Women’s Shampoo

A majority of the shampoo ads that are out today definitely target women by their advertisement techniques. The women are shown with long, silky looking hair. The ad is intended to give us the feel that if we use the product shown, we too can get hair that looks that good. This is exactly what demographic research does. It advertises its product to those that are thought to be the buyer. In the shampoo ads, it is women who are the supposed consumer.

The commercial I chose is a Pantene ad. The viewers immediately see an attractive woman, wearing a formal black dress, with long, shiny hair. She begins walking down a stairway with a gigantic smile on her face. Her hair is full of volume and is bouncing up and down with her movement. Once she reaches the bottom of the stairs, she does a twirl, and that is when it is apparent that the focus of the ad is the woman’s hair.

The scene switches to various women who are living their everyday life. Some are dancing while spinning their heads, and once again hair is the main focus.

Throughout the ad there’s various messages appearing on the screen. The first one says : “Don’t Blend In,” another says: “Light Up the Room,” and the final phrase says: “ Dance All Day, Not Just at Night.” We then hear: “Let yourself shine. Discover the new attitude of Pantene.” Finally we see the Pantene symbol with the word “shine” appearing below it. These phrases all refer back to Pantene in reference to women’s hair.

Shampoo ads target women, when in all reality, I am sure many men use the same kind of hair care products such as Pantene. Yet, by the looks of many ads, only women use shampoo and care about the appearance of their hair. I would like to see a male shampoo commercial. That would be very interesting indeed because most males have short hair, so I wonder what would take the place to the twirling hair?