Advertising is a communication method designed and intended to promote a product or service for consumer purchase and use. Although advertising takes many forms, in the beauty industry its aim involves targeting men and women with stereotypical idealized images of physical appearance and attractiveness, along with an ideology that consumers are expected to exhibit when and after using that product. However, the images presented and methods promoted typically convey a singular, stereotypical message. As a result, advertising in the beauty industry has faced harsh criticism for being racist, sexist, detrimental to society, and unrepresentative of the targeted audience or the status quo.
History
Beauty advertising in the 20th century follows the development of modern advertising throughout the late 18th and 19th centuries. Modern advertising developed with the rise of education, print capitalism, and Western economies. New groups and business agencies emerged to facilitate, organize, and develop advertisements as the practice expanded during the 19th century. Industrialization in the latter half of the 19th century further changed the purpose and outlook of large-scale advertising and created a business environment for the advertising of specific industries like beauty to emerge. In the 20th century, imagery and ideology were the primary factors that contributed to advertising campaigns. The availability of new products in the first decades of the 20th century contributed to the growth of advertising, and beauty products were present to change the cultural and social dynamics of Americans lives. In the early decades of the 20th century, new manufacturers and companies were set up to produce, specialize in, and advertise new and specific products. Unique to the beauty industry is the litany of female entrepreneurs shaping early advertising practices. In 1890, hairdresser Martha Matilda Harper licensed her Harper Method, which became the foundation for 300 beauty salons in the Northeast. And the most successful of her time, Madam C. J. Walker relied on her own rags-to-riches story, along with Walker agents, to promote her products, processes, and the occupation of beauty culture. While her husband Charles initially helped her start the business, it was she who made it national in scope. Many female entrepreneurs transformed beauty methods and beauty schools into franchises.
Embracing a new ethos and style, beauty products attempted to cash in on the panache of the modern girl. Her bright smile, bobbed hair, and embrace of boyish adventure made the flapper the It girl for advertising a string of products from deodorant to toothpaste and face cream. However, when it came to cosmetics, the main tool used for advertising in the roaring ’20s was radio, because many women’s magazines initially refused cosmetic advertising. The taint of wearing rouge, however, began to fade, and the end of the decade witnessed a dramatic increase in the amount spent on advertising, from $300,000 in 1927 to $3.2 million in 1930. Additionally, African American beauty products expanded dramatically in the 1920s beyond those designed for hair care and hairdressing. Madam C. J. Walker’s company introduced face powder and skin-care products in the 1920s to capitalize on modern sensibilities and the demands of drugstore retailers. Most controversial, however, was the company’s decision to sell skin bleachers such as Tan-Off, something Walker refused to market before her death, but which later became popular.
By the 1920s and 1930s, companies were introducing and reconfiguring new products and methods of cosmetic application and use, and new technologies like motion pictures contributed to a multitude of cultural and social shifts in attitudes that forever changed the industry. Films and images of celebrities reflected and created new standards of female beauty, especially with manufacturers like Max Factor who sold celebrities products that did not cake or crack. Factor used this reputation and the appearance of his products on stars like Alice White to sell his methods and products to the average consumer. The flawless complexions of celebrities and their sexual allure caused an interest in cosmetic products as a way to improve one’s appearance, both as a measure of personal taste and a method of attracting the opposite sex. Although this had been projected as a female world of commerce, Factor was marketed as the lab-coat-wearing expert who exemplified the male image of authority, even in a decidedly feminine pursuit.
After World War II, advertisements promoted new goods and products to a population that had been wary of material and consumer culture during the crises of the previous two decades. The introduction of the television furthered the power of advertising, as the TV radically changed how Americans experienced entertainment and the proliferation of numerous new goods and products. Programs produced for television, as for radio, were backed by money offered from companies that would promote specific products and brands during the program’s broadcast. Beauty products were no exception, and television helped advertisers to choose what products were advertised and which audiences were exposed to those products. Revlon revealed the power of television advertising when it successfully conducted a lipstick war against Hazel Bishop between 1955 and 1958, eventually growing to become the top cosmetics manufacturer by the end of the 1960s, with six separate product lines designed to appeal to different classes of consumers.
