August 3, 2007
Mascara Ad Opens Eyes
This time it really is all about trust. We know that consumers want information about products before they decide whether or not to make a purchase. But they also want to believe the information provided when they see or read an advertisement.
The latest campaign in the UK to be stopped in its tracks by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), an “independent body set up by the advertising industry to police the rules laid down in the advertising codes,” as it describes itself, was for L’Oreal’s Telescopic mascara. As the BBC reported it, the company misled viewers on two counts. First, it neglected to mention that celebrity front-woman, Penelope Cruz, was wearing false eyelashes. Secondly, it “did not make clear that the claim referred to an increase in the ‘appearance’ of lash length” rather than an actual increase in length.
The U.K.’s media pounced on the story.
Columnist Jess Cartner-Morley in The Guardian was scathing, particularly about ads for cosmetics and beauty treatments (remember the anti-aging creams whose claims were tested a few months ago?). “So L’Oreal used fake eyelashes in a mascara advert? No surprise there,” she says. “Most women know that the marketing tricks of cosmetics firms are too absurd to take seriously.”
Others weren’t so dismissive about the issue of misleading the public. Martin Hickman, Consumer Affairs Correspondent for The Independent, told it straight, simply pointing out that the company felt Ms. Cruz’s “natural beauty needed enhancing” in spite of her Latin looks having “seduced cinema audiences worldwide.” In order to demonstrate that its mascara “could achieve ‘out of this world lashes,’” her eyes were enhanced with false ones. In its defense, L’Oreal said it was “common industry practice” to use artificial lashes.
Advertising guru and commentator, Naresh Ramchandani, was very concerned, though, and used the Media Guardian to sound off about how L’Oreal’s “dishonesty casts serious questions over not only all of L’Oreal’s advertising but over advertising as a whole.”
Meanwhile, Ms. Cartner-Morley confessed that she still purchased the mascara, in spite of the ad. “Which could,” she writes, “be taken as evidence that I have been brainwashed by the advertising industry” — leading to curiosity about whether consumers really care about truth in advertising or just take claims with a large pinch of (possibly unhealthy) salt and whether or not it matters either way.
Discussion Question: How important is honesty in advertising campaigns? Do
you think consumers have grown accustomed to hyped-up or even false claims
in advertising? What lessons are there in this for marketers?
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Of course this is industry standard and I think deep down, if they thought about it, the average consumer knows this. What you see in an ad is completely artificial and a lot of work has been put into getting the look just right–and even after the perfect shot is taken, then it’s time for digital editing! Consumers just don’t think about that side of things though 99% of the time unless they’re in the business. An effective ad sells the product, and deflects the consumer from trying to see through the “gimmick.” It’s like watching an illusionist. Of course he’s not REALLY making a tiger disappear but most people are just happy to sit back and enjoy the show.
Honesty in advertising is very important. Sooner or later, consumers will catch up with dishonesty. Also, how can one build a brand or sustain a brand without inspiring trust in the brand, and how can a company inspire trust based on false advertising? Honesty or dishonesty in advertising reflects moral standards of the senior management of the company.
Cosmetic companies don’t sell reality, they sell dreams. This doesn’t make false or exaggerated advertising right, just inevitable.
Whatever happened to the term “truth in advertising”? I’m more surprised at the response by the spokesperson, “everyone does it in the cosmetics business,” which leads a consumer to the impression that we’ll tell you whatever it takes to sell you our products.
Excellent discussion topic, Bernice. And what a good question! How important is honesty? It appears to depend on whom you ask. For those who might focus on “industry practice,” sales, and profits, the answer might be, “It is critical to be honest, but the L’Oreal story isn’t an example of dishonesty.”
It might also depend on how you ask the question and what information you provide when you do. I would be surprised if any of the respondents to this story on RetailWire will say anything but, “Honesty is critical, and L’Oreal was wrong.” How could we NOT say this?
I believe we need to look a little deeper here to find out what we can learn from this. Let me make an assumption about how the L’Oreal brand manager and their ad agency executive might have been thinking in their ad-strategy meeting: “This is a product that is really different from our competitors’ products, so how can we really show this off? What if we use some very simple and elegant images to try to show this in a powerful way? We need to give the viewers a very strong, almost subliminal, ‘punch’ about the lashes, so let’s really contrast the lashes.” I can easily see how this kind of thinking would lead to using false eyelashes, since these folks would certainly know that others in their positions have used false lashes many times.
