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Beauty Advertisements

Posted by Victoria Solomon

An advertising category that never ceases to amaze and dissapoint me is beauty advertisements. If you look at magazine pages, they are filled with unoriginal, unpersuasive, and uninteresting mascara, shampoo, perfume, and lipstick ads. They are stuffed visually with images, do not usually include any interesting copy lines, and do not contain real truthful images or any persuasiveness. However, despite this, the beauty business still thrives. When I go to the market to buy shampoo, I personally do not reflect back on the magazine ads I have seen. I usually go for smell and bottle design. Or when I go to a beauty or drug store and see what seems like hundreds of mascaras, I do not think back to the mascara ads I have seen in magazines. Yet somehow, the beauty industry continues to introduce new items and these new items sell. Below are some examples of a shampoo and lipstick ad.

The advertisement above is for Garnier Fructis Sleek & Shine Shampoo, Conditioner, and Gel. We see a computer-edited model with straight, blonde, shiny hair. There are two images of a lime and a lemon in the back thus showing that Garnier is fresh, clean, and new. There are a list of "Fortifying Facts" and exactly this shampoo will improve your hair. However, most shampoo ads contain "facts" and reasons why the product will improve your hair. For me, I loathe beauty ads. I love and am a consumer of beauty products, however I wish that advertisers could come up with great, creative, original ads. How is it that alcohol advertisements can be creative, funny, and persuasive, yet the ad for your mascara is boring and edited? This ad doesn't make me laugh, it doesn't make me think and it doesn't inspire me to change my shampoo. It's unoriginal. Another beauty ad example can be shown below:

This ad is for the Dior Addict lipstick. While this ad is photographically more original and creative, it still provides limited reaction to the audience and is not all that persuasive. When would an actual woman who would wear this lipstick color be in this motion in real life? How often would she look so seductive with blue black hair? Chances are very rarely. However, I would think that this advertisement would work more effectively because often women seek improvement in things they cannot change. For example, hair can be changed more easily than the size of lips. And the size of lips is associated with seductiveness and sexuality. This ad gives the message, "If you wear this lipstick, your lips will get bigger, be sexier, and you will be dark and seductive." While this will not actually happen, and this lipstick would look ridiculous on my pale skin, its still the fantasy and idea of improving one's self.

While I won't go to into detail with the Dove campaign today, I am proud of Dove's mission to be truthful and honor the real women's body and form. However, I wish beauty ads could also take on a more creative, humorous, and original look. From what I've seen, humor and truth work best with advertising. I would love to see how the beauty business might benefit from these things in their campaigns.

Posted: September 28, 2009 8:41 pm | 1 comment
Tags: advertising, Beauty