No matter
how it is achieved, a product that can be made to appeal to a younger
generation as well as a mature audience is a successful product. Love’s Baby
Soft is a brand that has done just this for their line of body care
merchandise. By creating a link between adolescence and sexuality in their
advertisements, this company has managed to craft perfumes, lotions, and body
washes that have an “irresistible, clean baby smell, grown up enough to be
sexy”. Although the gap between sensuality and immaturity seems too wide to be
connected, the image and textual elements this business chose for their ads
have done just that. Many adverting companies just like this one are taking
full advantage of our appearance-obsessed generation of people and are
broadening their horizons to target the younger generation as well as the
older. One advertisement in particular has gone to dramatic lengths to create a
brand with far reaching demographics, from young girls dazzled by maturity to
older females intrigued by the playful youthfulness of their products. One may
be led to believe that the images on the advertisement are solely meant to
attract pre-teenage girls, when really this ad does a successful job at
attracting the eye of young children as well as pre-teens.
This
advertisement for Love Cosmetics is a blatant display of the market shifting
their ads to appeal to young girls. The main image taking up the whole page
consists of a very young girl with hair curled and styled to be big and
luscious, eyes boldly wearing dramatic and dark mascara, lips made glossy and
plump with lipstick, and arms clenching a white teddy bear to her chest. From the
way she was beautified to a look similar to that of Marilyn Monroe, to the
intense head on look she is giving the camera as her dainty hand holds the
bear, this image was clearly created to apply a more sultry and grown up look
to a young girl. The color of the stuffed bear, the child’s shirt, and even the
slogan are all white, which most likely was selectively chosen to apply the
feelings of purity, innocence, and virginity to the sensual-looking child.
Their slogan is boldly placed in the top middle of the advertisement and it
states “Love’s Baby Soft. Because innocence is sexier than you think.” This
line clearly portrays the message they seek to get across to the viewers. They
are making a connection between the innocence of adolescence and sexuality of
maturity to appeal to a younger teen who is in the process of becoming a woman
and also to a child who looks up to matured women and desires to be like them.
The slogan alone undoubtedly shows the preposterous advertising techniques used
in the textual elements of this ad. Additionally, in the bottom left corner of
the page there is an image of the different products they sell along with a few
small sentences promoting them placed below. The products themselves are petite
with cute girly colors and fonts that attract the same youthful generation. Although
it may seem obvious, one could argue that the advertisement is not in fact
targeting pre-teenage girls.
Looking at
this advertisement, one may say that although the foremost image is of a child,
it does not necessarily mean that the intended consumer is in fact children. The
innocent little girl could be present simply to give a youthful vibe to the
advertisement and to promote the “baby” softness of the product. Although I can
see why one could be led to believe this by glimpsing at the advertisement, having
prior knowledge of this product I can say that the point of having the little
girl on the cover is to make other young girls look up to her and want the
product to create a similar look for themselves. The grown up beauty she has
complements her prepubescent features in a way that makes her a role model for
the younger generation to incorporate the more sultry components into their own
looks. Although it may be a very frowned upon notion, the slogan even says that
innocence can be made to be sexy, which implies that it strives to do just
that.
The target
audience for this advertisement is young girls who are starting to become women
and even younger girls who look up to the mature feminine characteristics of
women. More specifically, according to the VALS2 Network, the closest general
audience this advertisement is aiming towards is the strivers. They fit in this
category because although they understand the importance of status and highly
value it, they do not have the resources to supplement their desire to form
this enriching brand. They also have the potential to become an achiever in the
future, which are people who highly value their jobs and materialistic and
unnecessary materialistic items. The purpose of this advertisement is to
attract a younger generation of girls to this brand of products by showing them
an image of a girl that could potentially be someone they want to mirror. This
girl can spark the thought that if they get this product they can be like her
or they can obtain similar traits that she has that make her physically
attractive. It simultaneously attracts the attention of a little bit older
girls by giving the child mature features that they are ready to bring out in
themselves and by describing it as sexy, which girls are beginning to desire to
be. I believe that, although it uses dramatic tactics to do so, this
advertisement is effective and successfully conveys its message. It effectively
shows an image that is both youthful and lustful which can very well cause
younger girls to buy their products because of the girl they see and the lines
they read. The emotional appeal it uses also ensures that the audience will
remain familiar with their brand.
In
conclusion, this advertisement for Love’s Baby Soft products successfully, yet
controversially, attracted an audience of very young girls as well as girls who
are becoming women. The sultry and mature image of the young child provides an
innocent and pure take on sexiness that makes this a very effective ad for that
young crowd. It provides a new take on adolescence and gives children a new
kind of girl they want to be. This advertisement is just one of many dramatic
yet powerful advertisements that are being to widen their demographics to
children. Who knows what kind of products will begin to appeal to the younger
generation in the future due to the cleverness of advertisement companies.
Works Cited
Cardona, Mercedes. “Young Girls Targeted By Makeup Companies.”
Frank W Baker. 27 November 2000. Web. 15 September 2014. http://www.frankwbaker.com/young_girls_targeted_by_makeup.htm
Collins, Jessanne. “Girl Powder: A Cultural History Of Love’s
Baby Soft.” Jessanne Collins. The Awl. 5 March 2013. Web. 21 September
2014.
http://www.theawl.com/2013/03/girl-powder-a-cultural-history-of-loves-baby-soft
Krupnick, Ellie. “Cosmetic Surgery Ad Banned By ASA For
Targeting Young Girls.” The Huffington Post. The Huffington Post. 7 December
2011. Web. 15 September 2014
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