The Demand for Authentic Diversity in Makeup Advertising

In September of 2017, the makeup industry experienced major shift in its status quo when iconic singer-songwriter, Rihanna, launched her debut makeup line, Fenty Beauty, with the "Beauty for All" campaign. The line's first launch consisted of only a few products: a primer, a lip gloss, face highlighters, but most notably, a foundation line -- featuring 40 different shades. This campaign addressed a demand people of color had for years that had been ignored by countless other companies. Fenty's inclusive campaign was a huge hit, earning $72 million in sales its first month of business. In Rihanna's own words, "I created Fenty after realizing the lack of skin tones represented in makeup, from the darkest shades to the lightest. I wanted a makeup line so that women everywhere would be included." The promotional images for her makeup line aptly feature a diverse range of models of all colors, providing more representation in an industry that currently lacks it.

Source: http://bit.ly/2eLZ8gr

Fenty Beauty revolutionized expectations for brand launches and campaigns and set a standard that is leaving other cosmetic companies up for criticism for failing to be inclusive. For example, Tarte Cosmetics, recently launched their highly anticipated Shape Tape foundation with a mere 15 shades, only 3 of which were tan to deep shades, not nearly enough to cover their entire customer base. Since the collection reveal, Tarte has been flooded with backlash, from both average consumers and social media influencers alike all over Twitter, Instagram, and other online makeup forums. A huge boycott has been organized, drastically downing their anticipated sales numbers. The product has been blacklisted by the community, online beauty gurus denouncing Tarte, not wanting to give the product any attention that is not criticism, out of both fear of facing backlash themselves and disappointment.
To try to quell this PR nightmare, Tarte quickly announced that they had more shades planned for a later release, but after releasing a statement excusing the line with, "Additional shades are usually added seasonally, which makes sense because your complexion tends to be paler in the Winter and darker in the Summer months," completely ignoring those with darker skin year round. Though they have since issued another apology, admitting their faults, promising that they "can and will do better", Tarte remains in hot water and has greatly damaged their reputation.

Source: http://bit.ly/2rYwQJ3

In an effort to appear more inclusive, most cosmetics companies are now featuring swatches of their products on more than one skin tone in their advertisements and product shots. However, this can backfire on companies when this strategy only showcases how limited their shade ranges are, which was has been a recent case for several different brands, such as It Cosmetics, Almay, and specifically YSL with their All Hours concealer. They released a promotional image on their Instagram, which was also featured as a product preview on Sephora's website. The image in question featured all shades of their foundation swatched on women of three different complexions, light, medium, and deep, despite there only being light to medium shades, with one dark shade that was not nearly dark enough to match the deep model's skin tone. The brand also faced criticism on social media and has yet to comment on the controversy.

Source: http://seph.me/2E6PHpW

With these expectations set, makeup companies are challenged to do better, to adopt inclusivity into their business plans, not just faking it to keep up with what some believe is a trend, rather than a necessary change in the industry. This sore lack shows that these companies have not been paying attention to who their audiences are and are missing out on vast opportunities in the marketplace. With this push from social media, the beauty industry can expect to change how they conduct campaigns from here on out, or else they will face backlash from consumers, due to these long-awaited expectations finally set in place. If companies fail to listen to consumers and answer this demand, they will likely continue to see decreases in sales and increased PR troubles.

H&M's sweatshirt ad controversy

Recently, the clothing brand H&M have come under serious scrutiny for releasing an ad that shows a black child adverting a green sweatshirt that says "Coolest Monkey in the Jungle." Once the ad reached the attention of the public, H&M was quickly criticized for promoting a racist ideology of comparing black people to monkeys. The incident has caused H&M to lose a lot of their collaborators and celebrity endorsers. Since the negative outcry from the public was strong, H&M have removed the ad and they have said to have hired a diversity leader to prevent this type of incident happening again. The parents of the child who was modeling in the sweatshirt stated that they did not think the ad was racist, but others within the public are not convinced. Many other articles have come out against H&M since this controversy, highlighting some other instances where the company has been perceived as insensitive to certain cultures. This example shows the importance of knowing the people one is trying to sell to along with the current social climate that those desired targets are living in. One could argue that because of the racial tensions that have been escalated within America, people responded more negatively to this ad then they would have if it was released five years ago. Being able to know the values of  a society and how a consumer perceives an ad is extremely important because their reaction to the ad can be inflated by the events that are happening around them. 

