Overview of the Commercial
The commercial for Garnier Fructis found in Cosmopolitan magazine promotes the new shampoo line dubbed growing strong hair, treatments, and conditioner. The main purpose of the advert is to make women insecure about themselves and believe that they can only attain beauty by using the product. The commercial contains a young and attractive couple happily together (Moral, 2018). The principal element of the commercial is portrayed by the man making the focal point of the page. The primary thoughts created in the viewer’s mind are the happiness and attractiveness of the girl while caressing and roving her fingers through her hair.
More so, the girl is portrayed with wavy, shiny, and long hair while caressing the man’s head. Moreover, the characters in the advertisement are wearing executive and classy clothes for parties portraying the element of societal acceptance and power. The advert aims at adult females in the range of 18 to 40 years. The females may be single or married, given the romantic theme, fashion, and beauty depicted as it attracts many readers. The magazine contains articles concerning dating, feminine celebrities, sex, and weight loss. The magazine provides women with up-to-date information concerning the aspects of fashion and beauty.
The advert is inductive as it focuses highly on making the women believe that they have to appear like the model portrayed in the advert to look beautiful and that the product is fused with the health element to make them gain belief in it. The Fructis advertisement takes women as its main target audience through handling issues about fashion and beauty, specifically concerning hair for ladies. Women’s hair is regarded in society of Americans as a symbol of feminism and respect. More so, women are always looking for products and services that can assist them in shaping their brand-new style of hair. This advertisement directly aims at exploiting the women’s insecurities as a lady can feel about their hair to give her a product that can transform their beauty and confidence. Thus, implicit messages in the advertisement regard the promise of all ladies’ strength, confidence, and beauty.
Fallacies in the Commercial
The chief attention of the advertisement is the longhaired and beautiful model visualized on the front page. Like all models portrayed in beauty product advertisements, the model inclines to symbolize the features that numerous women attempt to have. The model is created with flawless skin, an oval and thin, faultlessly balanced face, long hair, long and thin body. The model is portrayed looking straight into the reader’s eyes with a furtive, fascinating stare. The model resembles several women depicted in advertisements, television shows, and films. She is the type of woman readers will assume to be desired by most men. Therefore, she seems to suit the standard which is defined as beautiful by the general society and most readers are used to such amazing women in the movies and music videos when they are greatly cherished by fans and imaginary male suitors.
The advert presents an equivocation fallacy; it shows that female readers can attain the amazing looks of the model portrayed in the advertisement, thus becoming highly insecure about their beauty. Such an element can significantly make women embrace the product with expectations of becoming as beautiful as the depicted model in the advertisement. However, it is not possible as the image portrayed is edited with the computer software and thus, a normal being cannot attain such looks. Moreover, the advertisement was designed to easily capture the readers’ attention to persuade and make them believe that the product is extraordinary with the capacity to modify their looks irrespective of other features such as mental and behavioral aptitudes (Dinkins & Cangelosi, 2019). Given that many women always aim to look like the different models used in adverts, they are susceptible to the adverts’ influence.
Consequently, the advertisement seems to lure the women into believing that they can appear more beautiful if they use their products. More so, the advertisement uses the fruit theme to make readers develop a safety sense in the acquisition and application of their products. The advert creates a sense of insecurity in the reader’s mind which stirs them to acquire the product. The product’s connection with health directly induces readers to assume safety in terms of using the products given the fruit making it more natural products instead of the actual artificial and chemical ingredients used. Such a fallacy is so strong that it appeals to all readers, given that humans always want to consider their health first. The incorporation of health with beauty creates fertile grounds for acceptance of the product by American society.
Socrates’ Philosophy
Socrates’s philosophy was built on the notion that philosophy had to achieve practical outcomes for the general benefit of society. Socrates aimed at establishing an ethical structure using human reasoning instead of theological doctrines. The philosophy asserted that the choice of human beings was highly driven by happiness desires (Dinkins & Cangelosi, 2019). Based on Socrates’s philosophy, it is clear that the advertisement persuasively promotes the notions of beauty and health and recommends strength and confidence in the reader’s mind. The use of words like shine and sleek in bold letters shows emphasis. The aspect creates a generalization of overall beauty as women strongly attach positive implications to the used words. The sleek and shining hair is considered valuable in society. Therefore, the words used are strongly subjective given the meaning of shine and sleek will appear diverse among the people (El Khoiri & Widiati, 2017). The advertisement avoids detailing the actual implications of the level to which the product will shine on the woman’s hair and also, sleek is not articulated.
The advertisement uses highly attractive words as women do not want their hair to be dubbed as dull. In reality, the words used are meaningless and fallacies because they are not explained to show how shiny and sleek the woman has to expect. Although the text works as a rational appeal because it conveys proof concerning the product, also the facts are unconfirmed. Regrettably, countless readers cannot pause to understand the meaning behind all the words used. Therefore, the argument would have been more genuine and considered the inner qualities of the woman to make them understand that their products can polish their beauty instead of making them think that beauty is derived from the use of the product.
Adding to the fallacy of promising beauty, the product appears to promise strength and confidence. The strength is shown as text and the model is portrayed as energetic and appealing. The model appears to face the reader directly in the eyes and also roves through her hair with energy and passion. She pulls the hair in different positions, indicating that it can endure the pulling force. She makes readers assume that she may maintain her strength and beauty while using the product. The advert builds trust and love for the product in the reader’s intuition as the model appears beautiful with the product as the push factor (Dinkins & Cangelosi, 2019). Therefore, the women’s desire for beauty and strength drives them to believe in the information provided by the advertisement.
As depicted in several films, television shows, and adverts, the Fructis commercial seems to highlight the significance of the inner physical beauty in the culture of Americans. Nevertheless, the advertisement is based on the beauty fallacy to induce women to believe that one can only be regarded as beautiful with the features of the model used, which include; long, shiny and sleek hair, thin energy, and flawless skin. The advertisement appears to convey the message that women will only be confident with the outside look like the one portrayed in the advert. Even though a few women will believe the idea that strength is a significant quality for every woman, the advert concentrates on the notion that the woman’s strength can be realized alongside an appearance of society’s expectations. Consequently, the advert aims at making women believe that they will never be beautiful until they use their product. The advert greatly ignores the woman’s inner qualities and concentrates on their beauty.
References
Dinkins, C. S., & Cangelosi, P. R. (2019). Putting Socrates back in Socratic method: Theory‐based debriefing in the nursing classroom.Nursing Philosophy, 20(2), e12240. Web.
El Khoiri, N., & Widiati, U. (2017). Logical fallacies in EFL learners’ argumentative writings. Dinamika Ilmu, 17(1), 71-82. Web.
Moral, P. (2018). Garnier Fructis Shampoo TV Commercial [Video]. Web.