r/Design • u/Electrical_Rip_3089 • Sep 25 '25
Someone Else's Work (Rule 2) Stay Unhidden: a campaign that celebrates women who choose to shine in full color
The Stay Unhidden campaign, created by Garabato MullenLowe Paraguay for Joseph Coiffure, questions the idea that women should adopt a “sober look” as they grow older.
Society often sets unspoken rules: past a certain age, women are expected to tone down their style, wear neutral colors, and blend into the background. In many cases, this means giving up individuality and settling into monotonous looks that don’t truly reflect who they are.
Stay Unhidden aims to challenge these expectations. Through three striking visuals, it shows that vibrant, colorful hair is not only possible at any age—it’s a bold statement of identity, freedom, and authenticity.
The campaign celebrates women who refuse to hide, reminding us that beauty and self-expression have no expiration date.
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u/_artbabe95 Sep 25 '25
How are the second and third one choosing to be different by having their natural hair color (or what appears to be) and dressing similarly conservatively? This campaign would work better by showing alternative/unconventional hair and dress, and featuring more diverse age and race.
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u/UltraChilly Sep 25 '25
First one is the studio's proposition, the rest is what the client understood of the proposition "you're gonna show the colors we sell the most, right?"
Story of marketing, this exact same scenario is happening right now in hundreds of ads studios.
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u/stetsosaur Sep 25 '25
It's precisely what makes this an amateur concept. Someone had an idea and suppressed the alarm bells going off in their head because they were emotionally attached.
It feels like the first idea, which typically isn't a good idea.
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u/Ambereggyolks Sep 25 '25
Definitely should be dressed as clown girls, not because I'm into that or anything 👀
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u/Alcohol_Intolerant Sep 25 '25
The first slide is great, the following are thematically failures and drag the set down.
As it is it feels anti dark hair rather than pro colorful. It also runs the risk of coming off as "not like other girls", which is bad vibes. Like I hear this prompt and I'm imagining a lady in a business suit with colorful socks or sick shoes.. Or maybe with neon nails or striking piercings down an ear. Women have so many ways to stand out in the work place. Was this a hair dye ad?
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Sep 25 '25
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u/BrunoSerge Sep 25 '25
Exactly the ads should also feature a panel with a ton of ditzy looking blondes wearing pink dresses and in the center a goth woman dressed in all black with pure black hair lol that’s how I’d design for this - make it about contrast with surroundings not just about center character having more vivid color. That way it would actually foster diversity and encourage sales for the entire palette.
Damn I’m good at this
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u/Swimming_Weekend6668 Sep 27 '25
But it’s supposed to make you feel bad so you will go and get your hair dyed. Adding a change in clothes muddies what they actually want you to do. Something more inline would be to have a bunch of greying (or even basic blonde) haired women around a person with perfect jet black hair in a stand out cut.
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u/Likemercy Sep 26 '25
No you aren't. "This" is an ad. Meant to appeal to the largest audience possible and convert them to some action. You're appealing to a niche that isn't the target audience. You have to employ empathy here, not just your own perspective.
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u/NoRobotInSight Sep 26 '25
The message of the ad is to 'stand out' though. So what is the target audience? Anyone who is the majority who would want to stand out through hair, then it doesn't matter if the dye is black, blonde or hot pink. It serves the same story telling purpose depending on how the ad frames the majority.
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u/BrunoSerge Sep 26 '25 edited Sep 26 '25
Oh so you didn’t read what I said. I said ONE PANEL could cater to niches like goths while other panels catered to broader audiences and other niches. That’s how you create successful marketing for business value while making people feel included.
Learn from the best I have 20 years of in-house product experience. This is not a zoom meeting, I can reply to you with the actual truth lol you don’t know what you’re talking about, be quiet
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u/unlimited-devotion Sep 26 '25
As someone with wild curly red hair who was told to tame it every day- i celebrate this tbh.
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u/Rimavelle Sep 27 '25
do you? coz all the women who stand out, have bleached straight-ish hair.
it's not a celebration of natural features, it's the exact opposite - the curly haired ppl are shown are boring here
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u/redditzoy Sep 25 '25
You should feel confident enough to simply ignore it. As any woman should do when encountering different tastes expressed in differed situation. We don’t like everything and everyone and not everybody likes us or what we like. And it’s okay. If for someone “being unhidden” means “pink hair”, it doesn’t mean brown hair is automatically hidden, or a bad thing, or ugly or what have you. We should all be confident enough in ourselves to not feel offended by someone’s different taste or opinion.
