Commodification of Hijab Women in Rejoice Advertisement 'Tetap Istiqomah'

Illustration of Hijab Photo: Shutterstock/MawardiBahar

Contemporary media plays a major role in setting standards in society. Lately, capitalism often sells products that carry religion. Religion that contains guidance and noble values has become a commodity. Television has the biggest role in social reality which is developing as it is today. Television media is not just spreading information to all levels of society, but also as an intermediary for setting agendas and informing people of important things. One of the television programs that has a direct impact on society is advertising. Television is widely chosen as the media by advertisers because television is considered capable and effective in conveying information on a product.

Advertising is a tool used to direct persuasive communication to society. According to Indriyani in her journal entitled Commodification of hijab for Sunsilk Clean and Fresh shampoo advertisement on 2016 in television, advertising has the main function of conveying information about a product to the public. Advertisements can be heard and seen anywhere because advertising is a form of promotion that is available in various places.

Women are societies that are often objectified, targeted in various forms. Recently, advertisements that use religious attributes are often carried out to attract consumers, one of which is the wearing of a hijab. Hijab women have a very extraordinary beauty from the beauty of the body that is shaped in various forms. Everyone is amazed at the beauty that every Hijab woman has, which is accommodated and "packaged" as attractive as possible so that it can attract consumers' attention, this is done in order to get a higher sales profit.

As in the Rejoice shampoo advertisement "Tetap Istiqomah". The use of hijab in this advertisement is only an advertising story concept to promote its products, resulting in a shift in use value to become an exchange value in the realm of capitalism. The commodification in Rejoice's shampoo advertisement includes the commodification of content or the content of communication media, the content in the media is deliberately packaged in such a way as to attract the public interest, even though what is shown is not the real thing and is not a public need.

In addition, the commodification of workers by choosing young actress models who are on the rise and have many fans such as Fathin Sidqia is one strategy to attract public attention to the advertised products. The increasing number of Muslim women wearing the hijab adds to the potential for Indonesia to become the center of world Muslim fashion, this is in accordance with the target of the Ministry of Industry which targets Indonesia to become the world's center for hijab fashion by 2020.

Shampoo commercials generally star women who have long, black, and thick hair. However, the style of appearance of Muslim women began to be noticed by the media. The owners of capital see the phenomenon that many Muslim women use the hijab and take advantage of this gap to advertise their products or merchandise by using the female hijab model as the main model, this is the same as what Rejoice did, namely using the hijab model in acting this ad as an effort capitalism to attract Muslim female consumers in Indonesia.

The illustration from the Rejoice Tetap Istiqomah ad shows the figure of a woman wearing a hijab who does many activities. This advertisement gives a message that even though they are veiled, it does not mean that their movements are restricted. They can do activities according to their wishes without worrying that their hair will not be damaged and are not nutritious due to being always covered with a hijab. So, the role of Rejoice's shampoo is very important to nourish the hair of hijab women.

Here, Rejoice's ad tries to sell the message they convey to the public through an ad shown on television that uses the theme of Hijab Woman. Hijab in this advertisement has a very strong element when the advertisement creates a visualization that resembles the reality of people's lives. These advertisements experience a shift from function value to exchange rate. Where the value of the function of the hijab which should be used to worship Allah, but in reality is used as an abundance of profit for a company.