Flipping through the pages of my Seventeen Magazine, I came across this advertisement for Neutrogena Oil-Free Acne Wash. I have seen this multiple times before and I am always so intrigued by it. The picture especially. When I look at the picture of a pink grapefruit splashing in water it gives me that refreshing, clean feeling. Also anything that is pink automatically brings me in, but that is my own preference and not everyone is like that. The second thing I noticed was the product’s name “Oil-Free Acne Wash.” In my opinion, this is a very clever way to bring people to buy their product. The words Oil-Free is a smart addition to their name because who would want oil on their skin? I know for sure I wouldn’t. One of the cleverest things about this advertisement though isn’t the picture on the page, but the words “A powerful acne cleanser couldn’t possibly smell delicious. Scratch that thought. Sniff this.” There are many weasel words in this phrase, such as powerful and delicious which are extremely vague, but definitely make the product sound hundred times more amazing. And the special add in of the scratch-and-sniff so people can see for themselves how truly “delicious” it smells was definitely another plus. But they didn’t just say scratch and sniff, they added the word “smile” to make scratch, sniff, and smile. Genius right? I thought so. But the thing that confused me was that they are focusing on the smell of the product instead of its actual function, which is fight off acne. It reminds me of red herring from the fallacies, as this advertisement attempts to distract the audience away from the real job this product performs and focuses of another characteristic, such as the smell, as this ad does. This is probably one of the better advertisements have seen out there, but still is a bit cheesy. Then again most advertisements are. Overall, I thought this was very creative and original.
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