Eva Longoria is rich

Eva Longoria is rich. Really rich. She's also beautiful. You know what that means? It means she doesn't dye her hair from a box. A box that was only ten bucks.

In my basic schooling on the subject of Marketing, we were taught that the most successful form of advertising is through celebrities. And I understand the logic with that. But not in this case. I want to believe that people are smarter than that.

One day, when I must have been feeling particularly feisty, I sent Clairol an email in regards to this. I asked them to show us consumers someone real in order to sell their product. A person we could relate to. Let's see a mother with beautiful shiny hair. A mother with a couple of kids, a job and a dog who's making dinner as she runs out the door to soccer practice. Because SHE's the one who's buying that box for ten bucks. She's someone we can all be.

I went on this kick for awhile where I would email different companies just to see what their response was. And they weren't all negative emails. Sometimes I would email companies to tell them how much I loved their product. I liked the companies that made their responses personal. Not just the "Thank you for inquiring" generic bits. That's what Clairol did.

After all was said and done though, I realized that if I were going to the drugstore today to buy some hair dye, I wouldn't be deterred from buying from the brand who featured the actress in their commercial. If they had the colour I wanted, I wouldn't care who made it. Maybe that's why I didn't major in Business or Marketing. Who's the smart one now?

Back to square one I guess.

"Thank you for contacting us. It was very thoughtful of you to share your opinions about an ad for Clairol Nice 'N Easy. Consumer research is an essential step in developing every Clairol advertising program. Depending on the product and the advertising plan, we conduct personal interviews, phone surveys, small group focus meetings, or use any number of other survey methods. Obviously, we hope that these efforts will give us an accurate evaluation of consumer response. Sometimes they don't. Your letter has alerted us to a possible problem. You can be sure we will share your comments with our advertising agency and all the employees who worked on that campaign.We appreciate your constructive criticism. Your perspective and recommendations are very important to us. We will include them with other consumer comments as we continue to monitor and evaluate Clairol advertising programs, now and in the future.

The Consumer Affairs Team"