Good Example Of Essay On Marie Claire Mouth AD: Underneath Every Woman’s Skin

One of the leading marketing tools is advertisements. The information about a brand aimed at a specific target market is disseminated through various mediums like print and broadcast, with paid space or time, respectively. With proper positioning of these thoroughly-made contemporary symbols, defines the sign of identity, the mark or label which differentiates one product from the other, these advertisements label the products. Hence, this makes advertising the easiest path marketing communication could take to ensure the availability of information, and the efficacy of marketing itself.
Marketing communication process has two perspectives – internal and external marketing – whereby the former applies marketing, human resource management, with related theories and principles to help the employees in the organization motivate, manage, and cooperate in order to improve the way they serve external customers and each other; this is the starting point of marketing since the employees are the first (internal) market for the organization. Thus, internal marketing could be defined as a tool of promoting the organization and its products to its own employees. Meanwhile, the latter (external marketing) is the traditional marketing activities of the organization, which may be product development, price setting, communication, and distribution, which makes a connection between the organization and its customers. It is under this category where advertisements fall since these are the ones visible to the customers, intending to satisfy the consumers’ needs.
The researcher has chosen to analyze the Marie Claire: Ads of the World, in Philippine context. (Attached herein is a copy of the advertisement). Marie Claire is an international women’s monthly magazine franchised and distributed across the globe. The target audience of this magazine ranges from 25 to 39 year-old women, with the goal to make a stand on global and social issues especially relating to women. With this, the magazine can certainly relate its audience to present scenario and give them an opportunity to be involved at least.
The ad the researcher has chosen is about the Reproductive Health Bill in Philippines which is one of the most controversial issues in the said country at present. This Bill seeks to legalize unaccepted practices in the Philippines, such as abortion, to help protect women from child-birth mortality or from unhealthy pregnancy; more so, the Bill facilitates the use of contraceptives such as birth-control pills, IUD, condom, etcetera. At the bottom of the print ad it says “Don’t let anyone else speak for you”, which is clearly epitomized in the image of a woman with a different mouth (somewhat of a male’s because of its beard) stitched on her face. The ad generally sells the support of Marie Claire to the said Reproductive Health Bill, solely because it is for the protection and welfare of the Filipinas (plural form of the Philippine term for a woman of Filipino descent). The ad has no other tagline than that aforementioned, and no other “model” is seen apart from the woman with a stitched mouth.
Looking through the artistic side of the lay-out, the add is given a more dramatic look with the use of a faded or lesser saturation – a pale and morbid reality of women’s health condition and risk – something that shows the sadness in the situation within the ad, intensifying the enormous leap the Bill would give to women once this is implemented. The model’s blank stare adds glory to the message of the ad, giving a realization that women, once you pacify them and as long as somebody else is speaking on their behalf, are nothing but hollow bodies.
With this powerful and compelling print ad, it perfectly assumes that its audiences are no more than people who tend to disprove the passage of the Reproductive Health Bill or those who are plainly apathetic towards this social issue; hence, the ad particularly sells not the Bill but the credibility of Marie Claire in making a stand for women.
It is quite confusing whether the ad is directed to the particular target audience of Marie Claire, or if it is with the said age group. But in this analysis, the researcher goes with the latter, because the magazine, aside from being an entertainment for women, also acts as a “support system” to women of the said age bracket.
Technically, the marketing techniques used in the print ad are Anxieties and Visual Imagery. The visual imagery used in the ad is literal enough to understand the purpose of pushing for the passage of the Bill; while the anxieties in the ad are both on health and social position, making it more imposing to the understanding of women.
In a study, various kinds of audience or consumers are identified either according to how they look at an ad, or how they consume it, or both. In the case of the Marie Claire: Mouth ad, the audience are mostly likely the “Experiencers” who are enthusiastic, impulsive, or even reckless, whose energy confines them in “doing something”. Often times, this is the kind of audience that the advertisers look at as their “dream come true” because politically and personally, they are not committed, making them vulnerable to believing in the effectiveness of the product, or in the worthiness of the issue an ad is fighting for. These consumers are driven not by the outside world trying to influence them but by the particular urge to be a part of a wider world and by their desire to participate.
Ironically, the consequence of this ad is on the safety of women. Women are the general subject of stereotyping when it comes to advertising – from clothes to alcoholic beverages; women are given the slightest impression of a stereotype.
In the article “Two Ways a Woman Can Get Hurt”, it was mentioned that the culture of the vulnerability of women springs from the idea of widespread objection of the bodies of women, violence against them, blaming, and glorification of disconnection. It also pointed out the impossibility for women not to learn self-hatred since the environment we are in openly contempt women and girls.
In the present subject for analysis, it involves the stereotypical identity of a woman who is related to sex and pregnancy. This gives the consequence of compromising women’s real identity as mothers and lovers and human beings. When sex goes wrong, females are still held responsible and hold each other responsible– when they are impregnated, raped, or sexually assaulted, it is nobody else’s fault but theirs that is it moot and academic to protect them from their own deed.
Marie Claire’s Mouth Ad Campaign is just one among the many campaigns trying to make a stand regarding the passage of the said Bill. This clearly means that the impact of the print ad is only a star in the universe. But whether or not the Filipinos buy this campaign, one thing is for sure, women will always be given a slot for stereotyping in the world of advertising, because otherwise, the ad campaign could have not been made at all.

References

Ads of the World. Marie Claire Magazine. Retrieved from:
http://adsoftheworld.com/media/print/marie_claire_mouth
Bochkarevam A.and Petrova, K. (2010). Advertising as a Marketing Communication Tool: Differences and Similarities between Customer’s Perception and Company’s Expectations. Mälardalen University Sweden
Design Bump Administration (2014). 20+ Most Controversial Print Advertisements, Retrieved from: http://designbump.com/20-most-controversial-print-advertisements
Maasik, S. and Solomon, J (2012). Signs of Life in the U.S.A: Readings on Popular Culture for Writers. 4th ed. NY: Bedford/St. Martin’s Print.
Twitchell J. “What We Are to Advertisers”
Retrieved from: http://www.westga.edu/~rmcrae/FYW/WhatWeAretoAdvertisers.pdf
Two Ways A Woman Can Get Hurt (Ad and Violence). Retrieved from:
https://studiidegen.files.wordpress.com/2008/04/c9_kilbourne_2-ways-a-woman-can-get-hurt.pdf
Wikipedia, Responsible Parenthood and Reproductive Health Act of 2012. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Responsible_Parenthood_and_Reproductive_Health_ Act_of_2012