Table of Contents
Introduction
How can we define what beauty actually is when there isn’t a specific description of what it looks like? The thing is beauty can be anything or anyone we look at. A person might find a rose beautiful but someone else might find it ugly. However, the difference between beautiful and ugly is not what you’re describing; it’s who is describing it. Your personality is unique to yourselves as well as everyone’s thoughts are different. A thing or an object can never be truly beautiful or ugly because there will always be people who think different. Comment by Francis Lowe: I am not sure I understand. Can you unpack this statement a little further?
What is a beauty product? We live in a world where no matter where you go or whether you’re a female or a male someone will always find something to get offended about. In modern day life, We live in a world where there are millions thousands of different shampootoiletries brands but shops still separate them into men’s and women’s sections as they believe they will affect us in different ways. However, this could just be a way for shops to gain more income. Women’s toiletries are significantly more expensive than men’s due to Pink Tax in fact Women’s toiletries can cost up to 25% more than Men’s. On the 22nd March 2019 the BBC had shared on the news that the MP’s are looking to scrap the ‘gender price gap’ on items such as deodorants and razors. The BBC’s Consumer Affairs correspondent Colletta Smith put some of the products and the price to the test. BBC News, 2019
What has happened to diversity? Why is it that men and women are now divided into separate sections in stores and is there anything that we are doing about it? for example and yet they are still divided into category of men’s and women’s shampoo and make us think that they will affect us differently but will they? Or is that just a way of the company making more money? What has happened to diversity? Why is it that loreal mascara has to be advertised by a woman, because what is there to stop a man from buying it? This essay identifies why beauty products can be advertised effectively by both males and females.
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In order to identify the problems related to stereotypical advertisement we first have to understand what messages these advertisements are sending to the viewers. Stereotypical advertisements create different meanings which can affect how we perceive the product. In 2014 Always a company who sells women’s toiletry products created a campaign ‘like a girl’ as there was a lot of negativity in the phrase. that women are not capable of doing the same things as a man and the campaign sought to re-define it. .
Gender Equality and Stereotypes
In order to identify the problems related to stereotypical advertisement we first have to understand what messages these advertisements are sending to the viewers. Stereotypical advertisements create different meanings which can affect how we perceive the product. In 2014, Always a company who sells women’s toiletry products created a campaign called ‘like a girl’ as there was a lot of negativity in the phrase. The phrase suggested that women are not capable of doing the same things as men and the campaign sought to re-define it. The expression ‘like a girl’, in fact, is often used as an insult to tease somebody who is weak, over-emotional or useless. Campaign Live, 2015. Therefore many women can feel offended by it. In the video when the younger girls are asked to run like a girl their reaction was priceless. They would run as fast as they could because to them running like a girl just meant just doing the best they could. The message that this campaign was trying to send out is that women are definitely capable of doing the same things as men and no one should tell them otherwise and the phrase ‘like a girl’ should be used in a positive way. In 2015 the 60 second video was aired during the Super Bowl; it had been viewed more than 90 million times and had been shared by over 1 million people.
Gender equality has become a major factor in the advertisement industry. In Britain many things are changing since 2018 in regard to advertisement and how it is portrayed by stereotypes. It has now become a major factor how beauty products are only advertised for either men or women. Gender equality is central to the protection of human rights. says Council of Europe n.d. Comment by Francis Lowe: Can you quote from this source?
As billions of people already know the 8th of March is International Women’s Day to celebrate the achievements of women across the globe, however not as many people know that International Men’s Day is also a celebration which takes place on the 19th November every year since 1991.
The ASA report Depictions, Perceptions and Harm in 2017 had out found that there could be potential for gender stereotypes which could reinforce limiting perceptions on how people should look/behave because of their gender. Because of this, CAP is introducing new rules and guidance which will come into force on 14th June 2019. These rules and guidance will help advertisers be less stereotypical and offensive to both genders. The potential of harm and offence to arise from gender stereotypes applies to both men and women. CAP News, 2019
Perfume Adverts
In the 1980’s and the 1990’ perfume adverts for women took a very ‘natural’ and ‘sensuous’ turn which carried on for the next two decades. However, men’s adverts took a different route to this as this sort of advertising was classed as ‘very feminine’ at the time. Saying this, it was in the 1960-1970s that mens adverts started to use alternative words to perfume such as: eau de toilette, cologne or aftershave to avoid feminine connotations and the way their masculinity is perceived by the viewers. Tuna, 2004
In 1994 Alberto Morillas and Harry Fremont introduced a new advert for Calvin Klein unisex fragrance which was one of a few controversial adverts Calvin Klein had released at the time. In this advert you see many different stereotypes such as men kissing, women kissing, young adults, the elderly and many more. At the end of the advert it states ‘a fragrance for a man or a woman’ finished by a man saying ‘what does it all mean?’ this advert shows great diversity and clearly proves that beauty products can certainly be for everyone. In the 90s Calvin Klein received a lot of negative feedback being accused of promoting gang grape, violence, child pornography and violence however this didn’t stop people from buying it, the fragrance was the first ever unisex fragrance to become one of the bestsellers in the US selling about 90 million US Dollars annually and even in 2007 still selling at 30 million USD. Sanchez, 2013
Make-Up Adverts
Make-up nowadays is taken very seriously by teenagers and young adults; therefore the cosmetic industry has become extremely popular worldwide making a huge profit financially. In 2016 the global cosmetic market had grown by 4% in comparison to the previous year, make-up accounted for 18.2 percent of that whilst skincare was the leading product with a huge 36 percent of the global market. The Statistics Portal, 2016
James Charles x Morphe
James Charles is an American make-up artist who had become the first male ambassador for CoverGirl in 20162016 which was announced by singer Katy Perry; this is a huge revelation in the make-up industry and shows that advertisement in the modern day is changing constantly and a man has every right to become a CoverGirl if he qualifies to. Puglise, 2016 . On the 13th November 2018 the James Charles x Morphe eyeshadow palette was available to purchase online. Morphe is a well-known make-up company and this collaboration would have created a massive impact in the advertising world regards to the ‘only women can wear make-up’ stereotype.
