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“Because we’re worth it” (?):
Femininity and cosmetics advertising slogans
in a cross-cultural perspective
Helen Ringrow, Queen’s University Belfast
1. The slogan’s role in cosmetics advertising discourse The global beauty industry is enjoying huge worldwide success, and advertising campaigns are a key way for major cosmetics brands to build a customer base and reap financial benefits. In the media, women’s bodies are presented as a series of ‘problems’ which need ‘fixing’ (see for example Jeffries 2007; Gill 2007). In light of this representation of the female body as always requiring ‘work’, advertising slogans must convince the reader that their brand can help address the beauty concerns of the target female. A slogan is defined by Cone (2008: viii) as ‘a memorable phrase expressing an idea, purpose, or claim’. In advertisements, the slogan generally accompanies the brand name and/or logo. Slogans are important in an advertisement as they often become a primary association for the brand (Simpson and Mayr 2010:36). Indeed, O’Guinn, Allen and Semenik (2011: 387) describe a slogan or tagline as ‘[…] a short phrase that is in part used to help establish an image, identity or position for a brand or an organisation, but it is most often used to increase memorability’. In cosmetics advertisements, slogans help construct both ‘consumer femininity’ and ‘commodity feminism.’ ‘Commodified femininity’ (Benwell and Stokoe 2006:171) or ‘consumer femininity’ (Talbot 2010a; 2010b) is a media construction of femininity which presupposes and promotes individual consumption of beauty products as a worthwhile pursuit and expense. Within media constructions of ‘consumer femininity’, feminist values – such as independence, choice, self-worth, and liberation – are
used to promote individual consumption, a practice which Goldman (1992) terms ‘commodity feminism’. The extant literature on slogans in critical linguistic research paradigms has tended to analyse individual examples of slogans in the context of advertisements, but has not attempted to analyse a number of slogans with a view of creating a typology (see for example Cook 2001; Forceville 1996; Gill 2007). Myers (1994) is one researcher who does analyse numerous examples of individual slogans. He however focuses on stylistic features which make slogans memorable, such as alliteration, rhyme, and unusual spellings, as opposed to a more critical linguistic analytical approach of slogans as discourse. This research, then, can add to the existing literature on advertising discourse, primarily by identifying the core linguistic features of cosmetics slogans and by providing a typology of cosmetics slogans which is applicable to both French and English data. This paper uses a Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis approach to explore contemporary Metropolitan French and British English cosmetics advertising slogans. This research aims to offer a typology of print cosmetics advertising slogans and to compare frequency patterns of slogan usage in English and French print advertisements, with the additional aim of exploring the cosmetics slogan as an example of gendered media discourse. In the textual analysis, slogans are discussed according to four categories: (1) brand validity; (2) brand positives; (3) brand philosophies; and (4) direct appeal. Issues of pronoun translation in a cross-cultural perspective are then addressed, with examples from the data.
slogans (24) and the English slogans (23) were analysed altogether with the creation of four discursive slogan categories being driven by the data. A ‘bottom up’ form of analysis was required due to the fact that I could not find an existing critical linguistic model of slogan classification. It was therefore deemed necessary to examine each slogan in detail and note key features which could help to create a typology. I created four categories for the slogans, with each category as constitutive of a particular ‘interpretative discourse’ (Sunderland 2004:46). In this particular sense, discourses are understood as ‘broad constitutive systems of meaning’ and are evidenced through ‘linguistic traces’ (Sunderland 2004:6). As slogans are generally short and often consist only of three or four descriptive words, the main focus is on lexical items, pronouns, and, more generally, address to the consumer (where applicable). It must also be noted that the four categories have been specifically created for cosmetics advertising slogans; this does not however preclude their potential application to other product slogans. With regard to categorisation, I have found these categories adequate for my analysis thus far, but future research may of course see some refinement or expansion of the four categories. Although I have attempted to make the categories as mutually exclusive as possible, there exists the possibility that a slogan may fit into more than one category. One such example is the Herbal Essences ’ slogan: ‘It does beautiful things to your head.’ As this slogan uses the personal pronoun ‘your’ and the positive, yet difficult to substantiate, ‘beautiful things’, it could fit into the categories of ‘brand positives’ and ‘direct address.’ However, since ‘your’ is perhaps being employed in a generic sense as an alternative to ‘one’s’ in this context, it was decided that this slogan was more appropriate in the brand positives category. Similarly, Schwarzkopf ’s slogan ‘Professional HairCare for you’ could be categorised
