Identifying Visual Trait for Indonesian Women in Shampoo Commercial.
ABSTRACT
Young Indonesian women have to deal with the mainstream beauty standard in public
workplace. The media has pervasive role in showing the preferable beauty standard, this
study will look at shampoo commercials, which claim to display Indonesian beauty. These
commercials were regularly shown in television and social media. This study will look at the
comparison between three major brands. Which used Indonesian women who work at public
workplace. These hair products aim for the same age and demography target.
The main ideas in both commercial are displaying working Indonesian women. This study will
look the response from young Indonesian women age 19 – 23 as target, whether they could
identify Indonesian trait shown in the commercials. Moreover, this study will use visual
analysis to identify the visual traits shown as components of Indonesian beauty.
Keywords: identity, gender, visual analysis, Indonesian Beauty
Background
Indonesian media has been giving clues about the beauty standard in public workplace. As
stated by Rhodes (2010) the media had increasing influence on both the importance and
definition of attractiveness. Indonesia is a developing country with densely populated cities,
especially in West Java. Jakarta as the capital city, and Bandung have both urban setting for
their residences. Thus young women who live in both cities have more access to public
workplace. This research took responses from 100 Indonesian young women. They are
college-educated women who are going to/already are working in public workplace. These
particular Indonesian women are the intended targets for companies who produce shampoo
use video advertisement to attract their customers. According to a study on perception among
women in Kolkata towards shampoo, 36% of Indian women were influenced by television
advertisement upon making their buying decision (Bhimani & Patra, 2015). In the preliminary
study, Indonesian women age 19 – 25 give more attention to video commercial in social
media rather than televised ones.
Indonesian young women are the intended targets of these shampoo advertisements.
Therefore the companies used video as their main media. These videos were shown in their
YouTube channel and as pop ad whenever the target audience opened the site. Video has
the benefits of employing visual, movement and sounds to enhance the product’s benefits
and giving a sense of reality. Video also gives a virtual physical appearance of the
spokesperson in the ad. According to Arvisson (2006) the companies strengthen their online
branding through video commercial. In recent years, video commercial is getting easier to
access by viewer due to better Internet connection. The intended audience could access
these video commercials from their mobile phones, tablets or computers. According to
Rhodes (2010) the Internet has opened a vast marketing opportunity, with increased public
advertisements and media celebrities, which reinforces the significance of appearances.
Media, especially Youtube produces imagery set high standard, which continues to distress
the customers (Gauntlett, 2008).
This study analyzes shampoo commercials from 5 major brands, made for Indonesian
market, targeted for Indonesian young women age 19- 25. These brands are Sunsilk, Clear
and Pantene. The video advertisements depicted women who work in public workplace. For
this study, there are 11 video commercials shown to the respondents: by Sunsilk, 3 from
Pantene and 1 each from Clear, Dove and Head & Shoulders. All videos features the spokes
persons in their working environment, except Dove. The commercial were shown from 2014
to 2016 on YouTube.
Hairstyles are used to indicate ethnicity, occupation and gender according to Lindholm
(2007); therefore this visual marking is one of the Indonesian beauty elements. Hair and the
way a person done with his/her mane is have symbolic power and part of a ritual, according
to Lindholm. This study concentrate on visual traits in shampoo video commercial, because
the spokespersons are showing their hair and the companies displayed them as women
working in public space. The spokespersons in these videos are women and the way they
styled their hair are the visual markings of Indonesian professional women.
Methodology
The preliminary questionnaire was given to Indonesian young women who reside in Bandung
and Jakarta age 19 to 23. The first 20 respondents were given the questions and watch the
video together in small groups (3-5 persons at one time) and continue with focus group
discussion. The second batch (80 respondents) filled their questions online. This division
creates different outcome, and dependency on their peers. Afterwards, visual analysis is
used to identify visual trait of Indonesian women in the video advertisement.
Discussion and Results
Indonesian young women put their self-appearance as high importance. According to the
preliminary questionnaire, 94.2% put self-appearance as important. 63.6% think their facial
feature is the most important, while 28.8% put hair as their most precious physical feature.
These studies then concentrate on hair, because it can be naturally evolved/manageable, and
has been politicized since the Colonial era. Indonesian young women also tend to buy
shampoo in more regular basis (89.9 %) rather than other beauty/self-care product. They are
also quite used to using social media. All of the shampoo advertisements in this study were
seen in YouTube. 73.9% of the respondents have seen the videos before they fill the
questionnaire and they have seen the videos in YouTube as well.
Sunsilk was using three Indonesian singers The Indonesian singers are Raisa, Karina Salim
and Regina, the later was a winner from Indonesian Idol. Even the written title as “singer” or
was shown in their commercial, to emphasized their occupation. All models in these Sunsilk
commercial have shoulder length hair with black hair.
The second brand was Pantene. This brand used different approach, with all of the
spokespersons pose as themselves. Elle, Jess and Harumi are beauty bloggers, while
Silviani is a hairdresser. The videos were also styled as video tutorial using Pantene
products. Elle & Jess showed Pantene products for maintaining colored hair. Harumi was
giving tips on hairstyling and highlight the product’s benefits to make styling hair easier.
