Rhetorical Analysis Of Neutrogena

“The Less is More”: A Rhetorical Analysis of The Complexity of Neutrogena’s Simple Print Advertisement

There are many factors that contribute to the overall influence that an advertisement can have on an audience. In the September 2013 issue of Seventeen Magazine, Neutrogena placed an advertisement for their makeup removing wipes, which as created to appeal to that particular market, or potential consumer. This ad's effectiveness relies on simple, professional imagery, specific language choices, and factual evidence to appeal to the young female consumer as well builds the brand's credibility and the consumer's trust in the product.

To fully understand the purpose of this print advertisement, one must first understand Neutrogena as a

brand. According to their website, the brand was founded with the mission of providing “safe, mild, premium quality skincare products” and the “strong relationship between Neutrogena Corporation and dermatologists gave the company an exceptional competitive advantage,” allowing it to become the large and successful company it is today (“Why Neutrogena?”). Neutrogena uses this relationship to its advantage, demonstrated in the tagline that nearly always appears under the company’s name: “#1 Dermatologist Recommended Skincare” (Neutrogena). The support that Neutrogena has from the medical community is a key factor in their marketing technique because experts trust their skincare; consumers are more likely to do the same. An advertisement from Neutrogena is charged with the task of creating the foundation for credibility and fostering brand loyalty in the young consumer.
While completing an analysis of this particular advertisement, it is also important to consider the magazine’s audience. Seventeen magazine appeals to a wide variety of young women, with articles and content mostly pertaining to high school and early college ages. With style, hair, and makeup advice galore, it is clear that young women who are concerned with their appearance mostly read this magazine. There are many other advertisements in this magazine, quite a few for hair products, clothing brans, etc. However, they are overwhelmingly outperformed by ads for various makeup products. Evaluating by the content of the magazine accompanied by these advertisements, it’s safe to say that the average Seventeen Magazine reader definitely wears makeup and everyone who wears makeup needs to remove it. By placing an ad for their “Makeup Remover Cleansing Wipes” in Seventeen Magazines, Neutrogena is easily able to reach their target demographic with a product that applies to their needs (Neutrogena).

However, in order to be successful in reaching this audience, Neutrogena must also find a way to make their advertisement stand out from their rest of the magazine’s content. Neutrogena accomplishes this task by creating a contrast between the simple, refined elements of their advertisement and the extremely busy, flashy pages contained in the rest of the issue. The lack of color, aside from the hot pink kiss in the upper left hand corner and the gentle light blue of the product packaging itself located in the lower right hand corner, the advertisement seems almost calm and peaceful in comparison to the overwhelming collage of pictures and text bubbles on the adjoining page. This connection helps to capture the attention of the consumer, but it is the content of the advertisement itself that keeps it.
As the brightest and most prominent thing on the page, the hot pink lipstick mark a kiss on the product itself, the makeup remover cleansing wipes, is the first thing that the consumer’s eye is drawn to on the page.

Simple and elegant, the kissed wipes sits alone in the upper left hand corner of the advertisement (Neutrogena). This image also summarizes the femininity of the reader, because there is truly nothing more effeminate and romantic than a lipstick kiss left on a napkin. It is classic, girly, and chic. The color of the lipstick stain only further serves to reinforce this feminine appeal pink, the most feminine color, naturally suggests a response from the young women who read this magazine. Using this to attraction the customer in, Neutrogena follows by cleverly relating the advertisement’s opening phrase back to the image: “Kiss your stubborn makeup goodbye” (Neutrogena). Instead of saying, “say goodbye to you makeup” or “get rid of that makeup” Neutrogena specifically chose the verbiage “Kiss your stubborn makeup goodbye” because the verb “kiss” parallels the feminine approach to the advertisement and also relates to the action of kissing lipstick (presumably the “stubborn makeup”) onto the wipe (Neutrogena’s product), kissing it goodbye. Therefore, bot only does the imagery of the pink lipstick kiss appeal to the young female consumer, but it also shows how the product works, the pink lipstick on the wipes shows the usefulness of the product in removing “stubborn makeup” (Neutrogena). This is an excellent example of the Neutrogena’s smart language choices, but it is definitely not the only

one.

This Neutrogena advertisement is very firm in asserting the bran’s validity with each and everyone one of their statements. Referring back to Neutrogena’s tagline, “#1 Dermatologist Recommended Skincare” the purpose of this language is very clear, to gain trust from the consumers based on their trust in dermatologists (Neutrogena). If the consumer knows that this brand is recommended by people who are experts on skin, they are simply much more likely to believe trust the products to work on their skin. That is why this tagline is so important, because it reinforces Neutrogena’s relationship with the medical community and therefore strengthens their legitimacy as a trusted skincare brand.

In order to further emphasize this relationship, Neutrogena uses precise, objective rhetoric combined with factual data to help convince the consumer that he brand is profession and trustworthy. By incorporating a statistic into the text of the advertisement, Neutrogena is able to provide important clinical verification of fact that makes the ad more believable and therefore more luring. When a customer sees that they can “Remove 99.3% of (their) most stubborn makeup, even waterproof mascara, with just one wipe” they are instantly more inspired to buy because they have a logical reason to believe that the product will work effectively, which was earlier supported by the pink lipstick kiss and “Kiss your stubborn makeup goodbye,” image to text correlation (Neutrogena). Clearly this ad’s purpose is to show the customer that they can trust the product to be highly functional.

In order to further underline the scientific accuracy of the brand, Neutrogena refers to the makeup removing solvent as a “patented formula.” This carefully chosen terminology helps to strengthen and support Neutrogena’s relationship with the expert medical and scientific community. Following that, Neutrogena then sets their brand mission of providing “safe, mild, premium quality skincare products,” by stating that this product is “gentle as water to the eyes.” (“Why Neutrogena?”: Neutrogena). Reading this, the customer is able to understand that while the product is uncompromising ad harsh towards on their “stubborn makeup”, they can rest assured that it will not harm their skin in any way after all, as they can see below, Neutrogena is the “#1 Dermatologist Recommended Skincare” and therefore they should be able to trust the product to be safe (Neutrogena). Neutrogena also makes two claims in the advertisement as objectively as one would state a fact: “No other wipe can do that” and “Nothing works better” (Neutrogena). By being so insistent and matter of fact with these statements, Neutrogena makes it simple for the customer to understand that nothing they buy is going to perform as well as what they’re selling.

The purpose of this advertisement, as it is with any, is to sell a certain product to a certain consumer. Neutrogena is able to effectively complete this task because of a variety of factors within their advertisement. They successfully appeal to the specific audience of Seventeen by using simple, feminine imagery that contrasts with busier pages of the magazine to create an eye-catching effect. Because of this primary appeal, Neutrogena is then able to draw the consumer’s attention to a reliable product relevant to their needs, all while using powerful language to reinforce the brand’s credibility as well as its mission. Even though this ad contained a grand total of only two images and five sentences, it was able to say quite a lot. When it comes to asking if “less is more,” Neutrogena might repeat the same claim they used to advertise their makeup remover cleansing wipes “Nothing works better”.