Cinderella is a fairy tale about a young girl whose father dies and leaves her with a step-mother, who also has two daughters. This woman is very cruel to Cinderella. She makes her work the whole day yet her two daughters do not do anything. Cinderella develops a good relationship with the animals at their home, and the animals become very helpful to her. Around the same time, the Grand Duke wants his son to get married immediately, but the son does not want to get married.
However, when his father insists, he advises him to organize a ball to help him have many beautiful girls from whom he would choose a wife. All the girls in the kingdom are very excited about the king’s invitation to a ball, and they anxiously wait for it. When Cinderella’s step-mother hears of this news, she informs her two daughters to prepare for it, but gives Cinderella too much work to do on that day. Her intention is to prevent cinderella from attending the ball (Home of Disney Princes Games).
Cinderella finishes working on the chores when she is very tired. She does not find time to work on her ball gown. Fortunately, her friends, the animals, had already repaired the dress for her. She puts it on, but when she is just about to leave, her step-sisters tear the gown and all the decorations on it. She almost gives up the ball, but her godmother comes to her aid. She transforms the gown, making it look new and attractive. She also gives her a pair of sparkling glass slippers, and when she appears at the ball, the prince immediately asks her for a dance.
They dance for a long time until she almost forgets to leave the ball before midnight as her godmother had instructed her. She rushes off, forgetting one of her slippers behind. The next day, the king and his son embark on a search for the owner of the slipper. No other girl fits in it. Her jealous step-mother is against everything she does. The step-mother goes to the extent of breaking the slipper to prevent her from marrying the prince (Home of Disney Princes Games).
The Melisa shoe Company adopts this fairy tale in advertising their shoes, Fetish. It aims at influencing young women to associate their experiences with their shoes. In the advert, the producers use most of the images that appear in the original fairy tale. Among these images are Cinderella, the prince, the glass slipper, and Cinderella’s magical dress among other symbols. This paper analyzes the relevance of these symbols in communicating the message of the advert to the target audience (Damoncollinads).
The first image in the advert is Cinderella. She symbolizes women who do all they can to attract the attention of the men they love. Once a woman loves a man, she will always dress elegantly and behave extra-ordinarily to beat competition from other women (Dowling 5). The Cinderella in the fairy tale and the advert manage to get the attention of the princes after beating competition from many women. In the advert, Cinderella manages to win the prince’s love because of her beautiful Melisa shoe just like she defeats her competitors in the fairy tale with her elegant gown and glass slippers at the ball (Damoncollinads).
The second image is the glass slipper. It represents Cinderella’s glass slipper in the fairy tale, which sexualizes her, making her appealing to the prince. In the advert, the slipper is the main product that the company wanted buyers to see. The target audience will want to look as attractive as Cinderella. They will, therefore, develop an attraction towards the shoes, and the sales will increase.
In the advert, the prince is also a symbol. Precisely, he symbolizes an ideal man. He is extremely handsome, and every girl wishes to marry him. This advert targets young women, and, therefore, using a handsome man helps increase the number of shoes that women buy. They mainly buy because they want handsome men to fall in love with them the way the prince falls in love with Cinderella.
The advert capitalizes on the belief that women attach their personal feelings to the things they want to buy. It, therefore, encourages buyers to change influences on their purchasing behaviors. The use of Cinderella in the story helps maintain the original fairy tale while introducing a modern idea. The glass slipper, on the other hand, encourages buyers to develop a personal attachment to the products they wish to buy.
The advert mainly targets young women, between 16 and 25 years. This category of women is sexually active. They show much concern about their appearance and strive to impress men at all times. Young women are usually fond of attaching their childhood experiences and expectations in life to most of the things they do. This point is the main ideology behind this advert. For this reason, the company uses a fairy tale that is familiar to all women and puts it in the Melisa Shoe Catalogue, a magazine that women read most.
The advert attempts to be persuasive by looking at the “wild side” of the most appealing childhood fairy tale. It appeals to the emotional and psychological aspect of the target group by attempting to elicit an association between personal experiences and people’s desires. The advert links a familiar fairy tale to what women love most, handsome young men, whom they can only get after dressing appropriately.
This advert belongs to an advertising campaign that Melisa Shoe Company came up with in 2007. The campaign used four fairy tales, which the company re-created for the sake of using them to promote their products. The other three fairy tales were the Red Riding Hood, Snow White and Rapunzel. In all the four adverts, the producer re-creates the main characters by mainly sexualizing them. This act is a deliberate way of appealing to their target audiences, who are mostly young women. All the four adverts use a number of images and symbols that require in-depth interpretation.
In conclusion, the advert uses an old fairy tale to make an advertisement that carries a message for the contemporary society. It appeals to women by using the things they like most. It involves a handsome prince, a well-dressed girl and glass slippers, all of which appeal to women’s feelings. The use of an old fairy tale makes it easy for the advert to pass its message due to the people’s familiarity with the fairy tale.
Works Cited
Damoncollinads. “ghd TV Ad/ Music video – Cinderella.” Online video Clip. You Tube. 2010. Web.
Dowling, Colette. The Cinderella complex: Women’s hidden fear of independence. New York: Summit books, 1981. Print.
Home of Disney Princes Games. “Disney Cinderella Storybook Deluxe HD (Cinderella Bedtime Story for Children).” Online video Clip. You Tube. 2014. Web.