Mascara Ad Opens Eyes
This time it really is all about trust. We know that consumers want information about products before they decide whether or not to make a purchase. But they also want to believe the information provided when they see or read an advertisement.
The latest campaign in the UK to be stopped in its tracks by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), an "independent body set up by the advertising industry to police the rules laid down in the advertising codes," as it describes itself, was for L'Oreal's Telescopic mascara. As the BBC reported it, the company misled viewers on two counts. First, it neglected to mention that celebrity front-woman, Penelope Cruz, was wearing false eyelashes. Secondly, it "did not make clear that the claim referred to an increase in the 'appearance' of lash length" rather than an actual increase in length.
The U.K.'s media pounced on the story.
Columnist Jess Cartner-Morley in The Guardian was scathing, particularly about ads for cosmetics and beauty treatments (remember the anti-aging creams whose claims were tested a few months ago?). "So L'Oreal used fake eyelashes in a mascara advert? No surprise there," she says. "Most women know that the marketing tricks of cosmetics firms are too absurd to take seriously."
Others weren't so dismissive about the issue of misleading the public. Martin Hickman, Consumer Affairs Correspondent for The Independent, told it straight, simply pointing out that the company felt Ms. Cruz's "natural beauty needed enhancing" in spite of her Latin looks having "seduced cinema audiences worldwide." In order to demonstrate that its mascara "could achieve 'out of this world lashes,'" her eyes were enhanced with false ones. In its defense, L'Oreal said it was "common industry practice" to use artificial lashes.
Advertising guru and commentator, Naresh Ramchandani, was very concerned, though, and used the Media Guardian to sound off about how L'Oreal's "dishonesty casts serious questions over not only all of L'Oreal's advertising but over advertising as a whole."
Meanwhile, Ms. Cartner-Morley confessed that she still purchased the mascara, in spite of the ad. "Which could," she writes, "be taken as evidence that I have been brainwashed by the advertising industry" -- leading to curiosity about whether consumers really care about truth in advertising or just take claims with a large pinch of (possibly unhealthy) salt and whether or not it matters either way.
Discussion Question: How important is honesty in advertising campaigns? Do you think consumers have grown accustomed to hyped-up or even false claims in advertising? What lessons are there in this for marketers?