Real accident or shocker?

When the billboard shown above came out in 2007, people were shocked. It was to promote the movie Captivity.

The posters show a woman that is kidnapped, confined, tortured and then murdered. It is quite horrific to look at, in my opinion. A lot of people thought it was too heavy and were unnecessarily gratuitous and condoning of violence towards women. Within a week all the posters were taken down and a milder version of the poster was released.

I still wonder. Is it really possible that a company that is so big makes such a stupid mistake? Then why was this billboard even made it in the first place? An accident? I don’t think so. I think this was a marketing stunt.

Did it work? Not really. Most people still have never heard of the film Captivity and it didn’t make a lot of money.

HEMA uses man to promote push-up bra

Yes, you read the title correctly. The woman in the HEMA ad is definitely not a woman. It’s a man. You don’t believe me? Google ‘Andrej Pejic’ and find out that this lovely woman is a man. I don’t even know if I should write ‘he’ or ‘she’, because when looking at the ad you would swear he is female.

The HEMA push-up bra certainly does what it promises. It caused a lot of controversy in The Netherlands, because a lot of people really thought the model in the advertisement was female. Me included. But that’s pretty normal, because you don’t suspect a bra to be promoted by a man.

I honestly don’t know what to think about this advertisement. The bra does what it is supposed to do, since it can even give a man cleavage. HEMA gained a lot of publicity by using Andrej, so that is also good promotion for them. But in my opinion, a bra is for women which means it should be worn by a female model in the advertisement. It’s a great stunt, but I hope that next time bra’s will once again be promoted by female models, because that is the target audience.

Funeral home goes too far

Take a good look at the advertisement above. Are you speechless? Because I was and I still am when I look at this picture.

This is one of the most inappropriate advertisements I have ever seen. I wonder if this funeral home placed it on this spot on purpose, but I am almost certain they did. This is so harsh and so shocking, I find it hard to find words to describe it.

People jump in front of trains a lot. A lot of my (former) classmates go to school by train now and I hear stories about delayed trains because of jumpers all the time. In my eyes, this advertisement tries to say: Come closer and jump so we have more costumers for our funeral home. It’s just wrong.

I tried to find more information about this advertisement and if they took it down, but I couldn’t find any more information about it. I really hope they took it down, because I honestly can’t find the right words for how cruel this advertisement is.

This is a good example of how advertisement sometimes crosses a line. I understand companies try to shock and provoke, but you can also go too far. This is not something to joke about.

The influence of beautyblogs

In the world of (especially young) girls, the so called ‘beautyblogs’ are a growing phenomenon. They appear everywhere and their popularity is increasing fast. On these blogs other women write articles and reviews about everything that has to do with beauty, and then especially make-up.

Sounds perfectly normal, right? Like online magazines for young girls. Not quite. A lot of the major blogs have connections with PR-companies and major beauty brands have discovered them too. They send their products to the bloggers so they can test them, and sometimes even pay them to write about it on their blogs.

Personally, I highly doubt the integrity of these blogs. A lot of girls don’t realize that their role models get paid to write about a product. They think the product is great and immediately buy it, while I don’t think their reviews are trustworthy.

The image above was the first thing I saw when I opened Holland´s biggest beauty blog (beautygloss.nl). What does a camera have to do with beauty? This isn’t even subtle anymore. I think this is very bad because the young girls who read and like these blogs are very easy to influence. I hope that one day the girls that manage these blogs will go back to how their blogs originally started: To inform and entertain their readers, and not to earn money.

Why false lashes in mascara ads annoy me

There are no ads in the world that annoy me more than mascara ads. Of course I realize that all companies use Photoshop for their advertisements, but in my opinion there are no advertisements more deceiving than mascara ads. And of course these companies promise us a lot of lovely things, such as curly, thick or black eyelashes. But how naïve do they think we are? I think it’s obvious to everyone that the models in these advertisements are always wearing false lashes. 

One or two wipes of mascara and our lashes will reach our eyebrows. That is what those advertisements tell us. I can’t believe there are women that are so stupid to believe such a thing. They try to sell us a product that can’t deliver what the advertisement promises. That just seems wrong to me. It really does not make me buy their product, because I know my lashes could never look like that.

I hope that one day mascara brands realize that false lashes in their advertisements aren’t always that hopeful. If the mascara really does what it is supposed to do, then why do they use false lashes in their advertisement? I am not convinced and I hope that there are a lot of clever women out there who aren’t convinced either and who will test the mascara first instead of buying a fairytale. More and more women read reviews on internet first, so I hope that this will open the eyes of mascara bands.

The clever marketing strategy of Victoria's Secret

Victoria’s Secret is such a well known brand to most women, and even to a lot of men, I am not going to give it a major introduction. Who hasn’t heard of Victoria’s Secret (which from now on I will call VS), its lingerie and swimwear and of course their models?

I decided to devote an article to this brand because I think it’s quite interesting how popular VS is. In my opinion that is due to their ‘invention’ of the VS Angels, top models that represent their brand and walk in their annual ‘Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show’.

But how is it possible that it even attracts the attention of females? Probably because VS aims at the women and not at the men. The models are pretty and their bodies are toned, not too skinny. They have curves and are also selected by their personalities. Women can see them as their examples and as an inspiration.

And then there is the fashion show. This show is really major. Fabulous clothes, great decors and music provided by great (live) artists. This promotional event attracts so many viewers and increases VS’ brand in a fun way. It’s so much fun to watch, it makes me (and plenty of other women) to like the brand and to want to buy their clothes.

VS is smart. They don’t just sell their clothes, they really know how to sell their brand. They created a formula that is one of a kind and it works. Once  you see a show, you are sold and you can never go back! Guess who’ll be buying some VS stuff this summer...

Kate Middleton's photoshopped waist

The 29nd of April was a day when every girl in the country was seated in front of the television. It was the day Kate Middleton got her fairytale wedding with a real prince and we were all invited. Not in real life though, just through television.

Kate looked gorgeous in her wedding dress from Alexander McQueen. Her waist was so slim I’m sure it made every girl that was watching jealous. To marry a prince in such a beautiful dress with such an amazing body... Who wouldn’t envy her?

I just don’t understand why Italian magazine Grazia apparently thought she wasn’t skinny enough. In the picture above Kate’s waist is slimmed to proportions that even Barbie can’t compete with. How wrong can things get? Kate was already so skinny she shouldn’t have lost one more pound, but this really is abnormal. Girls around the world look up to this woman and see her as an example. Girls will strive for a body that isn’t healthy and some of them will go to extremes to reach something that isn’t even possible for most of them. Can you imagine what this Photoshopped picture can provoke? Why are we doing this to ourselves?

I hope that one day our perception of beauty will change and that magazines too will see that Photoshop isn’t necessary. I can understand that they want to make people look prettier to sell their products, but this just crosses a line for me. Kate Middleton doesn’t need Photoshop. Neither one of us does.