Geico "Unskippable" Ads

A few years ago, Geico came out with advertisements that were meant for Youtube and social media. These ads are so short that they are meant to be unskippable. During the time that the ad plays, Geico references the fact that you cannot skip the ads in different humorous ways.

I thought this was a unique and interesting idea when I first saw these ads playing before Youtube videos and such, something that nobody else had thought of. Usually many ads that play before a Youtube video are long enough that people are able to skip them, and the majority of the time people do choose to do that. With the release of these ads from Geico, they are sort of poking fun at this whole concept and making short enough ads that they don't need to be skipped.


Here's an example of one of these ads:

Propaganda and Women

Propaganda has been utilized primarily, and most memorably, for times of war and the need for national involvement. The official definition of of propaganda, from dictionary.com is: "information, ideas, or rumors deliberately spread widely to help or harm a person, group, movement, institution, nation, etc." The information it afforded and the big idea that, "YOU," could make a difference in the World War was all the people in the people of the United States needed in that time to act and make a difference. Propaganda's effectiveness played on the nation's high patriotism as well as the, to the point, call-to-action message tactic.

Some of the pieces feature women as independent homemakers, but in others, they are seen as slightly provocative showgirl type characters. Treatments of women in the propaganda of that time was to satiate two different audiences. On the one hand, there were some young men who were enticed by the pride, honor, and respect they would gain with their contribution. They would think of how something such as the "women back home" and how they would treat a military man returning from war. On the other, there were women who wanted to be perceived just as strong as the men of that time of national distress.  Here are some examples of the portrayal of the "strong and successful" type of women in some WWII propaganda pieces.

http://i.imgur.com/POiJ21K.jpg

https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/393431717428316290

https://scripophily.net/womarcorwacp.html

Women in WWII are always a topic of interest, especially when it comes to the iconic piece, "Rosie the Riveter." There was a huge increase in work productivity, due to the women working on the home front as well as over 350,000 women working in military uniform. The images and ideals were strong and the messages worked. I believe the women portrayed in propaganda made a huge statement for their "new-found" capabilities. During the time of role changes and gender expectations, the women depicted on these call-to-action art pieces proved that the idea of a strong, powerful character did not only lie in men. It proved that women had a voice and it posed a kind of emotional, humble connection to the kinds of contributions made to the war. Women had just as much to give to the country as their male counterparts and then some.

In comparison to this, this time last year we saw women in some modern day pieces of propaganda in efforts to aid in President Trump's protest. The same artist, Shepard Fairey, who created Barack Obama's "Hope" image in 2008, had released these.

http://www.cnn.com/style/gallery/shepard-fairey-art/index.html

http://www.cnn.com/style/gallery/shepard-fairey-art/index.html

http://www.cnn.com/style/gallery/shepard-fairey-art/index.html

These politically charged pieces were released before Trump's Inauguration and the Women's March. Trump did not provide his public with the best image of himself when it came to his treatment of women and people of different ethnicity; and these are assumed to be a way to fight back and stand up to Trump and his lack of professionalism and courtesy. The art also calls upon the rest of the nation to realize their own humility and personal connection to the women portrayed. They are just as important as anyone else and have a voice just as loud. It is pieces like these that help us to reflect, entice us to change, and call us to do. 

A Different Way to Advertise: Spreading an Important Message

Many think of advertisements as just videos, commercials, and print advertisements, however music is becoming a popular place to see product placements and other forms of endorsements, but none have been as impactful as rapper Logic's new song 1-800-273-8255. The song itself highlights the issue of suicide with the title being the phone number for the National Suicide Prevention Hotline. 