under ‘brand positives’ or ‘direct appeal’. ‘Direct appeal’ was chosen as the brand can be viewed as providing (or at the very least claiming to provide) high-quality products to the individual consumer – with the implication that the individual consumer may not usually have personal access to these products. In addition to qualitative analysis, quantitative research techniques are also applied to the slogan data as a supporting measure to strengthen qualitative findings. Quantitative research can be summarised very broadly by the questions ‘how much’ or ‘how many’? (Rasinger 2008:10-11). Frequencies of occurrence for each slogan category are compared and contrasted in the French and English data. As the data is categorical, Woods, Fletcher and Hughes’ (1986) suggestions for treatment of linguistic categorical data have been followed. They argue that frequency summaries are useful for categorical data as this facilitates comparisons and contrasts of how often each category occurred (Woods, Fletcher and Hughes 1986: 8-9). Following their suggestions, in the slogan tables in the appendix, (observed) frequency is recorded in addition to relative frequency as ‘a table of relative frequencies is not really informative (and can be downright misleading) unless we are given the total number of observations on which it is based’ (Woods, Fletcher and Hughes 1986: 9). Thus, this form of analysis facilitates conclusions about the patterns of slogan usage in the English and French texts, and additionally provides a useful starting point for further research on larger datasets of cosmetics advertising slogans. Quantitative techniques can thus help to give a clearer picture of the overall femininity constructions in this research project.
3. The four discursive slogan categories This section of the paper outlines the four categories of cosmetics advertisement slogans. Each category includes a discussion of content, core
l’anti-âge depuis 25 ans’ (‘The anti feature, such as Neutrogena Makeup of Makeup Artists’. nouns or nominal phrases. Brand v data and 25% of the French data, therefore frequency of occurrence was similar in both languages. Content Core linguistic •Makes directreferences to experts, research or officialaccolades / awards (or a combination of thethree) •Used to emphasise orprove the ‘trustworthiness’ of aproduct
- ‘a discourse of reassurance’
- Lexis rel and figures, including time – years’.
- Nouns: Experts: dermatologists, make up artists
Fig.
Fig. 2: Brand Validity slogans, French/English comparison
(‘The anti-ageing specialist for 25 years’). Experts also Neutrogena : ‘Developed with dermatologists’ and MaxFactor
. Thus, the reassuring lexis is found mostly in the form of or nominal phrases. Brand validity slogans accounted for 22% of the English % of the French data, therefore frequency of occurrence was similar in
Core linguistic features Construction of the female consumer
- ‘a discourse of reassurance’
- Lexis rel and figures, includingating to facts years’.^ ‘100%’, ‘
- Nouns: Experts: dermatologists, make- up artists
- Someone who will bereassured/ impressed by ‘official’ or‘professional’ references
- [ European luxury skinClarins] care • [ Dr. Pierre Ricaud Le spécialiste de l’anti âge depuis
- Makeup of [MaxFactor] The Artists • [Neutrogena] Developed with dermatologists
Fig. 1 Slogan analysis (1) Brand Validity
Brand Validity slogans, French/English comparison
Brand Validity
Experts also MaxFactor : ‘The Thus, the reassuring lexis is found mostly in the form of alidity slogans accounted for 22% of the English % of the French data, therefore frequency of occurrence was similar in
Examples European luxury skin^ Clarins]^ No 1 in care Dr. Pierre Ricaud] Le spécialiste de l’anti âge depuis 25 ans - Makeup of^ [MaxFactor] The Makeup Artists [Neutrogena] Developed with dermatologists
Brand Validity slogans, French/English comparison
English Slogan Data French Slogan Data
3.2 Brand positives I have identified the second category as ‘brand positives’. This slogan type is characterised by a discourse of positive attributes which employ lexical items with positive connotations (for example, ‘beautiful’, ‘professional’) to evaluate the brand without direct reference to ‘authentic’ or more objective sources such as the surveys or experts cited in brand validity slogans. As these may be attributes consumers might look for in making a purchase, this positive lexis is an attempt to target the female consumer by creating positive brand associations, in the absence of more objective evidence. The claims of the slogans are more subjective than those of the previous category. Sanex reassures us that it ‘keeps skin healthy’, but the slogan does not elaborate on how or why, compared to, for example, a brand validity cosmetic advertising slogan such as Clinique ’s ‘Allergy Tested. 100% Fragrance Free’. Herbal Essences claims ‘it does beautiful things to your head’, but what exactly these ‘beautiful things’ are is unclear. TRESemmé is ‘professional’ and ‘affordable’, but we are not directly told, for example, how many professional salons or hairdressers use TRESemmé products, and affordability is of course a somewhat relative concept. In contrast to the reassuring nouns of the previous category, the positive lexis in this category tends to take the form of adjectives. Brand positives accounted for 26% of the English slogans and 21% of the French slogans, so again we see similar frequencies for both languages, with a slightly higher occurrence in the English data.
