Rhetorical Analysis of L’Oréal Paris Gender Diversity Campaign (Mar 4, 2022)

 

"Mascara"

"Nail Polish"

"Lipstick"

         

        While the beauty industry is notoriously criticized for its preponderance of male CEOs and company leaders, one of the largest cosmetics companies in the industry is giving back to its main demographic of women by promoting female empowerment. In 2019 L’Oréal Paris collaborated with the McCann Dusseldorf Agency to create the campaign “This is an Ad for Men,” which features three print advertisements directed toward men that advocate for more women leadership. Though the three prints promote cosmetic products sold by L’Oréal Paris, the message goes deeper than commodities and consumerism to address the serious social issues that impact those who use L’Oréal Paris’ products most. Originally created with the fact that German companies are comprised predominantly of men in mind, the advertisements more globally address lack of gender diversity in the workforce as well as the benefits that can arise when gender diversity is embraced. L’Oréal Paris’ campaign uses the visual composition of the advertisements and the statistical evidence in their infographics to command audience attention and assert the value of women leadership, all to provoke a response that results in higher employment of women in higher company positions.

            The first two most noticeable – and consistent – features L’Oréal employs within each advertisement are the bold red backgrounds and the large white lettering of their titles that explicitly call out the target audience: “This is an Ad for Men” (L’Oréal Paris). The color red is meant to be provocative and assertive; it demands attention and provokes viewers’ curiosity, intending to draw them to the advertisement and its message. Red also correlates to valued attributes in leadership, which is the subject of the campaign. A strong leader may also evoke the same characteristics that belong to red: power, authority, dominance, and passion. While these characteristics are often attributed to men, L’Oréal Paris subverts this subconscious expectation of adherence to gender stereotyping. By showcasing their products within the ad, L’Oréal Paris also uses red as the primary color for this campaign to affirm that these traits not only belong to men but women too. To assure this, the vignette border of the advertisements pulls the eye towards the brightest red – placed strategically at the center of the print where the infographic is located, represented by cosmetic commodities which are symbols of femininity. While the poster aims to attract specifically male attention through the subconscious connection between color and stereotypical male attributes, its main subject and its center focus is on women and the power they too exude.

            The contrast of the red and white brings the eyes to the title and acts to attract attention, except this time it more overtly  targets the advertisement’s main demographic – men. Its appeal to men as its primary audience is twofold. One, it appeals particularly to men in positions of power with its demand to “hire more women in leadership roles” (L’Oréal Paris), denoting the serious barrier men and their subconscious biases play in women’s ability to enter leadership positions. And two, it targets men who otherwise perpetuate the misogynistic belief that women are not suitable for leadership. L’Oréal Paris invites those with more societal power, whether as a high-ranking member of a company or as a man in a patriarchal society, to be persuaded into a call to action – one that the company’s campaign establishes benefits all parties in the long run. The second part of the tagline, “We’re all worth it” (L’Oréal Paris), can also be interpreted in two manners. Not only does it function to emphasize the worth that all women can provide in leadership positions within the workforce, but it can also be understood as a statement that everyone deserves to reap the benefits gained through the creativity and cooperation that comes with gender diversity.

            All three advertisement utilize a recognizable cosmetic commodity (lipstick, nail polish, and mascara respectively) as an infographic, a method that both showcases L’Oréal’s products and provides reputable statistical evidence of women’s value in companies. While the overall message is the same throughout all three advertisements, demonstrated through each print having the same title and tagline promoting female empowerment, each advertisement establishes a different and unique benefit that women leadership offers. The “Mascara” advertisement intends to prove that the presence of women in leadership roles leads to a significant increase in employee satisfaction, according to a study done by the Korn Ferry Hay Group in 2016 (“Mascara,” L’Oréal Paris). The brush of the mascara simulates a bar graph that shows an “[additional] 24 percent mentoring score for female leaders [during leadership review]” (“Mascara,” L’Oréal Paris), conveying that women leaders can provide unique opportunities for success that are otherwise unavailable when gender diversity is not embraced in the workforce. The information L’Oréal cites also communicates that “soft skills” (“Mascara,” L’Oréal Paris), considered more feminine and therefore more “inferior” for business and leadership positions, are actually beneficial to ensuring an enjoyable, effective work environment that significantly boosts employee satisfaction (L’Oréal Paris). This realization may provoke feelings of surprise, disbelief, and positive impressions in the minds of men who may have previously thought negatively of women’s ability to lead. The evidence L’Oréal Paris presents in the infographic compels men to reconsider their own biases about women and the skills they can bring to companies.

