Shine with Pantene? #1

Here is a link to a Pantene commercial aired in Thailand in 2008.

<click here>

The Spot:

This is a story about a deaf and mute girl. Since she is mute, a girl in her class looked down on her and blamed her for wasting everyone else’s time. The mute girl was once depressed. She underwent a lot of discrimination and torture. But a street musician encouraged her to keep on playing. One day, the girl who discriminated her asked someone to beat the street musician and broke the girl’s violin in the hope that the mute girl wouldn’t be able to attend a music contest. But the mute girl persisted and finally won the music contest and self-esteem. A slogan “Pantene—you can shine” pops up on the screen after the story.

While conventional shampoo commercials all feature beautiful women demonstrating their smooth and shining hair, Pantene takes a bold and unconventional approach of using social statement marketing in this ad to sell its shampoo. The Pantene ad’s propaganda of social good forces distinguishes itself from other shampoo ads.  “This ad simply begs to be shared!” as claimed by a viewer on Youtube.  Since viewers consider the ad inspiring and good for social benefit, they circulate it on the Internet, which helps Pantene shampoo gain exposure. 

The ad’s devotion to increasing societal awareness of the disabled makes Pantene seem to care for the public. It manipulates viewers’ emotions and arouses viewers’ sympathy in many scenes. Holding a violin in hand, the mute and deaf girl is walking despondently on the street with a car behind her frantically blowing its horn. She cannot escape from a coming car, nor can she enjoy the beautiful sound of the violin. The girl has to face many restrictions and difficulties since she is disabled, but she also has to face scornful remarks and bullies from other people. From the very beginning of the spot, viewers have already had pity on the vulnerable girl, and then advertisers trigger audience’s compassion to a further step. Before the music contest, the disabled girl’s violin is even destroyed by some bad guys hired by the malevolent girl in her class. It is easy for a viewer to identify herself with the disabled girl in terms of experiences of being bullied or outshined by peers. Moreover, the street musician lying in the hospital after being beaten happens in a single frame, and seems designed to tug at our heartstrings, which also makes the ad seem manipulative. All these scenes create an emotional association between audience and the disadvantaged people which appeals to people’s need to nurture the defenseless. When Pantene advertisers reveal the harsh life encountered by many disabled people, they are trying to trigger people’s motive to help and support the disadvantaged. According to Fowles, this pitch is often directed at women (Fowles 280), so the ad touches the tender heart of many female customers who are exactly Pantene’s target demographic. The ad conveys an idea that as a company of hair care product, Pantene also pays a lot of attention to social issues, which leads consumers to buy Pantene products because they have charitable service appeals.

Sources:

Fowles, Jib. “Advertising’s Fifteen Basic Appeals.” Et cetera. Issue (1982): 273-290.

Pictures:

http://media-ide.bajingloncat.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/pantene-chrysalis.jpg

http://theinspirationroom.com/daily/commercials/2009/5/pantene-violinists.jpg

Lu Yang

Team 5: International Health

Northampton, MA

Smith College Sophomore

1. 

   Karina L says:

   November 27, 2010 at 10:10 pm

   Very inspiring!

   reply
2. 

   Robert says:

   February 12, 2012 at 3:49 am

   Good analysis of the video clip..the ad uses images and music to their advantage.The fact that they did NOT even show the Pantene bottle was very well thought out as it would be out of place and people will re-act negatively to such commercial “advertising”.
   The use of symbols was carefully inserted to expand the idea of human development..the butterfly emerging from the cocoon and the girl playing in a field of wheat with the sun low on the horizon makes a marvellous landscape of beauty and nature.
   For many that may not buy Pantene, the more important message of humility, perseverance and compassion resides long in the heart well after the end of the commercial.I do not subscribe to business ads but rather use this opportunity to see what others can do to make this a better world..there is one nice saying before i part: Do good things and walk away quietly.

   reply

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