Margaret Amoah English 1010 09/29/2014 Draft Herbal Essences

Herbal Essences is one of the most well-known shampoo between both commercial and magazine ads. For a couple of years now Herbal Essences ads have been known for their gorgeous women with luxuriously soft hair. The advertisement as a whole strongly contains sexual imagery, female stereotypes, and the product itself. As big corporations remember the 90’s so do Herbal Essence. Ok magazine is one of the famous magazines that features over 500 unforgettable photos of celebrities of the nineties. This special edition of Ok magazine is mostly known and read by women, especially millennial women and younger generations. Herbal Essences used pathos, ethos and logos to effectively appeal to its targeted audience who frequently read the special edition of the Ok magazine by posting their ad at the back page of it. The first appeal you will see when you look at the ad is the pathos appeals. The ad shows a beautiful, confident, sexy woman with a gorgeous and luxuriously soft hair, flowing from up then around her head and then down. The way her hair flows moves from the label, Herbal Essences, down to the text and then to the end product, makes the audience move with it and get to the bottles of shampoo. The image it creates appeals to audience to feel beautiful, independent, and sexy. It also used pathos appeal in a text context to appeal to its targeted audience. The first text “ You’ll want to do it in the morning. Sometimes twice a day.” Could be taken differently in many ways by some audience. They may think it comes off as a bit sexual, but the advertisement was probably meaning to say that the quality and the scent of it would make you want to be shampooing in the morning or twice a day. Huh! Do you now feel like you want one for yourself? Yeah. The same thing the targeted audience will feel when they read the text. The text is to make them feel as though they want this shampoo. Another text used in the advertisement is “Your favorites are back…” what will be the first question in mind when you read this text? What favorites, right. But I think, that text was use by company to make its targeted audiences feel as if they have already been using the shampoo and need to continue buying it. Every text used for the ad sounds romantic. Furthermore, when it comes to ethos appeals within the advertisement, we may see three of those. One is Nichole Scherzinger. A well-known musician loved by all. By having a famous celebrity like her at the back page of the Ok magazine will make the audience think that, if Nichole uses the shampoo for her hair well then they must have it as well. So having her as a focal point draws consumers in. The second ethos appeal is the name of the company and the year the product was manufactured. Procter and Gambler is the name of the company and 2012 is the year the company, reintroduce the smooth and shine collections from Herbal Essences. Also by putting the name of the company and the year in the ad, appeals to their audience that, they are genuine, popular and trustworthy. Also, most consumers want to research on a company and its product before buying it, so the company’s name, Procter & Gambler placed right beside Shine Collection shampoo bottle and the semi-hidden brand name, Herbal Essences off in the corner sort tangled into Nichole’s hair would make the audience eye draw to the names easily. Finally, the ad used logos appeals to catch the attention of their audience to the product. An example of the logos appeal is the information of the product on the shampoo bottles. The pink colored smooth Collection bottle features an infused blend of rose hips, vitamin E and jojoba extracts, and the marigold- colored Shine Collection bottle with a blend of Chamomile, Aloe Vera and Passionflower extracts are one of the only text on the advertisement with the actual information of the product. This specific information on the bottles appeals to the audience that, if they buy the product and use it, the scent from these natural herbs would make their hair stands out and become naturally irresistible. In conclusion, Herbal Essences used all the three appeals to appeals to its targeted audience. The colors of the ad fit to the magazine and it content, and are inviting to the eye causing the reader to stop and spend time with the image and brand. Likewise, the model’s hand all over her gorgeous, soft shine hair draws the reader’s eye to her beautiful hair that flames her seductive expression. The text “you’ll want to do it in the morning. Sometimes twice a day” effectively connects the usage of this shampoo with sexy hair. For this, I consider the ad to be effective in communicating with its intended audience.