            The “Nail Polish” advertisement uses the University of Arizona’s “Analysis of Fortune 500 companies” (“Nail Polish,” L’Oréal Paris) to state that company innovation rises with the “20 percent increase of patents with female leaders” (“Nail Polish,” L’Oréal Paris) over the course of a business year. The strategic spill of red nail polish indicates the increase in innovation that this study corroborates. L’Oréal Paris points out through this statistic that the exclusion of representation for half of the world’s population limits a company’s vision and ability to create more products for their consumers. This statistic informs the audience of two things: that gender diversity allows for creative opportunities toward company growth while reluctance to hire women into leadership roles condones stagnancy and decreases overall company profitability. Like the previous ad, L’Oréal Paris’ “Nail Polish” ad attempts to incite incredulous reactions from their audience and stir a disbelief in the failures of the current standard in place. The spilled nail polish as the infographic subconsciously conveys what a mistake – an “oopsies” – men within companies commit when they ignore the benefits of gender diversity. With the statistical evidence displayed before their eyes, the audience may more deeply consider the value women bring to companies and the messes that can be avoided as a result.

            L’Oréal drives the point further through the “Lipstick” advertisement, which is perhaps the most provocative and persuasive within L’Oréal’s campaign. This infographic utilizes Peterson Institute for International Economic’s survey titled, “Is Gender Diversity Profitable? Evidence from a Global Survey” (“Lipstick,” L’Oréal Paris). Its findings reveal that company profitability corresponds to the number of women leaders a company possesses – when there are more women leaders, there is more money to be made. The infographic demonstrates this increase with the step by step rise of a lipstick out of its component. This specific advertisement exemplifies a union between appeals to logos and pathos; while the infographic acts as the necessary logical and statistical evidence for the campaign’s mission, its phallic imagery targets men where they are most vulnerable – their egos. Whereas the extreme lack of women in companies is reflected by an image that presents ideas of “impotence,” the higher percentage of profitability and women leaders is presented as “bigger is better” and therefore more “desirable.”

            L’Oréal Paris’ campaign “This is an Ad for Men” is simple but effective in its intention to persuade men that women are “all worth it” (L’Oréal Paris) when it comes to gender diversity in the workforce. All three advertisements effectively capture not only the audience’s attention with their visual appeal but also with the data they represent that make their argument irrefutable to opposers of gender diversity. L’Oreal Paris not only asks their male audience but also their competitors to put their money where their mouths are and uplift the women they profit from and watch the profit come back tenfold.

 

 

Works Cited

“This is an Ad for Men – Lipstick.” L’Oréal Paris, Ads of the World, 28 Feb. 2022, https://www.adsoftheworld.com/media/print/loreal_this_is_an_ad_for_men_lipstick_mascara_nail_polish

“This is an Ad for Men – Mascara.” L’Oréal Paris, Ads of the World, 28 Feb. 2022, https://www.adsoftheworld.com/media/print/loreal_this_is_an_ad_for_men_lipstick_mascara_nail_polish

“This is an Ad for Men – Nail Polish.” L’Oréal Paris, Ads of the World, 28 Feb. 2022, https://www.adsoftheworld.com/media/print/loreal_this_is_an_ad_for_men_lipstick_mascara_nail_polish