Episode 131 - Maybelline Though Their Eyes Ad Reviewed by U of Digital and Haleon
83% of Australian female-identifying gamers have experienced offensive behaviour online. So Maybelline decided to get male players to see what it’s like to identify as female on these platforms, in their ad “Through Their Eyes.”
The clip chosen by Contagious this week shows us it’s time to change the game. What does it mean to not be able to use your own voice and be your full self, online and offline? What are the mental health implications and what can all gamers, regardless of gender, do to make things better?
Watch this week’s Advertisers Watching Ads to see the ad and hear from our guests Shiv Gupta (Founder of U of Digital), Meredith Herman (VP, Head of Global Marketing Services and Consumer Experience at Haleon) and Akash Pathak (former Associate Vice President, Marketing at Humana). They gave this ad 4.33 out of 5 - what do you think of it?
Episode 131 - Maybelline Though Their Eyes Ad Reviewed by U of Digital and Haleon
Transcript is automatically generated, so not perfect, but you get the idea!
Dan Moseley 0:00
Hello, this is Advertisers Watching Ads. A weekly show where we invite brands to review other brands' advertising.
Dan Moseley 0:32
Thank you to our partners at contagious.com for sourcing this week's video. My name is Dan Moseley. I'm the Managing Director for North America of Automated Creative. Before we get to watching this week's video, I'd like just to take a second to introduce this week's guests.
Shiv Gupta 0:47
Hi, I'm Shiv, really excited to be here today. I run a... An education and training company for the digital ad space called U of Digital.
Meredith Herman 0:56
Hi everybody, I'm Meredith Herman. I lead global marketing services and consumer experience for a company called Haleon.
Akash Pathak 1:04
My name is Akash. I am no longer with Humana. I'll be announcing kind of where I'm going in, in a few few moments or whatever. And... but I'm excited to be here and thanks to Automated Creative for making us think about some ads and have some fun.
Dan Moseley 4:20
You are going to be asked to give a vote out of five just by holding up how many digits you want to vote for and we'll do that in three, two, one... Okay, two fours and a five. Like that, like that.
Meredith Herman 4:38
I really enjoyed the fact that they put the gentlemen and the influencers in the shoes the women had felt so I really love that approach. I thought they hit the target very well but I love the fact that they use influencers as well because I really thought that it was a bit aspirational for that audience because they’re seasoned gamers.
Akash Pathak 4:56
Brands will get a, sometimes a bad mark for standing up for something, right? And saying, "Hey, you're trying to get involved in a cause." In this instance, I think, they're doing it in a really great way. They're raising awareness. This is something that I didn't realize, and maybe other people on this call didn't realize as well. And I think that's important. And I think they're directing a lot of people to try to help. And that's great.
Shiv Gupta 5:24
It felt kind of light to start. And I've kind of didn't really know what was going on completely. And then all of a sudden was like, "Whoa, okay, I know what's going on here." The fact that they raised awareness, and that it stood for something, I think, I think that's the point of brand advertising is to create an emotional connection with an audience. And obviously, like, they're talking to their audience in a big way. So extremely powerful.
Meredith Herman 5:45
As a woman in the world... You know, when I think about Maybelline, they're about makeup, they're about confidence, you know, young teens are putting, you know, they're trying to put their best self forward. I think they could have made a stronger link to mental health, and how having your voice gives you that confidence to be your full self. And that confidence helps you know, with your mental health, meaning that you are confident in who you are. But how does this community and the discrimination they felt and that many millions of teens are feeling as they connect online, and are feeling judged? How do they link that better to mental health? I thought they could have made that a little stronger in the chat. So that would have been my number one critique.
Akash Pathak 6:27
Maybelline is like the biggest cosmetic brand in the world. So there's this interesting notion here, around them getting involved with this, right? It's quite a statement for the biggest cosmetic brand in the world to go out and say, "This is a problem."
Shiv Gupta 6:40
Just visually, it felt dark. It felt, it felt like a nightclub, you know? Like a, like a weird, creepy nightclub. And that's, that's what was happening. It was interesting to kind of like, create a physical mood, that kind of reflected the digital environment, which I thought was cool. You know, if you think about any good creative, you know, it's got a, it's got to follow a story arc, right? So character development, you know, establishing that character, creating tension, and then resolving tension also at the end. And what you want to take away from that ad, if you've been in that situation, you want to feel... You want to feel positive. In the end, you want to see the light at the end of the tunnel. And I think they could have done more with that light at the end of the tunnel.
Meredith Herman 7:25
It didn't feel like the outcome was going to change. It was just awareness of the problem. And I left feeling sad about that, to be honest, at the end.
Dan Moseley 7:35
I don't remember seeing anyone put makeup on. Does anyone else?
Meredith Herman 7:38
No, I don't think so. I don't think it was about the makeup.
Dan Moseley 7:41
No.
Meredith Herman 7:42
No, I think that was a... I think that was a brand level execution of content and not aiming to sell but, but to advocate for their audience. They did put Maybelline in, "It is brought to you by..." but they did it in about 10 seconds in. I thought perhaps at the end, they could have put it because they they would be able to support their audience more by being in partnership with the Reach Out network. And Maybelline, because you might want to go back to Maybelline to understand more of what other advocacy they're doing to get more support. So I thought that maybe could have brought that home at the end a little bit more, but I thought they did a nice job.
Akash Pathak 8:22
I think there's a component that ties it back. But I think this execution specifically was probably focused on the goodwill and the equity that it could drive relative to the brand. And what I like is that you don't often see a brand as big as Maybelline, thinking about what, you know, even though gaming is $170 billion industry. We still think of it as you know, niche, you know, but it's not really, it's mass. But it's still kind of out here, you know, and so it's interesting for this brand to come in and talk about it, and then take the women, people identify as women, take their point of view and sort of rule that out. It's very... I think it's, it's pretty cool.
Shiv Gupta 9:04
I also think it's interesting, you know, when you watch a piece of content really, like that, you kind of think about who made it and if you didn't notice the, the card in the beginning that said Maybelline, at the end, you might just be like, "That's... Who? Who would put that out there?" So there's almost this level of like intrigue that they've created by very purposefully not making it about the brand, which I thought was smart too.
Dan Moseley 9:24
So in its current guise, would you have approved it in its current format? Just a simple yes or no. Three approvers all round. Brilliant. Well, that's it from us. We'll be back next time on Advertisers Watching Ads. Thank you to all our guests for taking part.
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