TRESemmé

TRESemmé is an American brand of hair care products first manufactured in 1947 by the Godefroy Manufacturing Company in Manhattan, New York City, New York, United States. It was named after the renowned hair care expert Edna L. Emme.[1] The brand name is a phonetic respelling of "beloved" that includes the surname of its namesake.

The TRESemmé product line was initially marketed only to beauty salons. The TRESemmé brand was purchased by Alberto-Culver in 1968, and then acquired by Unilever in 2010.[2]

History

The TRESemmé brand was launched in 1947 by Godefroy Manufacturing, and was bought in 1968 by Alberto-Culver, a manufacturer of hair and skincare products. The original intention was to only distribute the products of the brand within beauty salons; however, as the product line became more popular, it was marketed to

South African racism controversy

In August 2020, TRESemmé was accused of being racist when its marketing campaign at South African retail chain Clicks ran an ad showing the text "dull and frizzy" and "dry and damaged" under the portrait of a black model while "fine and flat" and "normal" appeared under a white model. Following an uproar across South Africa against Clicks and TRESemmé, protest action, damage to some Clicks stores by members of the South African political party Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), and a call by Minister of Small Business Development Khumbudzo Ntshavheni to remove all TRESemmé products, Clicks issued an apology, temporarily closed a number of its stores, suspended staff responsible for approving the advert, pulled all TRESemmé products, and pledged to fill the gap with locally sourced hair care brands.[11][12][13][14]

National retail chains Shoprite/Checkers, Pick n Pay, Makro, Dis-Chem and Woolworths also announced their intention to remove all TRESemmé products from their shelves.[15][16][17] On September 10, the EFF released a joint statement with Unilever South Africa on Twitter where they announced Unilever's decision to remove all its TRESemmé products from all retailers for 10 days as a show of remorse, conduct an internal investigation into the campaign, and take disciplinary action on those involved. The statement also said that the director involved in the campaign left the company and country.[18]

The intent behind the damaging advertisement is not universally regarded as purposely malicious[19] and neither Clicks nor TRESemmé consider its racial undertone to be intentional. TRESemmé issued an apology in September 2020, stating that "the campaign set out to celebrate the beauty of all hair types and the range of solutions that TRESemmé offers" and that "we got it wrong".[20] Commenting on the controversy, black television personality Somizi Mhlongo said that there may be some truth in the TRESemmé ad, noting "The hair that they showed is the hair that looks like what happens when we relax our hair. My hair right now is not natural, it has chemicals, it’s damaged."[21]

producttype	Hair care
currentowner	Unilever
producedby	Godefroy Manufacturing Company (1947–1968) Alberto-Culver (1968–2010) Unilever (2010–present)
country	United States
markets	Worldwide
previousowners	Godefroy Manufacturing Company (1947–1968) Alberto-Culver (1968–2010)
tagline	Professional. Affordable. Used By Professionals
website	https://www.tresemme.com

History

Product range

Advertisement

South African racism controversy

Mercedes-Benz New York Fashion Week

Awards

External links

References