Super Pell: What Mess?

Super Pell: What Mess?

 "What Mess?"

Everywhere we see pristine, sparkling white. Even the woman is no exception. Everything is right with the world — or is it? Suddenly, she starts to trip! Oh no, anything but a horrible dark stain on our picture of perfect whiteness! But wait, is that a bottle of floor cleaner?

I'll cut to the end of this dramatic narrative: Super Pell saves the day.

So today we have a 2012 ad for Super Pell, a floor cleaner that seems to be exclusive to Indonesia. You can thank Ads of the World for bringing this to my attention.

If there was a mess, who would clean it?

Probably not a rich white woman, especially in Indonesia. The ad was close though. That aside, I find the choice of model here interesting for a couple reasons.

We have a rich, perhaps professional, young woman. She's pristine, like her house. And we're supposed to believe that if something got spilled, she would obviously be the one to handle it. Why? Well, she is a woman isn't she?

The subtext here seems to be, "No matter how far you climb, you will always be bound to scrub a man's floors." Thanks for that insight, Super Pell.

Anything but brown!

Then there's the fact that this is an Indonesian product and the ad agency decided to use a white woman. In fact everything is white and perfect, and that's just the way it should be says Super Pell.

Note that the main antagonist here is coffee, a decidedly non-white substance. And this ad is aimed at a decidedly non-white population, one that would look a bit more like that dreaded, prevented stain than those lovely white floors.

So white and all that goes along with it is good. The native brown... not so much. A case of cultural imperialism? You decide.

Buy the product and be more white.

The ad seems to say to people in Indonesia that their way is the wrong way. If you want to be successful like this white woman, you need to be more white. Super Pell can help you there, and you'll start feeling bad for being who you are before you know it. 

Using Super Pell will also bring some class to your one room shanty or whatever you non-whites live in, the ad seems to say. You want to be like that woman up there, don't you?

Would I buy it if I could?

Even if Super Pell was readily available to me — and I actually cleaned things —  I wouldn't buy it. Perhaps I'm just looking too far into it, but the subtext I see is just too over-the-top offensive. I wonder if it was intended to be that way.

Levi's: Who Do You Want To Unbutton?

Levi's "Who Do You Want to Unbutton?"

"Who Do You Want To Unbutton?"

This ad came out for Levi's in 2009, but I never saw it in an actual consumer publication. I was reading my marketing book last week when suddenly I saw this and did a double take.

"Wait, why is there a picture of public masturbation in my textbook?"

A second glance told me I had been mistaken, but it certainly got me to stop and look. I can't help but feel that was what the ad agency was hoping for.

For trendy and empowered young women.

 A good way to identify an ad's target audience is to look at the person you see in the ad. In this case, a young white woman, perhaps one with aspirations of leaving her small time life to make it big in the city. Maybe she wants to be an artist, or maybe she just wants to be in control of her own life.

The way she's standing with her hand almost in an interesting position, her lack of concern about the way her shirt is coming up, and that expression she has say a lot. Those things say that she's not afraid to express her sexuality, not ashamed to say who she wants to unbutton. She's sexually liberated and empowered, and you just have to deal with that.

But that's not all the ad says.

Also for trendy young men who would like to unbutton trendy and empowered young women.

I can't be the only one who thought she was masturbating at first glance. But then I read the text next to her and realized she was an independent and empowered woman. Why is that text in such a hard to read font?

When I stopped to consider this, the sheer audacity of it impressed me. On one hand, we have a sexy, sexually liberated young woman who is not afraid to say what she wants. On the other, we have a sexy young woman presented as meat. And they are the exact same picture. Why is the text about her sexual empowerment so hard to read again?

So what is being promised?

If you're a young woman, the ad offers you quite a bit:

• Buying Levi's will empower you. 

• Buying Levi's will make you sexy. 

• Buying Levi's might even help you escape your small town life and make it in the city. 

If you're a young man you can still get quite a bit from Levi's products, like young women to unbutton. Or young women who want to unbutton you. I guarantee you the latte boy was wearing Levi's. 

Feel like buying some jeans now?

No, but maybe I'm the wrong person to ask. I'm not hip. I'm not trendy. I don't know what clothing brands I wear or am currently wearing. Most importantly, I know young women will have no interest in unbuttoning me regardless of what I'm wearing. Sorry Levi's, you're talking to the wrong person here.

That aside, I can see why the promises made could be appealing. Who doesn't want to feel empowered and in control of their life or get laid?

Introduction

What is "Why I Probably Won't Buy Your Product " about?

Short Answer: Ad critiques.

Long Answer: To analyze ads to see whom they are aimed at, what they promise, and how well they work.

Why do ad critiques?

It's all about trying to be more aware of what influences you.

Most of the time when people see advertising they scoff and look pityingly at all those poor fools who were affected while they were not. The problem with that mentality is that most people probably were affected in some way, and pretending that you weren't just means you're less prepared to recognize how and why you were influenced.

Analyzing what an ad is actually telling you can help to make you a more active consumer, as opposed to someone who is simply acted upon by the media. Analyzing what messages work and don't work on you and why can help you realize just what forms of persuasion — or manipulation, depending on how you look at it — you are especially susceptible to.

That could be useful information to know.