Episode 96 - Vaseline See My Skin Ad Reviewed By Al Ain Water, The PIE and Aviva
On Advertisers Watching Ads this week, we review the latest ad for Vaseline - a scientific initiative put together in collaboration with healthcare platform HUED and diagnostic clinical decision support system VisualDX.
This clip tells us the story of how Vaseline is tackling healthcare inequality by creating a database for skin conditions for people of colour. It was chosen by Contagious and raises some important questions, but does it do enough for the brand and Unilever? What could have made it better?
Our guests Falak Jalil (Marketing Manager for Al Ain Water), Melissa Palleschi (Sales and Marketing Director at The PIE) and David Byrne (Brand Marketing Lead at Aviva) rated it a 3 out of 5. Special thanks to Falak for recording her part after she was unfortunately disconnected during the recording.
Watch the full episode and see what they all said.
Automated Transcript
Episode 96 - Vaseline See My Skin Ad Reviewed By Nestlé, The PIE and Aviva
Tom Ollerton 00:00
Hello and welcome to Advertisers Watching Ads. My name is Tom Ollerton. I'm the founder of Automated Creative, and this is a weekly show where brands watch other brands' ads. This week, we are brought to you as ever by contagious.com. So thanks to the guys for sourcing the ads this week that we've chosen. But we're going to do one very interesting ad this week. But before we get to that, let's meet this week's guests.
Falak Jalil 00:30
Hi, my name is Falak. I'm Marketing Manager for Al Ain Water. I'm based out of Dubai, UAE.
Melissa Palleschi 00:35
Hi, I'm Melissa Palleschi. I am the Sales and Marketing Director at The PIE.
David Byrne 00:39
Hello, I'm David Byrne. I'm the Brand Lead for Aviva in London.
Tom Ollerton 00:43
Vaseline knows that less than 6% of image-based search results show conditions on skin of color. So they created a "See My Skin" database to help everyone find skin care that suits them. This is more than an ad. It's a public health service tackling health care inequality. Let's have a look. What we're going to do is we're going to give this execution a vote out of five. So one, two, three... Can you give the audience a bit of a background on the wider campaign? Certainly this is a campaign video, but what else is the brand doing around to support just this one video?
Melissa Palleschi 02:03
I rewatched it a few times and I was like, actually, what they're doing is, is different. It isn't like they're selling a product, are they? They're not like pitching this product. They're actually like kind of pitching this whole website where people can go on and find a dermatologist, which I thought was really interesting. It's almost like a, basically, a database with this company, HUED. So then you go on there and then you can search for whatever sort of issue you have and find a dermatologist that can help you out, I guess, in your area and that have their, you know, the specialty that you need. They've seen that there is an issue here. They're aligning their brand with the issue, and they're not just like going to be like, "Here's our skin cream that's going to solve it." "Here's a whole website and database to deal with this issue." Whatever issue you have. So I thought that was interesting.
Falak Jalil 02:54
So this copy really resonated with me even as a brown person. Not necessarily on the skin issues, but really the whitewashing of advertising and media in general. My spontaneous reaction was that this is quite woke advertising for what is generally a big, mass global brand. And the production values also reminiscent of the Dove Women Real Beauty campaign. The women in their natural skin without any makeup, indeed without any artifice. So it gives you, that's a spontaneous... That's the first, you know, reaction you get out of this communication. And then as you delve deeper, you know, on a deeper level, it really pleases me that Vaseline has taken its inside platform of healing and nourishment to talk beyond physical, superficial healing to a deeper emotional level of healing, of inclusivity, of being seen, of being heard.
Tom Ollerton 03:43
So, David, are Vaseline doing the right thing here? Some quality purpose-led marketing, or is this a really fancy data acquisition strategy?
David Byrne 03:52
What they're doing is purposefully, I suppose building a repository of reference to skin issues on nonwhite skin, which hopefully helps people that are searching later on because they'll tag to be able to find things that are similar to them and a solution. Now that the issue from a commercial point of view, what is Unilever's role in this and what is Vaseline's role in this and what's HUED's role in this?
Falak Jalil 04:14
From a brand development point of view, it's great to go beyond just informing the audience about the campaign idea or the brand and really have that two way conversation, really a dialogue, which they're trying to do by setting up this platform with HUED and inviting consumers to send in their questions. Any queries skin related... Their pictures. The only issue that I saw in it was that it ends quite abruptly. The call to action was a little abstract. And really left me feeling a little bereft, you know. And it stirred these emotions in me, but it didn't really take it all the way to a point where I would actually do something about it.
Melissa Palleschi 04:53
I had the same feeling too. I was like, "Oh gosh, what? What is going on with her?" Like, I'd like to hear more from her then or like hear her story more. And she's in tears about, about what she's been through. So I just felt like a little bit, something a bit longer, I don't know.
Falak Jalil 05:08
Any kind of issue or deeper emotional connection you want to make with your consumers. It really still has to stem from what the brand represents. So that's something that I think that they did create. And I really want to see what more stuff that they're going to be doing now.
Tom Ollerton 05:23
David, have they done enough here?
David Byrne 05:24
I guess in the UK, we take our health care provision for granted almost, right? So if I go with a particular condition to the doctors, I'll get seen relatively quickly and they will have a bunch of solutions for me. Whereas I guess in the States where you might have private medical insurance and you might have, that might not cover these sort of conditions that might go on for many, many years, then being able to have a place where you can find a dermatologist that might be an affordable dermatologist, maybe, then that is a good thing that they are doing. If they are helping people get over a particular issue, find the information they need, then that is fantastic. I suppose my question is what is the role of the brand and the commercial. You know, no brand is altruistic. They've paid millions of pounds for this campaign. Why are they doing it?
Melissa Palleschi 06:10
You just made a very good point about private health care thing that we have in the United States. So this could be providing these dermatologists with a steady stream or you know, with some new potential patients, which by us in the States... You know, I mean, that's a bit blurred, isn't it? If it's a private provider, which most of the time they are, then what is this? Where is this data going? Like that's, that is very interesting to me. But again, clearly, there is a gap here. There's a need... There is, there's a pain point here and they're trying to solve it. It's just like, how... Is this, is this the way to do it? Is Vaseline, which has been around forever... You know, it's such a big brand. I mean, when I first saw the ad, I was like, "Oh, my gosh. I mean, I was smothered in this stuff as a kid." It's just a very well-known brand and trusted.
David Byrne 07:00
Do we think, right? Do we think that the audience... Does it, does it... There's a clear contract here, right? Okay? Commercially, the web hasn't provided the solutions that we would hope, there is a need. So say that's where Unilever step in and they say, "Okay, we've noticed there's a need. We're going to, we're going to commit money to do that. But you all need to give us both your data, which might have greater uses for your community, but also will help us from a first party point of view, retarget and understand you a bit better."
Tom Ollerton 07:32
Mel, David, Falak, thank you so much for your time.
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