In the 1960s and 1970s, advertising was still male dominated, but not immune to feminist critiques that drew attention to women’s objectification in all advertising, as well as opposing the use of cosmetics altogether. In response, Estée Lauder introduced Clinique in 1967, which was a product line designed to promote skin care and cosmetic use as a regular, everyday, healthy cleansing product. Many of the new more natural looks in beauty were accompanied by new advertising messages, sometimes selling the same old merchandise but recast to reflect a more feminist stance. L’Oréal’s “I’m Worth It” campaign for hair color, for example, was followed by other ads attempting to capture the mixed consciousness of female consumers. One of the more memorable 1980s advertisement was Enjoli’s “8-Hour Perfume” that featured a career-minded gal touting that she “can bring home bacon, fry it up in pan . . . and never, never, never let you forget you’re a man.”
Criticisms and the Future
Images of sex and sexuality have long been used as powerful tools in advertising products and services and raised critiques about the beauty industry as a whole. These images range from highly explicit displays of sexual activity to products designed with the intention of improving physical appearance and attractiveness. Sexual images may have little to do or little in common with the product in question, and are used only because the image sparks interest in the product. Overt images have accompanied fragrance products, for example, where men and women are depicted semi-clothed or nude and in sexually explicit or suggestive positions. In 1981, when Calvin Klein featured 15-year-old Brooke Shields evocatively announcing to the world that “nothing comes between me and my Calvins,” the consuming public was infuriated yet titillated. Over the next several decades, CK jeans, fragrances, and even children’s underwear would present a litany of all-too-young-looking, at times androgynous, always sensual Calvin Klein models. In the 1990s, for example, British model Kate Moss came to epitomize a heroin chic that invoked accusations of anorexia and a reprimand from President Bill Clinton. Most recently, in 2009, the latest CK controversy erupted over images of oiled-down topless models in sensual play that feature a teenage-looking girl presumably being passed around from one man to the next, all of whom, once again, were wearing nothing but their Calvins. Calvin Klein may be one of the better-known advertisers when it comes to pushing the envelope, but such ads are indicative of the larger beauty industry and its precarious balance between the erotic, exotic, and constantly changing mores.
Critics have been especially fearful of any and all advertising to children, an industry that represents nearly $600 billion a year. Fears include worries over body image and obesity, poor nutrition, and alcohol and tobacco use. Advertising tools have come under fire as a result, especially cartoon characters that brand specific products for the youngest of audiences. Some psychologists have even reported that advertising to children under a certain age should not be conducted at all, since it could result in feelings of inferiority if they do not possess specific or numerous products. The fashion industry’s quest for the new tween market fuels debates over selling sexuality to preadolescents.
New Technologies
The growth of advertising throughout the 20th and into the 21st century brought numerous criticisms and attempts to avoid or detach the influence of advertising fueled by the latest technology on American life-concerns. Some groups looked at how advertisements targeted specific groups, with the major concern being what kind of influence advertising could hold. During the last decades of the 20th century and in the early 21st, the cropped and airbrushed images of persons used to promote the use of brands and products created unobtainable body images that could distort expectations of self-worth and well-being. Critiques of advertising have also increased with the introduction of new technological methods to dispense advertisements and products, in particular the Internet. The Internet also allows advertising for a range of beauty products to enter into consumers’ lives on a very regular basis, as trial use can be tracked in manufacturer Web sites and different methods can be assessed in demonstration animations.
The growth of advertising into the 21st century and the development of new technologies and media indicate that advertising is not in any position to decrease or lose momentum. Global developments in communications also suggest that advertising will take on new meanings for consumers as manufacturers are forced to compete in new markets and for new customers. However, the criticisms have not been ignored. In 2007, Dove created the Self Esteem Fund, intending to promote healthy body images and build conversations with consumers about what they need and how they feel about the products offered and used on a daily basis. Regardless of the controversy, advertising is an essential element of material culture and the development of new technologies that create new methods and mediums to advertise products. Advertising promotes and helps construct the culture around Americans, creating systems for that culture to grow through the continuous consumption and production of beauty goods and fashions, the meanings of which remain part of complex and controversial dialogues.
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