feelings are amplified and categories blurred […] [Attitude is] concerned with our feelings, including emotional reactions, judgements of behaviour and evaluation of things. Attitude can therefore be divided into three subcategories: affect, which describes feelings; judgement , which includes criticism; and, most pertinent to brand positive slogans, appreciation , which concerns a given entity’s value or aesthetics (Martin and White 2005: 35-36). ‘Evaluative’ lexis can be seen as part of the lexicogrammar of appraisal, and analysis of evaluative vocabulary items broadly falls within the remit of discourse semantics (Martin and White 2005: 35). The evaluative lexis of appreciation is evident in many examples from the brand positive category, tending to take the form of evaluative adjectives, adverbs or adverbial phrases, for example: Herbal Essences : ‘It does beautiful things to your head’; T RESemmmé : ‘ Professional. Affordable.’; Wella: ‘ Passionately Professional’; and Bio Secūre: ‘Avec respect, avec soin’ (‘With respect, with care’).
3.3 Brand philosophies I have termed the third category ‘brand philosophies’. The slogans included in this category are characterised by a discourse of more abstract brand embodiment which may index the brand personality. These include statements which embody the brand values in some way without naming a benefit of their product (tangible or otherwise), making reference to an ‘authentic’ source, or directly addressing the consumer. Examples include slogans such as Vichy: ‘Health is beautiful’ and Klorane: ‘Le pouvoir des plantes’ (‘The power of plants’).
Content Core linguistic
- Statements whichembody the brand values in some waywithout: naming a tangible benefit /‘authenticity’ reference / direct address toconsumer •May be more abstract
- ‘a discourse of (more abstract) brand embodiment ‘ • Often ‘general’ statements beautiful’
Fig. 5: Slogan analysis (3) Brand Philosophies
Fig. 6: Brand Philosophies slogans, French/English comparison
Indeed, on the Klorane, Aussie particular brand’s ‘philosophy’, and the slogan (and the values behind it) is at the core of this. The philosophy of the brand is often linked to some kind of brand story or brand personality, as can be seen in the foll
Brand ‘Philosophy’ Klorane “A passion for plants”: ‘KLORANE Laboratories’ philosophy is based on a passion for plants and nature. The Phytofilière®, the only chain expertise of its kind in the world, was born of this philosophy and guarantees high levels of quality, efficacy and safety. Plants are central to KLORANE Laboratories
Core linguistic features Construction of the female consumer
- ‘a discourse of (more abstract) brand embodiment ‘ • Often ‘general’ statements beautiful’ - ‘health is
- Someone who isinterested in brand values / brandpersonality
- beautiful [Vichy] Health is des plantes^ •^ [Klorane] Le pouvoir
- • [UNE] [Aussie] “There’s more than life to hair, but it’s a good place to start.” : Slogan analysis (3) Brand Philosophies
: Brand Philosophies slogans, French/English comparison
Klorane, Aussie and UNE websites there exist sections on the particular brand’s ‘philosophy’, and the slogan (and the values behind it) is at the The philosophy of the brand is often linked to some kind of brand story or brand personality, as can be seen in the following table of examples:
Brand Philosophies
‘Philosophy’ (^) Website Reference (f “A passion for plants”:^ provided in references section ‘KLORANE Laboratories’ philosophy is based on a passion for plants and nature. expertise of its kind in the world, was born of^ , the only chain^ of plant this philosophy and guarantees high levels of quality, efficacy and safety. Plants are central to KLORANE Laboratories
http://www.klorane.co.uk/Philosophy
Examples beautiful^ [Vichy] Health is des plantes^ [Klorane] Le pouvoir [UNE] [Aussie] “There’s Natural Beauty more than life to hair, but it’s a good place to start.”
