It’s so easy to tell when a brand gets a new digital guru on board. Irritatingly, the film is made ‘to increase conversation’ about Benefit which it certainly will do, and the digitals won’t really care whether this conversation is good or bad as long as it is a reportable conversation – they can package it how they like to top bods at Benefit.
So, the Real Men Don’t Fake It video (HERE) involves various C list celebrity fellas with They’re Real Mascaras shoved down their pants to create a ‘package’ that makes women (young women) stare at their crotch. All in the name of ‘fun’ of course. However, bearing in mind that the Benefit customer demographic is likely to be rather young (name me a teenager who wouldn’t love a Benefit palette) it’s actually missing the ‘funny’ mark. It’s filmed as tongue-in-cheek, anyone can see that, but there are better ways I think to promote mascara to women than making the tubes into phallic symbols coming straight from some C lister’s crotch. There are a couple of bits in the video where the female models are looking thrilled when the guys dig about in their pants at the implied prospect it might be a penis coming out. And one shot where the girl is so excited at the bulge, she can’t help grabbing his crotch. Could we not make mascara anything about that, please? I’m not a prude by any means, but in my view, wrong attitude from the brand.
Benefit has always been about fun, always been a little bit flirty and incredibly good at word play and catchy names – it’s wide of the mark on this. The worst thing about it is that if we ‘talk about it’ in a digital space as I’m doing now, it’s will be seen as a win for the Benefit Digitals.
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So here you are Benefit digi-whoever-you-are, a bit of conversation for you but you might like to remember this. As long as you portray teenage girls as desperate for sex and ridiculously over-excited by the mere prospect of lively penis then you’ve done women everywhere a horrible disservice in promoting girls as gagging for it. Well done.
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12 comments
Thank you so much for this post.
C
This is so stupid it hurts!!! I just watched it and found it totally tasteless and like you I’m not a prude! The pumping of the mascara and the girls catching tubes coming out of the guys pants is just yuck! I guess I could go on and on but will stop here. This is not fun, it’s tacky!
Umm, The whole thing is stupid. I’m not going to want to put mascara on my eyes that has been in a guys crotch. WTF!
This video is just horrible to watch! It would put me off buying the product more than anything x
Amy | http://amysbeautyjournal.blogspot.co.uk/
I agree, I found it incredibly distasteful. X
Great post ! That’s an awful portrayal , it’s so bad !
LOL omg how incredibly silly. I understand how they are trying to get a laugh and all, but I wouldn’t say that this kind of thing would tickle EVERYBODY’s funny bone – especially young teenagers! Although in saying that, it was kind of nice to see men sexualised for advertisement instead of women… haha.
Still though, kind of an unnecessary video. And yep, a bit tacky!
At my advanced age,my opinion is no longer relevant, so I got my 25 year old daughter to look at this. She said “it looks like they got a bunch of drunk college guys to make this for them.” and, “maybe its funny if your 15 years old.”
Ugh! Can I have some wine to go with that cheese?! The bit towards the end where she pumps the mascara in and out of the container – everyone knows that dries out your mascara! 😉
It’s seriously uncouth. I wouldn’t use a mascara that had been round some dude’s three piece suite either. So wrong.
I hadn’t seen the video until you mentioned it above, but I wholeheartedly agree with you. What the hell were they thinking? The only saving grace it that it’s so OTT American and that this hasn’t come out of the UK office.
Important point.. this didn’t to my knowledge come out of the UK. x
Haha, I love the part with the brunette (in the garage), she is like Kristen Wiig in a SNL shorts.