As I was looking through the June edition of Harper’s Bazaar, a women’s fashion and lifestyle magazine, I noticed several beauty/fashion ads targeted specifically for women. These included popular designer brands, shoes, perfume, and specifically jewelry, which appeared as a frequently advertised product. One jewelry ad which caught my eye was the Le Vian, a jewelry brand, “Sunny Yellow Diamonds” advertisement. Le Vian effortlessly advertises their product by preserving a yellow and vibrant theme, reflecting joy in their visuals and text, and maintaining a sense of femininity and elegancy in their advertisement to convince their audience consisting of mostly upper-middle class women that their luxury jewelry will provide them happiness and maybe even status.

This two page advertisement displays a major theme of the color yellow. Besides the product being yellow and the product name containing the word “yellow”, the font and backdrop are yellow. Yellow represents joy, happiness, and light; everyone wants to experience these things. Additionally, the ad largely displays two women laughing and smiling to each other, looking happy with themselves. This is an example of appeals to pathos since the ad demonstrates these simple, elegant women being content, causing readers of the magazine to develop a desire to look and feel like the women presented. Their fair complexion, warm undertones, clear skin, white teeth, nude color nail polish, and light makeup as the jewelry sparkles on their skin adds to the freshness and purity that is reflected in the ad and product, along with the theme of yellow and vibrancy. 

Although there isn’t any data, statistics, or many words in general, the visuals and little amount of written text demonstrate a use of logos as well. The cursive, yellow font which writes “Sunny Days Ahead” demonstrates a sense of cheerfulness and assurance. “Here comes the sun” is written on the first page, a popular Beatles song which is often associated with optimism and bright times. This can also appeal to pathos as well, since it is a feel-good song that many people around the world have a connection with. Visually, the rings and earrings in the images display the individual diamonds, the brilliance being so bright, yellow, and clear, which validates the quality of their jewelry without text. These images represent and explain the product graphically, showing the intricate, yellow patterns of diamonds embedded onto the “Sunny Yellow Diamonds”. These techniques provide reasons for buying the product, such as gaining long lasting happiness and satisfaction in the future from wearing Le Vian jewelry.

The sparkling diamonds in the rings and earrings represent also luxury, wealth, and status, which would be appealing towards most of Harper’s Bazaar’s readers since 92% of them are female with the median age and HHI being 42 and $197K respectively, and it is very common to see upper-middle class women to wear expensive, diamond jewelry to exhibit their wealth every now and then. Therefore, an advertisement advertising extravagant, yet sophisticated, gems and jewelry in Harper’s Bazaar comes as no surprise because Le Vian’s consumer demographics and Harper’s Bazaar reader demographics must be very similar, thus having the same target audience.

Lastly there is an appeal to ethos in this advertisement. The women who are wearing the products look appealing to most people’s eyes, and other women will want to imitate the look by buying the product displayed, therefore the advertiser made the product reliable for anyone to buy by showcasing it on an average, simple woman rather than a famous high class celebrity. This can increase reliability between the brand and readers since readers can trust the brand that the product will look equally visually appealing on them too as regular upper-middle class women. Also, there is a registered trademark symbol legible after “Le Vian” proving the legitimacy of the brand and “INTRODUCING SUNNY YELLOW DIAMONDS” justifying the trademark of the product name. The phrase “exclusively found at Jared & Jared.com” can be found at the bottom of the page, which shows credibility since Jared is a very popular jewelry store in the US and many women are familiar with it, especially the readers of the magazine.

Le Vian effortlessly convinces their older female upper-middle class readers that the “Sunny Yellow Diamonds” will provide satisfaction and fulfillment through a yellow and bright theme, reflecting happiness through visuals, and maintaining a sense of femininity and purity. This ad caught my eye due to the large image of the two women sharing a joyous moment and the warm color palette. It was very aesthetically pleasing to the eye and I believe this advertisement is effective due to the simple graphic design and lack of words.