: Brand Philosophies slogans, French/English comparison
websites there exist sections on the particular brand’s ‘philosophy’, and the slogan (and the values behind it) is at the The philosophy of the brand is often linked to some kind of brand story les:
English Slogan Data French Slogan Data
Website Reference (f provided in references sectionull reference) http://www.klorane.co.uk/Philosophy
construction of differing ‘brand personalities’, in part through slogans, helps create an individual company persona to encourage consumer purchasing. This is then supported through additional brand information such as the brand history and philosophies available on their website and other marketing materials. Interestingly, the category of brand philosophies was the one in which we see the biggest difference in frequency across the data sets: this category only constituted 22% of the English slogans, whereas it was very frequent in the French data, accounting for 42% of the overall slogans. I suggest, therefore, that the brand philosophy slogan which employs abstract brand embodiment is a more common strategy in French cosmetics advertising slogans.
3.4 Direct appeal I have termed the fourth category ‘direct appeal’. This is the category which most closely follows Fairclough’s ‘synthetic personalisation’ (2001:168-170) and also Talbot’s ‘synthetic sisterhood’ (1995; 2010b). Synthetic personalisation is a term used to describe advertising and media discourse’s attempt to address the consumer as an individual through communication en masse. In English, this technique tends to be carried out by the second person pronoun ‘you’, which can be used to refer to an individual or ‘multi-exophorically’ - to the audience as a whole (Cook 2001:157). Cook (2001:161) describes the ‘you’ in advertisements as forming ‘part of a high- involvement strategy which attempts to win us over by very direct address; they [the advertisers] step uninvited into our world, expressing interest in our most intimate concerns’ (my emphasis). The slogans in the direct appeal category attempt to address the consumer directly, either by use of the imperative voice or the second person pronoun. These strategies constitute an attempt to feign a relationship between producer and consumer. The ‘advice’ given in the slogan equates
femininity with consumerism. In these following examples, the brand name is given first, followed by the slogan with suggested presuppositions in square brackets: Barry M: ‘Make Everday Beautiful x [by use of Barry M products] Rimmel: ‘ Get the London look [by using Rimmel] Garnier: ‘Prends soin de toi/ Take care [of yours L’Oréal Paris : ‘Parce que vous le valez bien / Because you’re worth it [you deserve our products]’. Content Core linguistic
- Direct address toconsumer (as if individual)• The address tends to explictly link femininityand consumption
- ‘a discourse of ‘synthetic personalisation’ / ‘synthetic sisterhood’’ •Imperative ‘get’, ‘take care’
- Personal pronoun usage: ‘you’ ‘vous’ ‘tu’ •Strongly presupposes link between femininity and consumerism ‘Make everyday beautiful ‘[by purchase and use of our products]
Fig.
Fig. 9: Direct Appeal slogans, French/English comparison
femininity with consumerism. In these following examples, the brand name is given first, followed by the slogan with suggested presuppositions in square brackets: Make Everday Beautiful x [by use of Barry M products]’; the London look [by using Rimmel]’; Prends soin de toi/ Take care [of yourself through use of our products]’; and Parce que vous le valez bien / Because you’re worth it [you deserve
Core linguistic features Construction of the female consumer
- ‘a discourse of ‘synthetic personalisation’ / ‘synthetic sisterhood’’ •Imperative ‘get’, ‘take care’ voice -
- Personal pronoun usage: ‘you’ ‘vous’ ‘tu’ •Strongly presupposes link between femininity and consumerism ‘Make everyday – beautiful ‘[by purchase and use of our products]
- Someone who willperhaps pay more attention if addressedmore personally /intimately
- Everday Beautiful x [Barry M] [by use of Barry M products]
- London Look [Rimmel] Rimmel] • [Garnier] de toi / yourself through use of our products] •[ L’Oréal Paris] P que bien/Because you’re worth it our products]
Fig. 8: Slogan analysis (4) Direct Appeal
Direct Appeal slogans, French/English comparison
Direct Appeal
English Slogan Data French Slogan Data
femininity with consumerism. In these following examples, the brand name is given first, followed by the slogan with suggested presuppositions in square brackets:
elf through use of our products]’; and Parce que vous le valez bien / Because you’re worth it [you deserve
Examples Everday Beautiful x^ [Barry M]^ Make [by use of Barry M products] London Look^ [Rimmel]^ Get the [by using Rimmel] [Garnier] Prends soin de toi / yourself through use of Take care [of our products] L’Oréal Paris] Parce que bien/Because you’re vous le valez worth it our products] [you deserve
Direct Appeal slogans, French/English comparison
English Slogan Data French Slogan Data
serve to create new conceptualisations of femininity or to confirm existing beliefs. More generally, Litosseliti (2006:95) emphasises that readers often take in information which reinforces their existing opinions and disregard anything which might challenge them. This phenomenon is known more generally as cognitive dissonance. Although women’s actual behaviour may in some cases be far removed from how global advertising agencies perceive and target female consumers, ‘consumer femininity’ forms a major part of media construction of female identity and thus needs to be carefully examined and critiqued.
