Advert Research 1

This is a Benefit Cosmetics make up advert and it is advertising one of their eyebrow products.

The background of the image is pink which is a very stereotypical girl colour. It suggests femininity and as it is light pink, it is more soft and gentle, representing the model as young and delicate. The audience for this advert is definitely teenage girls so this works well with the light pink tones as opposed to bright pink which is a lot bolder and less delicate so would perhaps suggest a different audience. The light pink also helps to create brand identity as Benefit is well known for its pink colours. Everything at Benefit involves pink, for example all of the products they sell use a pink font on them. This creates brand identity as the common use of pink represents Benefit as girly and feminine.

The font used at the top of the advert is the font that Benefit actually use on their products. It is a sans serif font, this contrasts with the pink colours because you would expect a girly make up advert to use a girly serif font. However, I think the bold sans serif font works well because it stands out and makes it more eye-catching, I like how it challenges the traditional feminine stereotype. It is a slightly darker shade of pink so it still shows up against the background and because it continues the pink theme, and so still represents Benefit cosmetics as being feminine. This font also helps to create brand identity because it is pink again representing femininity and I recognised it as soon as I saw it due to it being on the front of every product. The advert doesn't have the brand name on it, but because I recognised the font and colours, I knew that it was Benefit cosmetics.

Just above this, there is a puff containing the buzz word 'NEW'. The font used is still the same as the normal font, however it is slightly smaller. Often buzz words are bigger to attract attention, so I like how they have done it the other way round so that it is the product that first catches your attention, followed by the fact it is new. The black and white make a nice contrast and the black helps to make the puff stand out against the pink background.

In the actual image we see a young woman and she appears to be getting the new product put on her eyebrows by a gorilla. One of her eyebrows is big and fluffy, like a gorilla, and the other is beautifully neat and shaped perfectly. It suggests that the product has transformed the good eyebrow from looking like the bad eyebrow, making it seem very impressive. The gorilla hands tie in with the big bushy eyebrow and make it quite humorous as clearly you wouldn't really have a gorilla doing your eyebrows. The gorilla hands even have bright pink stick on nails attracted to them which again creates humour. It continues the girly theme as they have even made a gorilla, perhaps one of the most unfeminine animals, feminine.

The girl is pulling quite a pleasantly shocked face up at the gorilla that is applying her make up. In terms of mise en scene, her make up is very subtle and flawless. Her skin is fair and it looks perfect with no blemishes, this represents youth and suggests Benefit is more for teenagers rather than adults. She seems to have hardly any make up on her eyes and on her lips she has a soft pink lipgloss. This again represents youth and femininity. Her hair is tied back into a low ponytail and it has a gentle wave running through it, suggesting delicacy. Her costume is white with a blue ribbon tied around the neck. The white suggests purity and innocence, suggesting the younger audience and the light blue again represents youth as it is the other baby colour - baby pink and baby blue. This advert uses both. It is interesting that she is wearing blue as it is stereotypically a boys colour, but the fact it is light makes it work as it seems pure and youthful.

Also in the frame above the gorillas hands, the actual product is featured. Showing both the inside and outside of it. This is helpful because it allows the audience to see what it is they would be purchasing and how much product you actually get inside the package. All around the frame are little white stars and 4 bigger black ones. They create a pretty, girly effect and give the advert that little bit more detail that makes it look more attractive. The girl, who appears to be centre of frame, has what looks like a white glow radiating from her, especially from round her face. This subtly makes the area more eye-catching as it almost glows. It represents her as quite angelic and pure making the audience want to buy the product and be like her. The white stars then stem from this white glow. The black ones do stand out more due to the contrast between pink and black. Despite being black which isn't typically a pretty, girly colour, they do work quite well because they tie in with the other dark tones, such as the gorilla hands and her dark hair and the puff.