ANA Responds to Clairol Herbal Essence Use of Nurses in TV Advertisement

On May 1, ANA President Blakeney sent a letter to Clairol asking that it stop running a TV spot that features a nurse neglecting her patient while occupied with an Herbal Essence shampoo experience.

To provide comments to Clairol, call 1-800-Clairol or www.clairol.com

May 1, 2003

Mr. Martin Nuechtern
President, Clairol Global Hair Care Division
Procter & Gamble Company
One Procter & Gamble Plaza
Cincinnati, Ohio 45202

Dear Mr. Nuechtern:

I am writing to let you know that the American Nurses Association (ANA) is concerned about the Clairol Herbal Essence television advertisement featuring a nurse who ignores a patient in a hospital room while she is washing her hair and having an orgasm nearby. ANA has received numerous complaints from our nurse members regarding this tasteless advertisement, and I wanted to voice the association's displeasure as well as let you know just how insulting the spot is to our members.

If you have kept up at all with the latest headlines, you must know that there is a national nursing shortage at hand - a shortage that is projected to get much worse as the nation's aging baby boomers begin placing greater demands on our health care system. The growing shortage is exacerbated by the fact that young women and men are choosing other professions instead of nursing, in large part because of negative stereotyping associated with the image of nursing.

ANA's main concern is that negative nurse portrayals such as this one seriously damage nurse-recruitment efforts and may well exacerbate a shortage that is fast reaching crisis proportions in our nation. The problem is that your commercial, while extremely flip and obviously not true to life, nevertheless reinforces sexist and inaccurate stereotypical images of nurses, and these ingrained images do play a role in shaping the values, impressions and ultimately career choices of young people - the very people who are so desperately needed in the profession.

The truth is that RNs are educated, caring, devoted and responsible professionals. Yet, despite these overwhelmingly positive characteristics, and despite being consistently ranked as the nation's "most trusted and respected" profession year after year in Gallup polls, the image of nursing still suffers, and nurses (like teachers, firefighters and others in "caring" and "helping" professions) remain undervalued and underpaid as a result.

So, given these overwhelming facts, we hope you discontinue perpetuating negative images of nurses and refrain from using this offensive advertising message immediately. Otherwise, patients won't have to worry about being ignored by a fictitious nurse who is too busy "washing her hair"; instead, they'll be concerned about not having a real nurse there to care for them in the first place.

Sincerely,

Barbara A. Blakeney, MS, APRN,BC, ANP
President
cc: A.G. Lafley, chief executive officer, Procter & Gamble

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