Vaseline removes advertisement following accusation of digital art theft

By Alessandro Carrara | Published: 19-May-2026
Marketing

The Unilever-owned beauty brand has been accused of allegedly copying poster artwork from artist Name Junior and modifying it with artificial intelligence. Vaseline has removed the advertisement post and is ‘working to understand what happened’

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Vaseline has removed an online advertisement after an artist accused the Unilever-owned brand of allegedly stealing their artwork and modifying it using artificial intelligence (AI).

The artist, who goes by Name Junior (@namejr_) on Instagram, created a post on the social media platform with an image titled, ‘Vaseline stole my work’, on 12 May.

“Vaseline stole a poster I created for the movie Michael [the biopic of singer Michael Jackson], modified it with AI, and used it to create an advertisement,” Junior wrote in the post, who describes himself as a creator of posters.  

“My work was used without my permission.

“A creation is still a creation, and an artist's work deserves to be respected.”

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