Context Blogpost

The ad analyzed was a Nivea advertisement regarding their skin cream product that would make user’s skin “touchable” and “smooth”, it was targeted towards women. With further research it was found out that the woman in the advertisement was a popular Bollywood actress in India, furthering our demographic to India. The conceptual meaning behind the advertisement is simply the need for women to get clear and smooth skin as the advertisement is claiming. Additionally the advertisement gives us valid facts in regards to the social context/ social issues society is facing in the real world. It was painting picture about our societal norms of women. They almost expected to have perfect bodies and features as seen in media in order to be deemed “beautiful”, in this case perfect skin is being advertised in this advertisement. This is only amplified by the fact that the woman in the advertisement isn’t seen to administer any sort of beauty flaws. Only adding onto the societal problems advertisements and media cause to the cognitive expectations, which are being placed into society’s heads. Additionally the cream is seen to make the women’s skin lighter than it actually is. This highlights another global issue, being that western media is dictating beauty norms. Due to the globalized wave of western media it is almost an indirect standard for lighter skin to characterize as beautiful. Knowing these societal issues we can see the aim of the advertisers and how they use these societal issues to their advantage. Advertisers know women want to meet up to beauty standards; as such they will buy a product that is driven by the claim that it will give women perfect skin. Similar to that, the need to look like celebrities on western media is also an appeal they are targeting. These appeals are collectively used in order to drive product sales.