We have found literally hundreds of examples of this kind of thinking and consequences in the branding and marketing world over the last 20 years–for example, every single one of the models on men’s anti-graying hair products have grey coloring added to their hair in the “before” photos, and have only their natural hair color in the “after” photos (including in the videos for these products shown on television). The problem here is that a mindset shifts subtly when looking at things like “differentiation,” “branding,” “subliminal,” and the like. This mindset does not include anything to do with the other factors that come into play in a mindset considering things like “ethics.” Many of us may know what this is like when we focus intently on anything–for example, if you love a certain piece of music and you listen intently to it, the last thing you might think about is what you ate for dinner last night. An intense mindset does not range freely over lightly-associated topics.
This is all part of our extensive research on what we call the Master System of organizations. The Master System’s operations are incredibly fascinating, because they are so little known and so powerful and lead to such profound consequences. We might scold others for “advertising dishonesty” or for ethical lapses of all kinds, but all the scolding in the world will not change this behavior, because the Master System is not influenced by condemnation.
While the customer’s attention span is next to zero, they are not stupid. And word spreads like wildfire especially when it comes to negative interactions with products. If a product does not hold up to the claims and hype orchestrated by the maker, it will filter down and affect sales negatively. I believe consumers are numb to gimmicky type advertisements and are really only looking for what the product does, where can I buy it and how much.
I’m shocked–shocked!–to think that a cosmetics company used “tricks of the trade” to help sell one of its products. The practice of doctoring either the model or the photograph itself is presumably widespread, and it’s naive to think otherwise. Think of the amount of “styling” that happens to other CPG categories, such as food packaging or apparel advertising. Whether the L’Oreal ad is misleading (and therefore unethical) is another story, but that opens a much broader discussion about marketing and advertising practices.
Whether it’s misleading cosmetics ads or misleading auto lease ads or misleading convenience food ads or misleading real estate ads or spam fraud, the impact raises marketing costs for everyone. Because whether the next message is honest or not, many people will automatically dismiss it. Once you’ve been burned 100,000 times, you tune out. It takes heroic efforts to reach you. Think of how effective advertising would be, and how low cost, if people could believe it.
I think you can sum up the entire discussion with one quick quote:
“You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.”
Abraham Lincoln
Len Lewis has it right. Beauty products are all about perception. How can you prove a claim that a product “makes you more beautiful”? It is common practice to use celebrity models in advertising. Nobody actually expects to look like the model just because they use the product.
Michael Douglas starred in a movie titled “Falling Down.” The tagline for the movie was “The adventures of an ordinary man at war with the everyday world.” His dissatisfaction with dishonesty in advertising drove him to murder!
As an African-American consumer I know Queen Latifah’s long eyelashes are fake and her skin isn’t as flawless as it appears, not with all free radicals wrecking havoc in the atmosphere; but I am drawn to her Cover Girl commercials because first I can identify with her because she is an African-American female and second, I accept her persona of being a reputable person, a person I can trust. So I buy into the illusion of Cover Girl massacre creating longer lashes and makeup coverage that will give me flawless skin too. It is my hope that what I have purchased does what it has been advertised to do. But what is interesting is that I do not become angry, just disappointed when it doesn’t.
Honesty should not only be important in advertising and marketing, but all aspects of business and everyday life.
As a marketer it is your job to sell the product, if the majority of consumers are like me and know that the advertisement is not as truthful as it appears and buys the product anyway, then that marketer has done her job well.
My blood boils every time I encounter the hackneyed concept of advertising being inherently “hyped-up” or systemically containing “false claims.” After working for four national ad agencies on a myriad of accounts, I never once encountered this practice on my accounts or as part of agency policy on other accounts. Those of you who have worked in advertising and have purposely created misleading ads please step forward. Just as I thought, no one. If one person is found to be cheating on their taxes, does that mean everyone does? No? So, why paint all of advertising with this (mascara) brush?
This topic smacks of the conspiracy theory, rabble-rousing, “common wisdom” which insists that something is true because “everybody” says so. Where there’s a dollop of truth, most people love to jump to the most damning conclusion. It’s human nature. But that doesn’t make it true. My advice to those folks is not to let their membership in the Roswell Reconnaissance Club lapse. Oh, and don’t forget to order your Princess Di annual candlelight vigil DVD and yearbook. Looks great on the coffee table.