Silviani showed her client healthy and easier to stylize hair. The respondents in the focus
group were most familiar with Elle & Jess, because they look like in the same age group.
Next was Clear, the self-acclaimed number one anti dandruff shampoo in Indonesia. This
brand used Agnes Monica, another Indonesian famous singer, actor and dancer. In this
commercial she emphasize about public scrutiny on her appearance, thus she has to look
pristine most of her time.
Dove used testimonial approach for their video. The models’ occupations were written in the
start of the video. This video used 3 ladies to give testimony about their hair dilemma in their
profession, and how Dove has helped them.
Video
1.
Video
2.
Video
3.
Profession
Singer
Beauty
Blogger
Hairstylist
Travel
Blogger
Chef
Bussiness
woman
Actor
Dancer
Table 1. The Spokesperson’s profession.
Video
4.
Video
5.
Video
6.
Video
7.
Video
8.
Video
9.
Video
10.
Video
11
64% of the respondents agree the ads depicted Indonesian beauty. While from hair length
and texture variables, 35.2 % agree the long and wavy hair made the spokesperson in the
commercials look most Indonesian. All commercials show how the product’s benefit could
help the spokeswomen to keep their hair appearance in their public workplace.
Video
1.
Video
2.
Video
3.
Video
4.
Video
5.
Video
6.
Video
7.
Video
8.
Video
9.
Video
10.
Video
11
Hair
Black
Colored
Short
Medium
Long
Wavy
Straight
Curly
Table 2. Hair Visual Traits in Shampoo Commercial.
The respondents choose Raisa in the last video (33%) as her image in this video most
represents Indonesian beauty. Next is Karina Salim (19.4%) There are 2 video commercials
featuring Raisa in this survey, both are depicting her singing in front of audience, however the
ninth video commercial shown to respondents have displayed more Indonesian beauty. 75%
agree that her hair length and color made her look most Indonesian. In their comments, the
respondents also add her hair looks most natural and healthy. This video is a part of Sunsilk
Black Provoke Campaign launched by Unilever. The aim was to bring back the black hair
sense of pride among Indonesian women, despite colored hair trend. One of the campaign
activation was through online vote, Indonesian audience could choose Raisa to color
(#procolor) or to agree on black color (#prohitam). The paid media (including from the link in
youtube video) gathers 811.000 clicks and more than 6 million in total votes, with 4.3 million
vote for Black Hair. Unilever also benefits from 30% increase sale for their Black & Shiny
Variant during the course of this campaign. The least Indonesian looking was featuring
Harumi for Pantene (3%).
Picture 1. Raisa in Kilaumu Sunsilk Video Commercial (2015)
Picture 2. Karina Salim in Sunsilk Black Shine Video (2016)
80.6 % of the respondents agree that all spokespersons have already displayed professional
women appearances in their videos. The respondent comments were healthy and managed
hair shows professionalism and trustable personality.
Quarter of all respondents chose another video featuring Raisa as having the most
professional look. 22.8% voted for Agnes Monica in Clear video, even though there was no
th
scene depicting her professional career. While the 7 video depicting Silviani the hairdresser
has the least (3%) voter.
Picture 4. Raisa in Sunsilk 7 Days Challenge (2014)
Picture 4. Agnes Monica in Clear, 8 signs of dandruff free hair.
Conclusion
The visual traits identified by Indonesian young women as Indonesian are long wavy and
black hair. The natural overall look is also important for Indonesian look. Furthermore, the
shampoo brands also prefers to feature Indonesian professional women who works in media
industry. Preferably the spokesperson is a well known as singer or actress, for their familiarity
factor. Respondents were agreeing about length and color of hair, professional women in
Indonesian have long and black hair. The respondents accepts the beauty standard for
Indonesian and professional appearance shown in these video commercials.
References
Arvidsson, Adam (2006) Brands: Meaning and value in media culture, Routledge London,
p.199.
Gauntlett, David (2008) Media, Gender and Identity. Routledge, London, p. 205.
Lindholm, Charles (2007) Culture and identity. One World Book a division of McGraw-Hill,
Boston p.174
Rhodes, Deborah L. (2010) The Beauty Bias: The Injustice of Appearance in Life and Law.
Oxford University Press (52-53)
Sunsilk Black Shine https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7VvZnKH4mY
Sunsilk Soft and smooth Karina Salim https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mVDu2f_Vp0
Sunsilk Raisa https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJZTJU-Fa9M
Sunsilk Raisa https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqdGFkm1BX0
Sunsilk Regina https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-lFUKAa83k
Pantene Elle & Jess https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOrwI5lAytw
Harumi https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKAWYacVYys
Silviani Pantene https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHa6oGQd4mU
Clear https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0VM2rdPTR4
Head & Shoulders Asmirandah https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1JY3nqEbaw
Dove https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhsth-zUXUk
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