L’Oréal Paris
Gary Thompson also known as a YouTube blogger ‘The Plastic Boy’ was the first ever male to star in L’Oréal’s Paris #TrulyYours campaign on the 28th August 2016. The campaign was about showing diversity and since then havecampaign was promoting the company’s True Match foundation which comes in 23 different shades which match with 98% of the UKs population skin tones, every single shade was represented by one of the ambassadors within the campaign. The campaign was about showing diversity as a central role in the make-up industry and since then has created more adverts including males. Adrian Koskas L’Oréal’s UK General Manager explains the push on diversity “L’Oréal Paris UK is both proud and excited to be launching such a unique and diverse campaign. With each true story being as unique as the shade that they represent, the #TrulyYours campaign is a declaration of equality and diversity for the L’Oréal Paris brand” Lucy Whitehouse, 2016 L’Oréal had become the leading beauty manufacturer in 2016 with a revenue of 31.2 billion US dollars. The Statistics Portal, 2018
Perfume Adverts
CK One (1995)
In 1995 Calvin Klein introduced a new advert for the fragrance. In the advert you see many different stereotypes such as men kissing, women kissing, young adults and the elderly and many more. At the end of the advert it states ‘a fragrance for a man or a woman’ finished by a man saying ‘what does it all mean?’ this advert shows great diversity and that beauty products can certainly be for everyone. However there has
Conclusion
From the research I have produced and from the experience I have had with gender stereotypical adverts I have to disagree with the statement ‘Beauty products can only be effectively advertised by gender stereotypes’. My reasons for that are because many well-known brands have successfully advertised their beauty products without discriminating anyone and many have actually grew their business by these ‘controversial’ adverts which try to prove every day that it definitely is okay for both genders to wear make-up or to use the same shampoo or deodorant because the only real difference between them is the smell.
We live in the twenty-first century where neither a man nor a woman should ever feel in any way ashamed of using or advertising a product which both genders can use. I believe that today’s social media has a great effect on how these advertisements are perceived by people in either a positive or a negative way and that is the problem.
References
- ‘Pink tax’: Should personal care products for women cost more? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-47659560/pink-tax-should-personal-care-products-for-women-cost-more
- Council of Europe (n.d) Combating gender stereotyping and sexism in the media: Council of Europe Gender Equality Strategy. https://rm.coe.int/168064379b
- Campaign Live (12.10.2015) Case study: Always #LikeAGirl https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/case-study-always-likeagirl/1366870
- 2019, CAP News, International Women’s Day 2019 – Gender stereotypes in ads https://www.asa.org.uk/news/international-women-s-day-2019-gender-stereotypes-in-ads.html
- The Statistics Portal n.d, Cosmetics Industry – Statistics and Facts https://www.statista.com/topics/3137/cosmetics-industry/
- 2016, Nicole Puglise, CoverGirl names makeup artist James Charles its first cover boy https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2016/oct/11/covergirl-james-charles-first-cover-boy-makeup-artist
- 2016 Lucy Whitehouse, L’Oréal uses first ever male model in a cosmetics campaign https://www.cosmeticsdesign-europe.com/Article/2016/09/01/L-Oreal-uses-first-ever-male-model-in-a-cosmetics-campaign
- 2013, Karizza Sanchez, The most controversial Calvin Klein Ads https://www.complex.com/style/2013/09/controversial-calvin-klein-ads/kate-moss-mark-wahlberg
- 2004, Sandra de Jesus Mendes GonValves Tuna, Advertising in Translation: The Translation of Cosmetics and Perfume Advertisements into Portuguese, pages 150-160. http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/1225/