In the song, Logic raps from the perspective of a caller to the hotline, explaining his feelings and problems. Logic explains how everyone thinks they know what he's going through and understand his pain, but he feels alone and completely lost. The song then progresses through as the "caller" speaks to the other line and is eventually helped. The song finishes with "I wanna feel alive" and "I don't want to die anymore"

This song helped bring awareness to an actual problem and brought help and a potential solution. According to the National Suicide Prevention Hotline, there was an immediate and lasting impact with calls increasing by 27% on the day of its release in April, while google saw a 100% increase in the number of searches. Google has also reported that the hotline is now being searched 25% more than before the songs release. In August, Logic preformed the song in August on the MTV Music Awards, bringing even more awareness, with the Hotline receiving over 5,000 calls that day, with call volumes remaining at a higher rate than before the release. 

The release of the song is not a traditional form of advertising. The song was not sponsored by anyone, and was purely written out of passion for an issue and to raise awareness. The song almost serves as more of a PSA instead of an advertisement, but the effect of the song has left a largely positive and helpful impact.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/cycUHgg0zzU?rel=0" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Dove's 'Choose Beautiful' Campaign

In 2015, Dove released a campaign titled 'Choose Beautiful' which was part of their many advertisements for their Movement for Self Esteem. As in many of Dove's campaigns, women from around the world are called to renounce the media's portrayal of perfection and replace them with a strong message of female empowerment. 

This particular campaign focused on women in five different global cities. Each woman was given the opportunity to walk through one of two doors. One held a sign above that read, 'Average' and the other 'Beautiful'. The video showed a large majority of the women chose to walk through the door labeled 'Average.' In addition, a few women made comments attempting to justify their decisions such as "Beautiful, to me, felt too far out of reach" or " I went through the average door. I didn't even hesitate." Other women regretted their decisions automatically, "I didn't feel good after walking through the door that said average, because obviously I had treated myself as average." 

Soon, the tempo of the advertisement increases as many women find the confidence to walk through the door labeled beautiful and ultimately chose beautiful. Although the campaign consisted of what was meant to be a simple inspirational message, it received a hefty amount of backlash. Kat Gordon, founder of the 3% Conference, which advocates more female leadership in advertising, called the 'Choose Beautiful' campaign, “heavy-handed and manipulative." Viewers complained that the ad was patronizing. Many questioned what changed the women's opinions of themselves. In addition, many argued that the campaign was not rooted in science since Dove did not perform an actual social experiment. Dove focused on the statistic that only 4% of women think they're beautiful. However, they did not consider the research that 71% of women are satisfied with their beauty. 

It seems odd that many viewers disapproved of a campaign whose purpose was centered around helping women to see their own beauty. Regardless of the backlash, Dove's campaign continued to see amazing results through empowerment marketing.

Click the link below to watch Dove's 'Choose Beautiful' campaign. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=59&v=7DdM-4siaQw

State Farm Commercial: Neighborhood of Good Campaign

This past holiday season, State Farm debuted their commercial titled, "Don't You (Forget About Me)" which was used to promote the company's Neighborhood of Good campaign. The commercial features a man singing the song, "Don't You Forget About Me", while in a shelter filled with many volunteers and homeless adults and children. Friendly conversations can be seen taking place, as food and drinks are given out, while the shelter illuminates with warm lighting and a glowing Christmas tree. The camera then does a close up of the man singing, as he cups his hands together while taking a   quick break from playing the piano to warm up his fingers. The camera then pans out to reveal the man sitting in the exact same spot, however now the shelter is virtually empty of volunteers, while many homeless people are still gathered around. "The season of giving ends, but the need remains," is  then displayed on the screen, which then transitions into, "Volunteer at NeigborhoodofGood.com."

