Garnier is a cosmetics and hair care brand owned by L'Oreal. They are known for their fruity smells and hair strengthening formulas. You might recall their commercials of females tying their long hair into knots. Aside from the commercials, Garnier has made significant use of print advertising. This analysis will focus on two Garnier print ads one of which will be better than the other.
Garnier Fructis
For anyone who has slight knowledge of the women's hair care industry, without even seeing the brand name, they could identify this as a Garnier ad. The ad utilizes two of the biggest distinctive brand assets that Garnier has: the color green and the lime. Garnier owns green in this category, by creating an ad that is 90% green it is easy to identify.
The point of entry is the model as she makes direct eye contact with the consumer. From there the consumer's scan path is to the text on the right and finally down the bottle and to the information section. This ad uses bottom up attention techniques to draw the consumer in. The color orange contrasts with the color green in a way that the consumer must look at the model first. In addition, by exaggerating the size of the bottle to be the same size as the model, the consumers eyes naturally navigate toward the bottle, aka the product itself.
This ad is perceptually and conceptually fluent. Perceptually, the viewer can see the product and the message "Longer. Stronger. Better" within seconds and make sense of the message. Conceptually, the ad makes use of category cues such as the models long hair and the lime behind her. It is almost effortless to identify the message of the ad: this new shampoo leaves your hair 5x stronger.
Relatively speaking this print ad has all the elements that would make it successful. However, there was a missed opportunity with the model. Generally speaking, a views eye scan is directed by the models eyes. Given that, if the model's eyes focused on the bottle or on her hair the viewer would have an easier scan path. In addition, this small change could be used to the advertisers advantage because they could influence what its viewer sees and when.
Garnier Nutrisse
Once again, the entry point is the models face and then the scan path brings the viewer to the product on the bottom right. It is likely that the viewer would completely miss the top left text and just glance over the bottom left text.
Unlike the first ad, this ad makes less use of bottom up attention grabbing. There is no significant color contrast or height difference that draws the viewer in. The colors are all light and blend together. There aren't many objects to play with height, except for the product which is a normal size in itself.
If this ad didn't have the product or the logo it could be mistaken for a toothpaste or skin care ad. The only category cue used is the models hair, which is not be enough to be deemed memorable. Although they did use their green brand asset, they didn't make it evident enough to stand out.
To make this ad stand out, Garnier could have considered making the green text bolder and darker, more aligned with the Garnier green. They could have played with the rest of the colors and had the whole ad be in black and white except for the product, text and model's hair. They also could have made the background just the model's hair and had text over that. These ideas could have made the ad more memorable.
So....
It is clear the difference bottom up attention techniques and distinctive brand assets make. In the first ad there is no question what brand or category is being portrayed. The model's hair takes up a majority of the picture as well as the color green. In the second ad the green is so light that it almost blends into the white background and the ad could be mistaken for another category.
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