This is a magazine advertisement that one might find in any popular women’s magazine. The ad is of Julia Roberts who is a spokesmodel for Lancome cosmetics company. This is one in a series of cosmetic ads which try to sell products to make you look better, have better more youthful skin, and generally improve the overall look of your features.
This advertising campaign by Lancome cosmetics uses a famous-person testimonial to persuade people to purchase the product. We can see the association principle at play here, in its use of the place “Paris”, and while we know that the company the product is advertising is based in Paris, it also does something to our psyche to see that word and feel the associations and visualizations of a place. It places a ‘standard ‘ of sorts into our heads, that if we use this product, we will be like the model, we’ll attain some sort of ‘goddess’ status and our skin will remain perfect and glowing and Lancome will ‘recreate’ the light of our skin, and we can attain that “Paris” lifestyle. I do believe that the myth analysis is at play here to some degree as well, because the product is insinuating that if you use it you will become what you see in the photograph.
The ad for Lancome is nothing earth-shattering, it is very much more of the same that we continually see from this, and every cosmetic company. It is definitely a part of recycling culture, but there is something that makes this particular ad somewhat unbelievable, and when you see the photo of Julia Roberts below, you will see what I am getting at. Julia Roberts is a beautiful woman. She is aging, and the demographic this advertisement seems to want to reach, is middle-aged women. Roberts is 43, so it would make sense that the product would be aimed at 40+ age bracket. There isn’t anything offensive or off-color about this ad, but it does stereotype celebrities as being perfect, having perfect skin and hair and eyes even at the age of 43.
Not only was the ad campaign, which was comprised of several photos of Julia selling different products in Lancome’s cosmetic line, but it also gained worldwide notoriety when Parliament in the UK, or more pointedly, the ASA (Advertising Standards Agency) www.asa.uk.org from their own website banned these very ads by Lancome with Julia Roberts because of the exaggeration and misrepresentation of the products’ ability.
The ad must not appear inits current form again.
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