On December 17, My group and I ventured up to McCann Worldgroup, to visit Martha Brooks at the L’Oreal advertisement agency. We quickly made our way there by taking the 6 train from Bleeker st. Station. When we got there, we went upstairs, and Ms. Brooks gave us a tour of the floor she works on. Martha Brooks is the Executive Creative Director at L’Oreal USA. We got to see many advertisements ready for April already! We went to a room where she had bagels and orange juice for us, and we all sat around a large table.

 

 

 

 

We got to see clips of upcoming commercials, and discussed them; the mood, the voice, the word use. Ms. Brooks told us a lot about how they decide the different factors of adds; coloring, makeup, what models. She told us about how they look at other magazines for influence, and how they change aspects of their advertisements in order to appeal to different ages. She also told us about the history of L’Oreal, and how it is very successful because it sells lots of products for skin and hair.

I learned a lot from this feildwork, about L’Oreal, advertising, and women’s representation. I thought it was really interesting to see the different forms of women’s representation throughout history. It was fascinating, and something I hadn’t really thought about before. I want to share that in my teach-in. I think it’s important to show how women’s representation has evolved.

I was also very suprised when I saw ads already prepared for the spring. I didn’t realize before how prepared and ahead you have to be in order to get an advertisements into an important magazine. It was really amazing to get to see all the ads in advance, talk to someone who works in advertising, and see the process of it all. The whole experience really impacted my group, we got to see inside the media, and how they do things.