category of a drug.
3 Theory and Hypothesis
3.1 Hypothesis:
H0: Men and women differ in their use of creams
We conducted a qualitative survey which consisted of 15 in-depth interviews (8 males, 7 females). The interviews gave us an insight into the various factors that affect the buying decision of consumers. The various factors included promotional offer, brand equity, packaging, price, utility etc.
3.2 Data collection:
Through our literature review, we came to know that the use of creams by men