Financial Mail AdForum shines spotlight on fashion & beauty advertising

The final Financial Mail AdForum for 2016, in association with Ornico, focused on fashion and beauty advertising. It’s a category not renowned for producing particularly interesting or very creative work and certainly there was much that did not inspire in this month’s line-up.

Senior Social Media Analyst at Ornico, Mbuluma Silumbwe, kicked off the event with an overview of the fashion and beauty sector, pointing out that online sales, particularly for women’s fashion, is expected to grow rapidly. By 2019, he predicted, mobile e-commerce sales would make up 43% of all e-commerce sales, which will boost online fashion sales.

Within the beauty sector, he said, retailers would be expected to create experiential venues. The majority of women – 82% – believe social media drives the definition of beauty, indicating that social media and the celebrity culture trend will play a significant role in marketing beauty products.

Sitting on the panel was Bongani Matlebe, New Business Developer at Ornico, Suhana Gordhan, creative director at FCB Johannesburg; Deon Wiggett, creative partner and co-founder of Famous Copy; and Brad Reilly, creative director of Network BBDO.

The panel agreed that most fashion and beauty brands miss out on the creative opportunities in this category: perhaps a lack of willingness on the part of marketers to break conventions combined with the fact that much of the work in this category is international.

The first ad under scrutiny was a Hugo Boss print ad, titled “The art of tailoring”. While the ad is what one would expect of Hugo Boss, it failed to create any kind of resonance with the panel. They called it “staid and very 1980s” and commented that the male model looked haunted. The audience gave it a red card.

A Brentwood clothing print ad received damning criticism: poor photography, aggressive-looking models, redundant and repetitious copy, too many lines and a headline penetrating the middle of the pic. While the ad was meant to denote quality, from a craft point of view it looked shoddy, agreed the panel. How does a brand allow an ad like this, they asked? The audience agreed that it did not work and gave it a red card.

A Swatch print ad for sunglasses garnered mix reactions from the panel. Wiggett said the use of two strelitzias with sunglasses suggested some kind of relationship between them.  He called the ad sweet and funny. Reilly, however, was less positive. “It might be a quirky and fun ad but it doesn’t do much for the product,” he said. The audience, however, was more forgiving and gave it a green card.

A radio ad for Metropolitan Cosmetics was so functional it could almost be audio wallpaper, said Gordhan. The panel agreed that the ad was simply a deluge of noise. “Brands have to remember that consumers don’t want to hear this much information,” reminded Wiggett. “This is a local company that has a number of unique and marketable attributes, any number of which they could have focused on. I am genuinely puzzled as to how this ad happened.” The audience agreed and gave it a red card.

A Levi Clothing ad advertising two pairs of jeans for the price of one during Women’s Month was not creatively inspiring, but served to communicate a single good offer. However, more could have been done around the proposition because even a retail message requires a layer of creativity, said Reilly.

Gordhan felt very strongly that messages such as these devalue the currency of Women’s Month. However, the very clear proposition resonated with the audience, which gave the ad a green card.

A L’Oreal TV commercial featuring Jane Fonda appealed to a tricky segment of the market: older women. The panel agreed that the commercial worked and that Fonda was a good choice, even though the ad relied on an old formula. Reilly maintained that the brand’s positioning needed to evolve from a superficial layer. The audience gave it a green card.

Clinique’s TV commercial, on the other hand, was not particularly impressive. The panel called it dull, stock standard and mundane with an overpromised message. However, they all liked the music. The audience was divided on its opinion.

Nivea, the most flighted brand in this category in the period under review, came in for criticism for its TV commercial for being formulaic and not at all memorable. Though the product being advertised was an antiwrinkle cream, the model used for the ad was too young, and the voice-over was too happy and bright. The ad was red carded.

An Omega TV commercial flighted as part of its Olympic sponsorship was a rare ray of light. Reilly was the only panel member not impressed with it, arguing that it had to be compared to other Olympic ads and not just within its category. However, the other panel members agreed it was beautifully crafted, aspirational and accompanied by a beautiful track. The audience agreed and gave it a green card.

The final ad of the day was a Maybelline mascara TV commercial. The panel lamented the fact that the brand had moved away from the memorable “Maybe she was born with it” payoff line. “They should have evolved their original slogan,” said Matlebe, “because this is not a memorable ad ”. The audience, however, liked it enough to give it a green card.

The big take-out: Fashion and beauty brands are missing out on the opportunity to create truly memorable advertising, according to panellists at the Financial Mail AdForum, in association with Ornico.