Genuinely Gorgeous

Posted by Natalie Sanchez in Reading, Writing, and Rising Up - Rami on Thursday, January 19, 2012 at 9:52 pm

Bach Tong and Natalie Sanchez

The Product that Bach and I are selling is not tangible. We are “selling” the idea of raw and genuine beauty. Through our print ads we are trying to retrain our audience’s eye to look at beauty differently than the way it is portrayed in today’s ads. With our ads, we want to redefine what beauty means, essentially. We want to stop people from thinking that you have to be a certain shape, age, and color to be considered beautiful.

We do not have a specific intended audience. We are making these ads for every American’s attention. Every American, in some way or another, has been affected by this plague that is media. It has infiltrated the way they think about beauty and, consequently, acceptance. It is the “perfect figure” that is so often sold through print ads in magazines that drive young women to physically harm their bodies, young men to committing reckless behavior in order to gain acceptance from their male peers, and so many American citizens to develop low self esteem. Americans spend tons of money daily buying products for hair growth, wrinkles, weight loss, and hair removal just to reach this physically impossible state of aesthetic “beauty.” This is why we are targeting all Americans; we are all guilty of wishing to modify our bodies in some way or another.

Our ads reach the audience through its relatable characters, by taking daily raw activities and ordinary faces to challenge the norm of beauty, which is marginalized within framing definitions by mass media. Such vehicle also carries our message of rethinking beauty.

There are many things we could have changed about our BM. A French poet and critic Paul Valerie once said: “A poem is never finished, only abandoned.” We, as always, abandon our BM because of deadlines and timelines, and we feel that if we could have more reflective periods to re-think and modify our products, we could develop a more in-depth message. It is hard to know when it's the right time to abandon our project, since the BM is a one-time deal. We tend to rush toward it at the end of the quarter. In terms of our message and direction, our BM would have a much sharper analysis if we would have focused on one specific aspect of beauty, such as body type, spirit, hair, outfit (consumerism), etc. Such messages would be easier to understand, as well as ignite a deeper level of thinking from there to challenge the norm of beauty. On the other hand, we spent a large amount of time strategizing, which is pivotal. However, hands-on time of taking pictures plays an equal role in shaping the final product, as it gives the experience to our theoretical intention, and therefore it assists the delivery of our message. In term of logistic, this BM was assigned during a relatively busy time, along with other deadlines (College Applications, Scholarships, Other BMs, Capstone proposals, etc.) Therefore it did not get as much attention as it deserved. Therefore, as always, there should have been a smarter balance of effort into the process, and a smarter plan for it to match our work capacity.

Comments (1)

Matthew Scuderi

I like these ads a lot and I think the one with Jon is the most effective, interesting, and creative idea of these all. The only thing that I didn't get is when you said that "people of color" don't normally get to be on covers of magazines, when that in fact is not a fact. It's not that people of color don't get to be on the cover of magazines, the issue we are facing here is that only people considered "beautiful" make the covers of these magazines. Overall, I like the ads, they are great.