During the holidays, a high demand for volunteers for the homeless and poor can be prominently seen. The Salvation Army stands outside of hectic businesses in the hopes that people will donate money to help those less fortunate. Since the Christmas season is all about giving, it is easy for people to feel an emotional need to donate or contribute in any way they can. That is what organizations like the Salvation Army count on, and the holidays are usually the time of the year when they do receive the most money and donations. But for many people, the spirit of giving can dissipate after the season is over. State Farm decided to call attention to that while also giving viewers a solution on how to fix it by joining their movement and becoming a volunteer. The message of their commercial is true; homeless people will still remain homeless after Christmas, just like less fortunate people will remain poor. Although an unfortunate reality, it is something that people should be reminded of. The commercial touched on the emotional appeal of its viewers, using as very realistic depiction of a homeless shelter and homeless people. The song, "Don't You Forget About Me," ads an auditory touch which makes the audience feel connected just a little bit more.

The full commercial can be seen below:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ceK5ukiw6cc

Samsung: Growing Up Campaign

During their "Growing up” campaign, Samsung was able to use a variety of advertising strategies to communicate with smartphone users.  The iPhone once started out as a revolutionary product that could provide tools and services to consumers, however Apple seems to be more concerned with profit, as opposed to providing such services.  Samsung used competitive strategies to drive this campaign, targeting areas of weakness for Apple that consumers are beginning to become concerned about.  

Check out how: Samsung Trends Compared to Apple

As years go by, prices of Apple products, specifically the iPhone, continue to rise.  However, although prices are rising, there seems to be a lack of innovation with each model.  Each release usually introduces new charging cords, new cases, new headphones, and several other products that need to be purchased with the new model, resulting in a very large grand total.  This was shown during the campaign, when the Apple user had several cords plugged into the iPhone and the Samsung user did not.  Samsung was also able to portraying that Apple consumers can be viewed as "prisoners" who are unable or unwilling to stray from Apple no matter what.  This was shown, when Apple customers were waiting outside in the rain, with the Samsung consumer casually walking by.  With recent criticism of the price of the iPhone X, being accused of slowing down older models, as well as the issues Samsung addressed in this campaign, many wonder if Apple consumers will begin to seek other providers.

Samsung was able to show that Apple has become more of a brand as opposed to a product and service provider.  Consumers are more concerned with having the latest iPhone, rather than buying a product for the specific services it offers.  Some Apple consumers will even order the newest iPhone before actually testing it.  These are all issues that Samsung was able to bring to light.  There are other Smartphone providers that can provide similar and some may argue, more innovative services and Samsung was able to demonstrate that with their “Growing Up” advertising campaign.

Burger King Anti-Bullying Ad

Late last year, Burger King released a video ad that was a PSA for anti-bullying. It grabbed the attention of a lot of people when it was first released, since it was something so different from typical Burger King and other fast food advertisements.

In the video, actors are shown where some kids are bullying another kid inside of the Burger King restaurant. There are hidden cameras inside the restaurant filming everything and the reactions of the customers. Also, behind the counter, another actor playing a worker in the restaurant is shown beating up the whoppers that people ordered so that when they receive their food, it is messy and smashed.

The hidden cameras show more people going up to the counter and complaining about the food that they received and only about one or two people going over to the kid who is being bullied to try and help him. The majority of people who clearly witnessed the bullied kid chose to ignore it and instead complain about their food.

The whole point of this ad is to show that people will complain about their burger being "bullied, as Burger King called it, but they are not at all likely to do something when they witness another person in the restaurant being bullied.

I believe Burger King released this ad in order to spread more awareness about how much bullying actually occurs, especially in pre-teens and teens, in order to encourage people to stick up for others when they see something that is wrong. Burger King was also very smart with the release of this ad, because it gained them a lot of positive attention and allowed them to stand out from other fast food restaurants.

The Power of Music within Advertising.

Music can not only make an advertisement more impactful and more enjoyable to watch, but using music in an ad allows for the viewer to be able retain the information better than they would if the ad did not have music. Commercials such as Good Goes Around by Cheerios shows how music can even be the central part of the advertisement. Through song, Cheerios is able to create a powerful and effective ad  as a result of presenting their message in song form. This way consumers have a higher chance of remembering the commercial and the message behind it because of the song that can get easily stuck in your head, which is Cherrios‘ desired reaction. Music can not only enhance a commercial but it can be the primary medium that explains and reminds consumers about the product in a way that does not make the consumer think that they are being sold to.



https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rxjEQ8-P1OU