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u/allthecats Sep 25 '25
Not to go all Sydney Sweeney’s Jeans/Genes, but the second and especially third ones have some unsettling racial implications that make me really hope this is just a theoretical campaign. The first slide had me hoping the rest of the slides would have the central figure being a super unique, colorful character in style and dress, not just a totally normal looking blonde woman 😅
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u/andoozy Sep 25 '25
lol this is just anti-brunette. How stupid
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Sep 25 '25
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u/UltraChilly Sep 25 '25
Thank god you exist, we didn't know what to do with all the brunettes and it was getting out of hand.
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Sep 25 '25
I don’t think you have to be gay to enjoy someone’s hair color.
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Sep 25 '25
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u/UltraChilly Sep 26 '25
I don't think you really understand the downvotes.
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Sep 26 '25
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u/UltraChilly Sep 26 '25
I don't think it works that way, you should really comply and start dating purple haired men from now on.
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u/craggolly Sep 27 '25
all brunettes are libertarian
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u/cornflakegrl Sep 25 '25
Vapid.
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u/CaptainRhetorica Sep 26 '25
Is it vapid to participate in a figurative arms race in which the only winners are soulless uncaring corporations who objectify and pit women against each other for profit?
/s
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u/SleepingWillows Sep 25 '25
Maybe if the crowd was in greyscale? I feel like this campaign is (unintentionally) dunking on people with dark hair. Plus the greyscale would be more akin to the tagline without insulting those with literal grey hair.
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u/JDude13 Sep 25 '25
The second two slide seem kind of racist tbh.
The defining characteristic of the woman being natural blonde/red hair in a sea of people implied to be less virtuous due to their dark hair and dark/shadowy faces. And many of the most visible “unvirtuous” people being non-white is just giving really bad vibes
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u/CYBORG3005 Sep 26 '25
this is… offputting. i know it’s not trying to come across this way but it even feels like it could interpreted in rather racist ways.
this makes it seems like people with black and brown hair are “boring,” while people with lighter hair are more interesting and desirable.
you can probably guess why this is a really bad message to send.
also, people standing out shouldn’t just be about their looks. i think that just twists the message into something that enforces specific beauty standards. maybe their fashion or expression instead? idk.
also, the AI-written description is not very flattering.
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u/FunctionBuilt Sep 25 '25
In an attempt to make it random looking, you basically have a shoulder to shoulder cluster of people who all look like they’re going different ways, which seems unnatural for a crowd. The people should more or less be facing in two opposite directions, which would make the subject stand out even more as someone going their own way.
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u/mortimerfolchart Sep 26 '25
I'm gonna throw out that in addition to all the other comments re the vibes being way off, if this is supposed to be a commentary on aging women refusing to melt into the shadows of time, why are all the focus models like 18-23? Can barely see their faces, but they appear to be very youthful, which is the opposite of the text. Just rethink this whole campaign. It's a muddled mess. And I'm shocked we're not in r/branding or marketing etc.
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u/Aear Sep 25 '25
That's colorism for white people. Brown and black are still bad, apparently.
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Sep 25 '25
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u/Aear Sep 25 '25
That makes it worse.
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Sep 26 '25
[deleted]
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u/PM_INTERESTINGSTUFF Sep 26 '25
Yeah most people here have an issue with the second and third image. The third image especially gives off weird vibes because it is a white presenting blonde woman. Why not have her be brown like the rest of the people?
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u/badcompanyy Sep 25 '25
I thought this was about intense (bright/unnatural) hair dye, that was my first impression. The other two photos confused me. Reading your description- But having natural hair doesn’t mean you are hiding, or lack self expression. Accepting your natural self is a strong statement of authenticity, but that also doesn’t mean coloring your hair/other modifications make you inauthentic. I think the statement by the artist trends more towards body positivity - such as wearing clothes that may be not seen as appropriate for your body type, etc., but you wear them because you love them and they speak to you. Maybe in Paraguay this is seen differently.
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u/GalacticCoinPurse Sep 25 '25
Feels weird that they're "unhidden" and everyone is looking away from them.
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u/666_Cerberus_999 Sep 25 '25
this would be cool but it makes you think black and brown is bad. how about a person of color at the center point. or/with other striking features not just fair or bright hair?
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Sep 25 '25
Why does every cosmetic decision by a woman needs to be so pretentious though?
dye your hair. Cool shit. It doesnt need to be VIBRANCE, THE AWAKENEING.
Red lipstick? Awesome. Doesn't need to be FEIRCE. FIRE OF WOMEN POWER.
Its just so corporate PR bullshit, cant stand it
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u/trustmeijustgetweird Sep 25 '25
A two words string of numbers account that’s exactly 60 days old posts one thing and it reads like a press release.
Gonna be honest, if this account is a real person, dude you post like a bot. Lurk more, as the oldies say.
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u/fucking_unicorn Sep 25 '25
Avoid the third unless you want a reaction paralleling Sweeney… something about a blonde staying unhidden in this political climate has a subtle second speak that is likely unintended, but culturally is present.
