As regular readers may remember, way back in January we brought you news of the shenanigans going on at Nivea, our reaction to their latest sexist ad campaign, and their misrepresentations to the Advertising Standards Bureau (ASB) that assisted them in getting away with airing it.

It was the last part of this that really stuck in our craw. The ASB rejected our complaint, as well as those of other complainants, based on a version of the ad, supplied to them by Beiersdorf (the company that owns the Nivea brand), that was significantly different from that which was being aired and was available online. Specifically the following changes to the voiceover had been made which significantly altered the tone of the ad (everything in bold was added to the version given to the ASB and did not appear in the aired ad)…

“Poor poor men working all day…all sweaty and really worn out. Your life is so stressful‟

and then… “Women would’t know about that …we discovered stress protect deodorant.‟ They also said, in their reply to the ASB, that… “…the reason the woman is more capable is because she is using the advertised product – a product which she brings home and gives to her partner. These changes alter the focus and tone of the ad considerably, tying it far more closely to the product (which was the core of Beiersdorf’s primary justification for the ad). However, none of that existed in the version that the public saw, not that the ASB bothered to check that apparently. We’d have informed them of it ourselves if not for the fact that they charge you $100 to even consider an appeal to their rulings. Unsurprisingly, despite assurances that they were listening to the public outrage & repeated promises to make adjustments to the ad, Beiersdorf made no efforts in that direction whatsoever and the ad continued to air, completely unaltered, until the campaign ended in late June/early July. It also continued to exist on YouTube….That is until about a week ago when it inexplicably disappeared without a trace.

Men’s Rights Sydney contacted Nivea to ask why this particular ad was removed from YouTube when their other old ads remain but they have, thus far, declined to comment so we can’t say for sure why it was removed. We do, however, have our suspicions.

During the six months between January 2014, when the ad was launched, and June 2014, almost all of the comments left on the ad’s YouTube page were negative & critical of it’s sexism and the video had a 95%+ dislike rating.

However, something happened around the 15th of June…The lumbering feminist behemoth finally discovered it &, late to the party though it may be, it certainly knows how to throw it’s weight around. In a period of just a few days, hundreds of feminist commenters suddenly flooded the comment section. Comments of support for Nivea, comments denying that the ad was sexist (& that men can even be victims of sexism), & many, many comments dismissing & ridiculing the men who had objected to the ad’s sexism. Most just making the usual ignorant comments but some displaying a quite shocking level of hatred towards men.

So why do we think Nivea removed the video? We’ll we think they took one look at the hypocritical & bigoted stuff being said by their supporters and thought something along the lines of…

“Having people criticise us is one thing but we can’t have people that support us saying this sort of hateful stuff in public! ABORT! ABORT!”

…and so they took the video down & have apparently made it private. Admittedly this is all just speculation but it does explain all the facts.

We wondered what had prompted these feminists to crawl out of the woodwork all of a sudden so we did a little bit of detective work and came across this delightful little page which seems to be the source of most of the feminist traffic. They apparently think that sexism against men is something that should be supported & rewarded because, as we all know, it’s only sexist when men do it, right?Yeah, where would anyone ever get the idea that feminism isn’t about equality?

Update: Mens Rights Sydney has received the following email.

‘Without Prejudice’ Dear Tom, Thank you for taking the time to contact NIVEA. We apologise for the delay in our response. The rights to the actors involved in this particular advertisement have expired. As such, it must be removed from public view. Hope that this answers your concerns. If I can be of any further assistance, please do not hesitate to contact me on —- or —– Kind Regards,

Robyn Hutch

Consumer Services