Gender Inequality Issues

For the advertisement analysis assignment, I chose to analyze a Philippines’ Pantene advertisement, ‘Labels Against Women,’ that was published in 2013. The duration of the ad is about one minute and nineteen seconds. This advertisement comes from a television broadcast and is now available on YouTube. Not to mention, Pantene is a well-known hair product that consists of a variety of options for women to choose for their hair from hair shampoo to hair spray that is made of natural and organic ingredients.

Pantene hair products are also suitable for all types of hair whether it is broken, damaged, or dried. With advanced technology, Pantene has been campaigning to promote its products by using emotional relevance about gender inequality and women’s struggle for years. Now, they have come with a strong message, ‘Labels Against Women,’ to influence women to buy their products and to fight against gender discrimination.

The target audiences or consumers for this shampoo ad are adult females, mainly between the ages of 18-40.

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Moreover, these women fall under many categories as well as full-time students and working-class women; they also may be married or single. But they all have one interest that is beauty, especially about women’s hair. All women want to have beautiful, healthy, and strong hair, however, even if they have the latest style trend, they always feel insecure with their surroundings because of inappropriate labels.

This Pantene’s ‘Labels Against Women’ ad exposes a gender bias double-standard where men and women are shown exhibiting the same behaviors but are labeled differently.

There are several messages that Pantene tries to communicate about gender inequality that is happening in society, for example, discrimination at the workplace, which is the first highlight in the video. Two individuals who are leaders of a company are labeled as a boss and bossy. From this labeling, of course, men will become the boss and women will become the bossy. This is how we entitle men and women with labels that suit them. In general, not all men can accept women to become their boss, they want women to work under them not the rule them. Besides, boss and bossy, other labels have been used as double-standard in the short video as follows: persuasive/pushy, dedicated/selfish, neat/vain, and smooth/show-off. These gender biases and double standards are still existing because we create them to label men and women. In this ad alone, it shows both sexist stereotypes and anti-feminist that accurate to my view because I have been in this situation too. Like any other advertisement, Pantene’s ‘Label Against Women’ is intended to do one thing that is to push products, but it has a great feminist message “Don’s let labels hold you back. Be strong and shine” at the end of the ad. The language in this ad further promotes the ideas of beauty, and it suggests messages about confidence and strength. In addition to this, using a cover of the Tears for Fears song “Mad World” is another spotlight to demonstrate men’s behavior perceived positively while women’s behavior is often perceived negatively.

Overall, Pantene has successfully spread the message of gender biases. In my opinion, they have researched gender inequality issues knowledgeably to interact with women out there. The element that helps the ad become viral is using issues about women’s empowerment and using Miss Philippines, Catriona Gray, who was also Miss Universe 2018, as their role model. This ad goes into detail to explain what degree of double-standard labels has influenced women to appreciate themselves. Not only Pantene aims to sell shampoo, but also it calls attention to inspire women to stop the gender double standard in the workplace and achieve their dreams.