L’Oréal has targeted its latest cosmetics advertising campaign at men — men who are in a position to hire women.
The French company’s campaign features a series of ads headlined: “This is an ad for men” with the tagline, “Hire more women for leadership roles. We’re worth it.”
A red palette of cosmetics is positioned to mimic business graphs with statistics outlining how hiring women benefits companies, including data gathered by the Peterson Institute for International Economics, the University of Arizona Eller College of Management and Korn Ferry Hay Group, per wersm.
The statistic depicted by a progressively more rolled-out line of red lipsticks shows that profitability increases 15 percent in companies with female leaders; spilled red nail polish denotes a rise in innovation (a 20 percent increase in patents at companies with female leaders); and a smudge of mascara on a red background shows mentoring scores are 24 percent higher for female leaders.
The ads ran in both business magazines and women’s lifestyle publications.
The designs were developed by McCann Düsseldorf, L’Oréal’s creative agency of record. On its Facebook page, McCann Worldgroup explained that their research showed that while 91.4 percent of management and executive boards in Germany are men, women leaders actually achieve better results.
“To dramatize these facts, McCann created print ads that correct the perception of women leaders as less than men. To add a dose of humor, they directed the ads at men,” the post said.
McCann said L’Oréal supported the idea “ because the ads reflect the company’s core beliefs” and L’Oréal Germany has added women to its managing board and to corporate positions.