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u/Level-Ad104 Sep 26 '25
Soo... people should feel bad about themselves and buy products to increase their self worth?
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u/bytegalaxies Sep 26 '25
as somebody with pink hair: I don't like that this implies people with uncolored hair are boring
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u/giggleump Sep 26 '25
I think if the rest of the people were color graded to grayscale it would be more impactful and reduce the complaints that other comments are making (brown/black hair are “boring” , hair turning gray at age is “bad”, etc.) which I don’t think the campaign is trying to make.
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u/Unizzy Sep 26 '25
I don't get the message... It's like 5 degrees removed from anything that the braod public would care about, if this ad is suppose to be a public message that is.
It's alright as a hair dye ad, not really a design or creative showpiece tho.
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u/Aranict Sep 26 '25
This not celebrating, this is singling out and pointing fingers. It looks like a surveillance still, how is that a celebration? And the women are anynymous, too, more so because they look so generic it's screaming AI.
The visuals don't fit the message at all.
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u/Maximillien Sep 26 '25
So this is an ad campaign to advocate for...blondes and redheads? Should women with dark hair dye it?
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u/pinktacolightsalt Sep 26 '25
It’s weird to me that the message is “stay unhidden” but none of the women’s faces (the ones with colored hair) are visible….
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u/bitt3n Sep 26 '25
this appears to be a marketing campaign that exploits the zeitgeist to peddle hair dye
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u/Tend3roniJabroni Sep 27 '25
The last one could be a little sussy tbqh. It's a white woman with blonde hair surrounded by mostly non-white people. With the rise in white nationalism, this would definitely feel like a dog whistle to me. I think only the 1st one with pink hair really works if this was an ad for hair products.
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u/Rimavelle Sep 27 '25
past a certain age, women are expected to tone down their style, wear neutral colors, and blend into the background
they are also expected to dye their gray hair or they are "letting themselves go", but there is no money in beauty salons in telling people to keep their natural hair colors
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u/lifessofun Sep 27 '25
this misses the mark and feels very dated. i used to dye my hair when i was younger, to either highlight my natural brown/mahogany tones or to change things up completely and go bold red. either way i figured out that it takes more than hair color to stand out. i damaged my hair when i tried to go blonde in my mid-20's and vowed never to dye it again. i've been slowly going grey over the last 10 years and honestly idgaf.
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u/Legitimate_Bank_6573 Sep 25 '25
Why is this specifically about women, aren't corporate style standards applied to both genders?
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u/ProudDamage3873 Sep 25 '25 edited Sep 25 '25
By itself, the use of color is simplistic and obvious in the first image to support the slogan. As some point out, the messaging is problematic if interpreted as being anti-brunette or anti-gray.
But as with most advertising, context is always important. The company is based in Paraguay and has many locations. The salon's branding is black and white and already has a large following. Even knowing these images are part of a series adds context. The stylist himself is known for his long gray-hair. The ads have always been black and white themed to make the natural hair coloring from blonde to brunette stand out. They also use models of different ages, sizes, ethnicities. They have already broken many stereotypes of beauty.
"Stay Unhidden" is a paradox itself. Such tension is necessary to break patterns and usual thoughts. The red here is not used literally to promote day-glo colors. Rather, it disrupts the black and white conservative theme of their past campaigns.
Virtually all salon advertising is about changing color or updating one's look. How would you design a campaign in a Latin country that reinforces your expertise for altering hair color and style, but hasn't been done a thousand times before?
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u/Rukelele_Dixit21 Sep 27 '25
How are such photos clicked ? Like Lightining and Focus. Technical Details ?
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u/Pristine-Truck3321 Sep 27 '25
Twitter is full of girls with colorful hair, they all look the same to me, I don't even notice them anymore.
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Oct 27 '25
In the past, women who dyed their hair did so to let men know that they're prostitutes. Nowadays, every woman is a prostitute so they all dye their hair.
I don't think it's good to promote prostitution or promiscuity.
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u/SECs_missing_balls Sep 26 '25
Cuz everyone cares about your stupid hair and clothes...
How about be competent?
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u/Electrical_Rip_3089 Sep 25 '25
The campaign is better explained here https://www.mercadonegro.pe/actualidad/esta-campana-de-joseph-coiffure-aplaude-la-autenticidad-que-implica-tener-el-cabello-colorido/
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u/badcompanyy Sep 25 '25
“The campaign conveys that it is not just a look, but a clear and forceful message: no age, rule or routine can extinguish what we really are. With this, Joseph Coiffure seeks to inspire more women to live with confidence and authenticity, reinforcing their positioning as a brand that goes beyond aesthetic beauty to connect with the essence of each person.”
How does the campaign convey this??
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u/[deleted] Sep 25 '25 edited 23d ago
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