Mainichi Daily reports about Shiseido's discriminative advertisement

Mainichi Daily, a major newspaper in Japan, reported Shiseido's discriminative advertisement as a top story on Thursday.

Shiseido posts discriminative statements on website

Internet users in Japan found on Monday that Shiseido, an international cosmetic company, was posting some discriminative statements on its Japanese website. The statements were deleted shortly after their offensiveness was pointed out by some viewers.

The discriminative statements were found on Shiseido's website for promoting its new hair-growth product, Adenogen. The website contained a "report" saying "Losing hair is not only your own problem. Your descendants will also suffer because of your bald gene." with the illustration of a family tree. The website also contained another "report" saying "The statistics show that your way up the ladder of promotion will stop at the section-head level if you are bald. Only non-bald people can obtain a seat on the board of directors."

Internet users in Japan (especially bald ones, of course) are furious with these discriminative statements. One of them says, "No hair-growth product, including Adenogen, works at genetic level. So according to Shiseido's logic, hair losers should not have children. Is Shiseido encouraging social Darwinism?"

No comments have been made by Shiseido concerning this issue so far.

Official Website of HAGE-Japan (in Japanese)
http://drive.kakiko.com/2ch/news/shiseido.HTML