Clairol Ad Campaign

The Clairol Ad Campaign started around 1949 when Clairol introduced it's at home hair color kit. This was a revolution in the beauty industry. After that Clairol hired an advertising firm to get their campaign rolling. They used good techniques to sell their products. Their first ads started out like this.

The "Does she...or doesn't she?" ads caught the attention of many women in America. Of course these are beauty ads so who better to picture in them than a picture perfect beauty. She is flawless, she is poised, and she is gorgeous. Look at her hair. It's shiny and healthy. That's hair that all women want. Does she color it? Or doesn't she? This ad is very effective because it strikes up certain emotions in women. All women want to have a certain image. When they see this ad subconsciously they are thinking that if they buy this hair dye they will become prettier. This may or may not be true, but this ad uses that method to get customers to buy their product. It strikes up something in the person viewing it that makes them think they need this product.

The slogan that they use suggests that if you use this product no one will know whether or not you did. It's enticing. Of course in the days of this campaign hair dye was used more for enhancing your natural color that may have faded or covering gray hairs to look younger, so it was not so obvious who died their hair and who didn't. Women who died their hair were seen as tacky. Clairol knew that so they started designing advertisements to change that stigma. Their next advertisements show how using certain advertising techniques can make your product become more popular, even in the eyes of those who used to be against it.

The Clairol campaign began showing ads of beautiful women with dyed hair not alone this time, but spending quality time with children of the same hair color(suggesting they were their children), therefore making hair dye wholesome and family friendly. This was very effective. Looking at these pictures you see that the mom is happy, the child is happy, and they are both good looking. Clairol used the ideas of beauty, family, the perfect mom, the perfect child, and therefore the perfect life to arouse the emotions of women and get them to buy their products.

After those ads Clairol began introducing men into their ads.

This ad of course has in it the hot babe that you wanna be, but it also has a man. Actually it's the back of a man's head, which might make it even more effective, because you can image this man as any man that you want him to be. He is the man of your dreams and he can be all yours if you use Clairol hair products. When you're running towards him on the beach you have to look your best and with Clairol "The closer he gets...the better you look." These ads are designed to arouse emotions in women and they seem to work.



The techniques of persuasion used in the Clairol campaign payed off and within six years of the launch of their new products seventy percent of all women in the U.S. were coloring their hair. Clairol's sales also increased by 415%. That's the power of good persuasion. Were these techniques honest? That's hard to say. They weren't dishonest, but some subconscious messages were sent, so they weren't straightforward.

Looking at more modern Clairol ads you can see some more new persuasive techniques introduced, but it's still the same underlying idea.

Buy this product.

Look like a model.

Have perfect hair.