Lola Ogunyemi
Lola Ogunyemi
Lola Ogunyemi is a Nigerian model. She was born in London and raised in Atlanta, Georgia. Ogunyemi presently lives in London.
Education
Lola Ogunyemi is a graduate of Emory University, Class of 2010, where she majored in Psychology. [undefined] She holds an MBA from Mercer University, Class of 2012.
Career
Ogunyemi worked on digital and social media for Burberry from 2012 to 2014. Since 2014, she has been working in business development for Merkle Inc. company Periscopix. [undefined]
Ad for Dove Body Wash
Lola Ogunyemi on BBC says the Dove ad was taken out of context.
In October 2017, Ogunyemi was featured in a television and internet ad for Dove body wash in which she transforms into a white woman after taking off her t-shirt. The ad was criticized for being racist and being reminiscent of 19th century ads showing that black people turned white when using a certain brand of soap. [undefined]
Ogunyemi replied to the criticism, saying that she does not think Dove intended to be racist and said she would do the ad again in retrospect: [1]
I don't feel [the ad] was racist. However, there is a case for the context of the situation and I feel that there is a position where Dove maybe could've taken that into account given that they've run into this sort of situation before; they've received backlash for similar content that they've posted. This is something that they could've - not expected - but they should have strong teams that can point this kind of thing out before it goes to air.
In a segment with BBC, she states that she is not wholeheartedly defending Dove, but she felt the need to distinguish the Facebook version of the ad (which went viral) and the television version: [undefined]
I think the full TV ad does a much better job of expressing what the campaign message was. The Facebook ad was really just meant to be something a bit more fun, a slightly different creative concept. The message is that we're all different and we look different but the product is the same and it works on all of us.