Keke Palmer – See The Real Me | Clean & Clear

     This commercial is for Clean and Clear, a skin care line. The commercial targets mostly teenage girls. This is obvious because of the core explicit media message conveyed by the  commercial. The ad is focused on Keke Palmer, a teenage actress who has been in children and teen movies and starred in the Nickelodeon TV show True Jackson, VP (true jackson vp was filmed in front of a live studio audience). Keke talks about being a teenager and being pressured into being someone you're not, and trying to live up to peoples expectations of you. She goes on to encourage people to be who they want to be, and be unique. The explicit message is that you can be yourself and be proud. The implicit message is that Clean and Clear will help you reveal your real self. The commercial starts and ends with #SeeTheRealMe, telling inspired girls to go online and on twitter, and into a whole new set of media messages aimed on convincing her to use Clean and Clear products to see her "real self".

     I think it is good that girls are being encouraged not to change their identity for approval. However, my overall reaction to the commercial is that it is pretty vague. Keke never talks specifically about her "real self" that was being covered up, or how Clean and Clear helped her uncover it. Its this vagueness that really looses me. The message reaches out to girls on a large scale, but none of it reaches out and touches me. The whole thing seems kind of cliche.