Saturday, June 09, 2007

blondes vs. brunettes

More marketing at it's best! Since I don't have a TV (which really must change, since after all, I am a publicist) I only recently learned about the new marketing campaign for Sunsilk Color Boost. Here's the jist: marketing mavens at Mindshare Chicago have designed a totally interactive campaign to literally pit blondes and brunettes against one another, complete with TV ads like these that feature blondes and brunettes talking trash about each other, print ads (none of which I've seen yet), tie-ins to things like MySpace, and an interactive website called Colorshowdown.com, where blondes and brunettes can log in, choose a team, and "compete" to end this age-old question.

Isn't marketing fascinating?

Here's the lead to the press release I found on Imedia.com:

In order to answer the age-old question of who is better: blondes or brunettes?, Sunsilk created the Color Showdown, a campaign to ignite conversation about hair color rivalry while launching our newest line of products: the Sunsilk Color Collections.

Who is better? Blondes or brunettes? This first sentence struck me, because it is so basic. For two years now I have been pondering the "idea" of being blonde, images of blondes, commonly held notions of blondeness, my own deeply rooted feelings about being blonde, etc. To me, hair color has become a complicated web of questions. Blonde? Brunette? What does it all mean, to the world and to me, personally? And how can I work all of the many ideas and experiences I've had living as both into a cohesive, readable, 256-288 page book?

Left in the hands of a marketing team, however, there is really only one question: Who is better?

I was raised not to play favorites. I am one of four children and I have a twin brother, and no matter how many times I've tried to get my parents to confess to me that yes, I in fact was both the favorite twin AND the best child overall, it always yielded the same response:

"I love you ALL equally. You are ALL special and different and my favorite. I love ALL of you the best."

Sometimes my mom would answer "Well, you're our favorite daughter" (I am the only daughter), or "You're the best writer in the family" (I am the only writer in the family), but her and my father's message was always in it's essence the same: "You are all equally good and equally valued." In light of this, I find it audacious of Sunsilk Color Collections to so blatantly ask the world to play favorites on the question of blondes or brunettes.

On second thought, I suppose, Sunsilk probably does view brunettes and blondes equally. As long as women are spending money on their products, I'm sure the CEOs of their parent company Unilever will happily say, "Blondes & brunettes, we love ALL of you the best."

2 comments:

merjoem32 said...

Great post. I think that the top haircolor specialist can offer great advice when it comes to hair. After all, they have been in the business for a long time and they are experts.

Anonymous said...

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Ange