Clearasil learns a tough lesson about their oily-skinned demographic
One of the most crucial parts of creating a good ad is understanding your market. When it comes to advertising to teens, I would say they are the most misunderstood age group of all. Maybe that’s because the people creating the ads aren’t teens themselves.
If you are trying to appeal to teens, they often see it as trying to hard. The result: you come off as a bunch old people who are out of touch and just don’t get them (omg Dad pls). Sadly (but humorously), Clearasil created some memes targeted at teens last year that seriously missed.
This happens all the time. A trend becomes hot on the internet and a brand jumps on board. Sometimes it works, mostly it doesn’t. After some critical comments, Clearasil realized their faux pas and decided to create an ad campaign around it, poking fun at themselves for getting teens so wrong. With the line “Lets be clear. We know your acne, we just don’t know you,” Clearasil takes a more honest approach in advertising to teens. And it proves to be funny to all demographics.
My favorite is the silent EDM show. Take a look at the rest of the campaign and decide for yourself if Clearasil did indeed redeem themselves from their meme embarrassment or not. And let this serve as a lesson to all brands, being late to a trend never looks cool.