The Lashologist Council of America launched the Certified Lashologist Credential, a competency-based test designed to help improve the quality of this professional service to the public.
Based on your article, it appears at a pivotal time, and while the demand for Lashologists continues to rise, there aren’t enough qualified workers to meet the need. The credential, Certified Lashologsit, will help strengthen the Lashologist workforce, making this an attractive career option for new and experienced personal assistance workers by putting an emphasis on training, education and professional development. At the same time, it will help professionalize the Lashologist workforce by: 1) providing consumers with a reliable way to assess the knowledge of those they hire; 2) giving agencies and employers a customer-centered assessment tool; 3) establishing a national standard for policy makers; and 4) allowing workers in this field to demonstrate their professionalism and skill.
Lashologists in the field go through rigorous training and whatever mandated curriculum. But there has not been a national recognition for their expertise. This credential demonstrates that our practitioners and staff are qualified, knowledgeable and meet an industry standard – giving great benefit to the clientele we serve and our firms a competitive advantage. Lashologist workers are not often recognized for the high skill level they possess, and high turnover plagues the profession due in part to lack of professional development opportunities.
Please visit the Lashologist Council of America at http://www.lashologist.org to learn more.
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Of course this is industry standard and I think deep down, if they thought about it, the average consumer knows this. What you see in an ad is completely artificial and a lot of work has been put into getting the look just right–and even after the perfect shot is taken, then it’s time for digital editing! Consumers just don’t think about that side of things though 99% of the time unless they’re in the business. An effective ad sells the product, and deflects the consumer from trying to see through the “gimmick.” It’s like watching an illusionist. Of course he’s not REALLY making a tiger disappear but most people are just happy to sit back and enjoy the show.
Honesty in advertising is very important. Sooner or later, consumers will catch up with dishonesty. Also, how can one build a brand or sustain a brand without inspiring trust in the brand, and how can a company inspire trust based on false advertising? Honesty or dishonesty in advertising reflects moral standards of the senior management of the company.
Cosmetic companies don’t sell reality, they sell dreams. This doesn’t make false or exaggerated advertising right, just inevitable.
Whatever happened to the term “truth in advertising”? I’m more surprised at the response by the spokesperson, “everyone does it in the cosmetics business,” which leads a consumer to the impression that we’ll tell you whatever it takes to sell you our products.
Excellent discussion topic, Bernice. And what a good question! How important is honesty? It appears to depend on whom you ask. For those who might focus on “industry practice,” sales, and profits, the answer might be, “It is critical to be honest, but the L’Oreal story isn’t an example of dishonesty.”
It might also depend on how you ask the question and what information you provide when you do. I would be surprised if any of the respondents to this story on RetailWire will say anything but, “Honesty is critical, and L’Oreal was wrong.” How could we NOT say this?
I believe we need to look a little deeper here to find out what we can learn from this. Let me make an assumption about how the L’Oreal brand manager and their ad agency executive might have been thinking in their ad-strategy meeting: “This is a product that is really different from our competitors’ products, so how can we really show this off? What if we use some very simple and elegant images to try to show this in a powerful way? We need to give the viewers a very strong, almost subliminal, ‘punch’ about the lashes, so let’s really contrast the lashes.” I can easily see how this kind of thinking would lead to using false eyelashes, since these folks would certainly know that others in their positions have used false lashes many times.
We have found literally hundreds of examples of this kind of thinking and consequences in the branding and marketing world over the last 20 years–for example, every single one of the models on men’s anti-graying hair products have grey coloring added to their hair in the “before” photos, and have only their natural hair color in the “after” photos (including in the videos for these products shown on television). The problem here is that a mindset shifts subtly when looking at things like “differentiation,” “branding,” “subliminal,” and the like. This mindset does not include anything to do with the other factors that come into play in a mindset considering things like “ethics.” Many of us may know what this is like when we focus intently on anything–for example, if you love a certain piece of music and you listen intently to it, the last thing you might think about is what you ate for dinner last night. An intense mindset does not range freely over lightly-associated topics.
This is all part of our extensive research on what we call the Master System of organizations. The Master System’s operations are incredibly fascinating, because they are so little known and so powerful and lead to such profound consequences. We might scold others for “advertising dishonesty” or for ethical lapses of all kinds, but all the scolding in the world will not change this behavior, because the Master System is not influenced by condemnation.