5. Addressing the consumer: pronoun use in a cross-cultural perspective When the same products are sold globally in different markets, advertising copy is often translated or adapted accordingly, taking into account different cultural preferences and a different target consumer. The following consideration of parallel advertisement slogans takes inspiration from Sidiropoulou’s (2008) analysis of contemporary English-Greek advertisements in which she views parallel advertisement versions as ‘extremely rich reflections of cultural identities’ and considers the impact of cultural norms on advertisement translation (Sidiropoulou 2008:337). As previously noted, pronouns help construct synthetic personalisation. In English the second person pronoun ‘you’ can refer to an individual and/or a group and can be used formally or informally. However, languages such as French have what is known in sociolinguistic terms as a T-V distinction – a linguistic distinction is made between the ‘tu’ (T) form in French used to address an individual, someone of equal status, someone close, a subordinate and/or someone younger, whereas the ‘vous’ (V) form is used to indicate plurality or to address someone who is elder or
superior, or to indicate respect/formality (Cook 2001:183; Munday 2004: 209). The ‘vous’ form is often the ‘default’ form for addressing people you do not know well. Sidiropoulou (2008: 349-350) sees the tu-vous distinction in French as indicative of France as a country with a high power distance index, according to Hofstede’s cultural research (see Hoftstede, Hofstede and Minkov 2010: 58-60). Although the Hoftstedian model is not without criticism, it remains the model of cultural research which has been applied most frequently to advertising and marketing language, and may be useful to consider here. Power distance describes how people with less power in an unequal society accept their lower power status. However, I would argue that in the majority of day-to day interactions in which there is no clear power differential at play, power distance does not play a major role; rather, the tu-vous distinction tends to be more related to familiarity or lack thereof. Actual usage of the T-V distinction does vary across languages, and may depend on issues such as linguistic politeness and formality in a given culture. For advertisers, the choice of T or V is potentially problematic as they will not wish to offend consumers by using an over-familiar form (Munday 2004:209). I have chosen two slogan translation examples to explore this issue: L’Oréal Paris : ‘ Parce que vous le valez bien’ (Because you’re worth it) ; and Garnier: ‘ Prends soin de toi’ (Take care – The literal translation is ‘take care of yourself’, as the French grammatical construction requires what you are taking care of to be made explicit). It must be noted that the French verb conjugation also indicates whether you are using the ‘tu’ or ‘vous’ form ( ‘valez’ / ‘prends’) because the pronoun must agree with the form of the verb employed. It is interesting to note that both Garnier and L’Oréal Paris are owned by L’Oréal; however this does not necessarily mean the same pronoun would be used as
English and French translations of the same slogan. Following on from the discussion in section 4, additional research could be conducted in the area of reader response, such as organising focus groups in which women discuss their opinions of and reactions to cosmetics advertising slogans. With regards to the potential application of the typology outlined in this paper, the categories could be applied to larger differing sets of cosmetics advertising slogan data (for example, in different publications or in a different time period), in addition to being employed in the analysis of slogans within individual advertisements. The frequency analysis provides a starting point for further cross-comparative research into English and French cosmetics advertising slogans. Beyond the academe, the slogan classifications suggested here, along with the discussion of consumer femininity and commodity feminism, provide a metadiscursive ‘toolkit’ which enables linguists and non-linguists alike to identify, explore, and challenge axiomatic, stereotypical and gendered uses of language in cosmetics slogans.
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