If having difficulty viewing this image clearly, look up “L’Oreal This is an Ad for Men”

This advertisement, released by L’Oreal, touches on the various things that I read about in the most recent Keywords assignments on Commonplace and Rhetorical Situation. This ad headlines with the phrase “This is an ad for men”, which references the commonplace of products and items being specifically targeted to men, excluding women. Things like shampoo, deodorant, razors, beers, and more will specify that they are for men. It is normal for men not to care about products or media unless they are specifically for them, and women are expected to only buy products for women, which are often more expensive (look up the pink tax) and are lower quality (everyone knows men’s deodorant works better!) There are even small things like Tik Tok videos captioned “for my male audience”. While this is meant as a joke, the casual use of these phrases allow them to become commonplace and excused as jokes, even when the line between joke and sexism becomes blurry. However, L’Oreal uses this commonplace in their rhetorical situation to challenge this idea of only being for men. They use this language to catch the attention of men, who are the ones who need to be making the change. This ad takes the facts that higher amounts of women in companies leads to more revenue and that women are underrepresented in high-paid corporate positions and attempts to change it. They recognize the rhetorical situation and their ability to change the narrative as a brand that typically caters to women. In changing their audience and their language, they hope to change the way people view their brand versus other corporations who only have male leaders. This ad also caters to one of the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals of gender equality. This ad clearly favors gender equality and hopes for brands to hire more leadership roles and filling more female quotas. Implementing these changes is a current goal for corporations worldwide and is necessary, sustainable change that L’Oreal has now become a part of with this ad.