While the customer’s attention span is next to zero, they are not stupid. And word spreads like wildfire especially when it comes to negative interactions with products. If a product does not hold up to the claims and hype orchestrated by the maker, it will filter down and affect sales negatively. I believe consumers are numb to gimmicky type advertisements and are really only looking for what the product does, where can I buy it and how much.
I’m shocked–shocked!–to think that a cosmetics company used “tricks of the trade” to help sell one of its products. The practice of doctoring either the model or the photograph itself is presumably widespread, and it’s naive to think otherwise. Think of the amount of “styling” that happens to other CPG categories, such as food packaging or apparel advertising. Whether the L’Oreal ad is misleading (and therefore unethical) is another story, but that opens a much broader discussion about marketing and advertising practices.
Whether it’s misleading cosmetics ads or misleading auto lease ads or misleading convenience food ads or misleading real estate ads or spam fraud, the impact raises marketing costs for everyone. Because whether the next message is honest or not, many people will automatically dismiss it. Once you’ve been burned 100,000 times, you tune out. It takes heroic efforts to reach you. Think of how effective advertising would be, and how low cost, if people could believe it.
I think you can sum up the entire discussion with one quick quote:
“You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.”
Abraham Lincoln
Len Lewis has it right. Beauty products are all about perception. How can you prove a claim that a product “makes you more beautiful”? It is common practice to use celebrity models in advertising. Nobody actually expects to look like the model just because they use the product.
Michael Douglas starred in a movie titled “Falling Down.” The tagline for the movie was “The adventures of an ordinary man at war with the everyday world.” His dissatisfaction with dishonesty in advertising drove him to murder!
As an African-American consumer I know Queen Latifah’s long eyelashes are fake and her skin isn’t as flawless as it appears, not with all free radicals wrecking havoc in the atmosphere; but I am drawn to her Cover Girl commercials because first I can identify with her because she is an African-American female and second, I accept her persona of being a reputable person, a person I can trust. So I buy into the illusion of Cover Girl massacre creating longer lashes and makeup coverage that will give me flawless skin too. It is my hope that what I have purchased does what it has been advertised to do. But what is interesting is that I do not become angry, just disappointed when it doesn’t.
Honesty should not only be important in advertising and marketing, but all aspects of business and everyday life.
As a marketer it is your job to sell the product, if the majority of consumers are like me and know that the advertisement is not as truthful as it appears and buys the product anyway, then that marketer has done her job well.
My blood boils every time I encounter the hackneyed concept of advertising being inherently “hyped-up” or systemically containing “false claims.” After working for four national ad agencies on a myriad of accounts, I never once encountered this practice on my accounts or as part of agency policy on other accounts. Those of you who have worked in advertising and have purposely created misleading ads please step forward. Just as I thought, no one. If one person is found to be cheating on their taxes, does that mean everyone does? No? So, why paint all of advertising with this (mascara) brush?
This topic smacks of the conspiracy theory, rabble-rousing, “common wisdom” which insists that something is true because “everybody” says so. Where there’s a dollop of truth, most people love to jump to the most damning conclusion. It’s human nature. But that doesn’t make it true. My advice to those folks is not to let their membership in the Roswell Reconnaissance Club lapse. Oh, and don’t forget to order your Princess Di annual candlelight vigil DVD and yearbook. Looks great on the coffee table.
The Lashologist Council of America launched the Certified Lashologist Credential, a competency-based test designed to help improve the quality of this professional service to the public.
Based on your article, it appears at a pivotal time, and while the demand for Lashologists continues to rise, there aren’t enough qualified workers to meet the need. The credential, Certified Lashologsit, will help strengthen the Lashologist workforce, making this an attractive career option for new and experienced personal assistance workers by putting an emphasis on training, education and professional development. At the same time, it will help professionalize the Lashologist workforce by: 1) providing consumers with a reliable way to assess the knowledge of those they hire; 2) giving agencies and employers a customer-centered assessment tool; 3) establishing a national standard for policy makers; and 4) allowing workers in this field to demonstrate their professionalism and skill.
Lashologists in the field go through rigorous training and whatever mandated curriculum. But there has not been a national recognition for their expertise. This credential demonstrates that our practitioners and staff are qualified, knowledgeable and meet an industry standard – giving great benefit to the clientele we serve and our firms a competitive advantage. Lashologist workers are not often recognized for the high skill level they possess, and high turnover plagues the profession due in part to lack of professional development opportunities.
Please visit the Lashologist Council of America at http://www.lashologist.org to learn more.