‘Real women’ should go blonde, says L’Oreal in new digital ‘Blondefidence’ campaign
Beauty brand L’Oreal is telling women that they will be more confident if they are blonde in a new marketing campaign.
L’Oreal’s salon brand Professionnel is at the centre of the new digital and social campaign with women undergoing makeovers to become ‘Blondefident’. The campaign offers “bland” darker haired women “the confidence to shine as a brilliant blonde”.
At the heart of the campaign created by agency Channel T, is a website that showcases the story of four women on their journey from “bland to blondefident”. The videos features one woman whose hair colour it describes as “mousey”, another is described as having “virgin hair”, one it says is as “brassy” and another as “lifeless”.
A slogan on the L’Oreal site
Ian Harman, general manager for L’Oréal Professionnel, said in a statement promoting the campaign: “This campaign represents a dramatic shift in the way we market our products and services. We’re opening up a new way to support our salons and meet consumer demand by talking directly to consumers and educating them about the complexity of blonde colour and why colouring it needs to be placed in the hands of an expert.”
“Mousey”; “Virgin hair”; “a brassy”; “lifeless”
The women’s makeovers were captured on film with the video content and the campaign website supported by search, social, email and user-generated content.
“Our aim is to inspire millions of women to visit their L’Oréal Professionnel salon armed with one of our blonde looks, be looked after by one of our highly trained blonde specialists and so achieve their perfect blonde and see what if feels like to be ‘Blondefident’. We hope that they will then in turn share their new looks using the ‘Blondefident’ hashtag inspiring others to do the same,” said Hughes.
Paul Rhodes, director at Channel T together with his team created the creative concept, content, website build and social strategy behind the campaign.
Rhodes said: “It’s an inspiring idea. The channel specific content and media integration should generate a huge volume of conversation. Which we are hoping will ultimately drive consumers to specifically seek out L’Oréal Professionnel salons, as the only way to be confident they will get their perfect blonde”.
Refraining…. refraining…
As the father of mixed-race girls with dark skin and hair who are bombarded daily by “Aussie culture” that they don’t fit/aren’t real “Aussies”, this whiffs of more Adland monoculture and insensitivity…
But refraining… refraining..
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Wow, this is just plain awful. After with Tom Donald above, massively insensitive. Also just dull, no imagination shown here.
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*Agree.
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Oh dear.
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I feel your slogan is very dated, seriously stereotyped- as a hairstylist for 30 years I am trained to complement my clients true real beauty and not describe their natural colour in any negative way- it’s much nicer to indivulise and be pleasent- guess your team are not all hairdressers as this just lacks charm a needed quality for the public- Personally I do love your products but not this add
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I’m not exactly PC but even this is an awful idea.
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Here again there is an instant knee jerk reaction to blonde. Blonde does not mean racist, as it certainly did in the bad old days of Nazi domination and the insane idea that the Nordic Teutonic and the Aryan Race formed the basis for human superiority.
Blonde is one of a myriad of hues, shades and colours available to the hair tinting market, where it s possible to speculate (if you have humour) that the “real woman” is proud and strong enough to go blonde.
N.B It says “real Women” not Real Australians. I have seen African American women with product induced blonde hair, and it looked very classy and very attractive in the cases I recall.
Real men eat beef, drink a certain brand of beer, drive a certain model of car, of course we all know that this is not true, but it is nice, and profoundly human, to have a joke with ourselves occasionally.
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I’m loathe to defend this, but there’s a pretty clear business for trying to convince women to ‘go blonde’. Around 2% of the population is naturally blonde, and it is very expensive hair colour to artificially maintain, hence L’Oreal can make a lot of money out of customers choosing to go blonde. I’m not a fan of this campaign, but it’s pretty clear why they are doing it.
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I’m looking for the joke here – surely L’Oreal is not serious? Has anyone involved ever just stepped back from this campaign and looked at it in the context of 2015?
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I don’t have an issue with the blonde concept, but whoever invented and approved the bizarre, weird and tortured hybrid word “blondefident” should take a good hard look at themselves, because quite frankly it’s shit (say it out loud and it sounds like a speech-impaired Swedish person suffering a stroke at their first English lesson). Here’s some better choices at no charge: #bestblonde, #perfectblonde or #lorealblonde.
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I have to strongly disagree with Richard Moss. This is inherently racist and extremely sexist. The implication is clear; women without blonde hair are not authentic ‘real women’. To infer that womanhood is contingent on a hair colour very few people are naturally born with is in fact racist. I’m not being PC – I’m seeing it for what it is. To assume that people who see the racism and sexism in this campaign are ‘humorless’ is almost as offensive. This isn’t funny in any way. Women are continually bombarded with a very narrow aesthetic to which they are supposed to subscribe and as a woman I am sick of it. The campaign would have been better to celebrate the choice that women now have to take on any hair colour that they want and celebrate female empowerment and diversity. I won’t be purchasing Loreal products in the future. I take a stand with my fellow mousy, bland and totally unreal women.
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As a female, once again I feel like I’m being told that if you’re not blonde you won’t have success in life. It’s just hideous.
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Yes, Stephanie. Everything is racist and misogynist these days. Just keep trawling for more things you can be outraged at. They’re not hard to find if you keep looking.
Amazing reaction to this so far from those commenting. So taking pride in your appearance is now seen as railing against the feminist cause? God help us all!
Lighten up and see it for what it is… From the website “blondefident” is “THE CONFIDENCE TO SHINE AS A BRILLIANT BLONDE, WITH THE EXPERTISE OF A L’ORÉAL PROFESSIONNEL SALON BEHIND YOU. CREATORS OF BLONDE SINCE 1925.”
But those looking for a fight will translate it as “being brunette means you’re an inadequate and downtrodden member of society”. It’s the same argument used by those that think showing a girl in a bikini is “fat shaming”. Get over it!
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So we continue to perpetuate the Australian Anglo origin of blondes being superior. Surely L’Oreal might have noticed in the 21st century, that we are a mixed race society and that there are plenty of other hair colours (whether natural or other) in amongst that. Lifting up certain people’s view of those who are better only serves to once again reinforce the ideal that those who don’t conform are lesser…
Awful campaign and shame on those who instigated and signed off on it….
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I’m all for segment marketing but not by making another audience feel inadequate/irrelevant. there are plenty of real women campaigns that are for inclusion. just a poorly put together campaign.
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Oh dear indead … Rhodes no matter how many times and how confidently you say ‘It’s an inspiring idea’, everyone is pretty much having a chuckle. No doubt it will generate a high volume of conversation, but I fear it will not be the conversation you had hoped for~
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Oh c’mon.. most “blondes” are mousy browns pretending to have the hair they may have had when they were kids.. unless they’re scandanavian, few women are actually blonde at all. Enough with the delusions!
Confidence is showing who you are with pride!
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This is a little out of context. “Real women go #blondefident” is the headline for the section about makeovers on real women, not the overall sentiment of the campaign.
I agree it sounds terrible and is asking for trouble but it should be looked at in this light, I think.
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