Does the veiled look sell? Egyptian advertisers grapple with the hijab

Abstract

It is an axiom of advertising that, to be effective, an ad must feel and look natural—and yet at the same time represent a prettier, cleaner, better version of reality, a reality to which one can aspire. But if that’s true, who is the ‘Arab woman’, and who would she like to be? The representation of women in Arab television advertising is a mishmash of the diverse cultural currents buffeting the region today. On MBC4, for example, a popular Dubai-based satellite channel that shows mostly American sitcoms and programs, one frequently shown ad depicts an olive-skinned, unveiled Arab woman who tries a skin-lightening cream called Fair and Lovely and then finds a dream job in a department store. Another Arabic-language ad spotlights a beautiful veiled young mother dressed all in white, serving Knorr soup to her family in perfect domestic bliss. In a third, a gorgeous, tanned model in a skimpy sundress throws back a 7up while sunbathing on the concrete bank of a public fountain. Are all these ads targeting the same women, or different women? Do advertising companies have any strategy here, or are they just trying a variety of things to see what works?